Though they were idle, the Vancouver Canucks actually bumped up a spot in the NHL standings on Sunday.
The Calgary Flames moved two points up on Vancouver thanks to a 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens—using trade deadline acquisition Niklas Backstrom in net for his first NHL game in well over a year. But the Columbus Blue Jackets dropped a 2-1 decision to the New Jersey Devils on Sunday, which temporarily moves the Canucks above them because they have one game in hand.
The two teams will be even again at 75 games in a week's time. Columbus plays Philadelphia and Carolina at home this week before travelling to Nashville on Saturday, while the Canucks are practicing at Rogers Arena today, then heading out on a three-game road trip with stops in Winnipeg, Nashville and St. Louis before coming home to host the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.
Vancouver's current four-game losing streak ties its longest of the season—the four games between February 13 and 19 that all ended 5-2 for the other guys: Toronto, Minnesota, Anaheim and Calgary.
Will they sink to a new low with a fifth consecutive loss in Winnipeg on Tuesday?
Two players from the Canucks long list of injured players have rejoined the team at practice today:
It looks like the rather fruitless Alex Grenier experiment with the twins has reached an end, but it's not Jannik Hansen skating on their right side today—it's Alex Burrows!
Hansen and Weber are skating together as a fourth defensive pair, which suggests to me that they may still be a little ways away from being ready to get back into the lineup.
Officially, the Canucks are not yet mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Only Toronto and Edmonton have claimed that honour so far, but
SportsClubStats currently ranks the Canucks' postseason chances at 0.0 percent.
For that reason, I'm comfortable with the idea of Vancouver finishing as low in the overall NHL standings as mathematically possible—though I'd really prefer that it happens because the teams around them heat up rather than seeing the Canucks continue to flounder like they have over the last week.
Yes, the new draft lottery rules mean that the team finishing 30th overall will only have a 20 percent chance of picking first overall—and, thus, an 80 percent chance that they *won't* pick first—but the odds of a high pick still improve, the farther one slides down the standings.
If you check out the graph in
this story from Frank Seravalli at TSN, you'll see that in their current position at 26th, the Canucks would have a more than 60 percent probability of picking sixth or seventh overall, though they'd also get an 8.5 percent chance at the first-overall pick.
If they drop to, say, 28th, odds are more than one-in-three that they'd pick fourth overall—but they'd also have a one-in-three shot at grabbing one of those coveted top three picks.
History says that the Canucks are never going to benefit from the luck of the draw.
Here's the video clip of the Canucks' first-ever draft in 1970, when they thought they'd won the first pick before having it snatched away.
Here's how
Erin Pollina of Sabres.com explains the incident:
NHL President Clarence Campbell spoke to both the Canucks and the Sabres as to how the order of the amateur draft would be determined. A makeshift roulette wheel of sorts was at the forefront in the Grand Salon of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Campbell informed the teams’ representatives that each party was to select a set of numbers, the wheel would be spun and the winner would get the No. 1 pick.
(Sabres' GM Punch) Imlach chose to go the high route selecting 8-13 - as No.11 was his lucky number - leaving Vancouver with the numbers 1-6 (as it was announced that the No. 7 would be a wash).
When Campbell spun the wheel, the Canucks rejoiced as the League offered its congratulations: The wheel had stopped on No. 1.
However, Imlach caused some commotion at the Buffalo table when he asked the League to look again. After taking a closer look it was obvious that Imlach had reason to doubt the results. The pointer had actually landed on No. 11, and (consensus No. 1 pick Gilbert) Perreault was officially the Original Sabre.
I'm braced for something similar to happen this season. The Edmonton Oilers are lucky in the draft. The Vancouver Canucks are not.
NCAA Tournament Bracket Revealed
To wrap up today, here's a look at the upcoming NCAA hockey tournament.
These are the two brackets of the most interest to Canucks fans:
Click here for the full bracket, featuring all 16 teams along with the dates and times of the upcoming games.
Thatcher Demko's Boston College and Brock Boeser's North Dakota teams will get back on the ice on Friday to begin their quests for the national championship. Since they are on opposite sides of the bracket, it's possible that we could end up seeing both players in this year's Frozen Four.
A tantalizing quote from Boeser in this story, which itemizes just how well this season has gone for the Minnesotan. Sounds like he's wondering if he has more still to gain from the college experience...
“I’m just going to finish out the year here, hopefully win a national championship, and then we’ll see if I stay another year next year,” Boeser said, “or see what comes down to it and what’s best for me.”
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