Tuesday December 1: Los Angeles Kings 2 - Vancouver Canucks 1 (OT)
In my mind, Tuesday's game at Staples Center didn't go as badly as I'd feared it would. The Canucks got an early lead and salvaged a point to go .500 on this road trip, and Jacob Markstrom was excellent. The late collapse and overtime were pretty much inevitable for an undermanned team that is clearly out of gas.
Here are your highlights:
After losing Jake Virtanen, Chris Higgins and Chris Tanev to injuries on Monday night, Willie had no choice but to do some line juggling. He kept Jannik Hansen with the twins, then added a physical player to each of the other three lines—Prust with Vrbata and McCann, Dorsett with Horvat and Baertschi and Cracknell with Burrows and converted defenseman Andrey Pedan, who made his NHL debut as a forward.
Pedan managed two hits, a blocked shot and one shot attempt in his meagre 3:54 of ice time. He played just one shift in the third period, when the Canucks were under siege and got outshot 15-1.
I thought Pedan was fine in his limited role last night, but the situation was far from ideal for him. He has now been reassigned to Utica—and Ronalds Kenins has been recalled.
I guess that means Chris Higgins is expected to be out for awhile after taking that heavy head hit from Nick Ritchie on Monday in Anaheim.
As far as the other injuries, word is that Virtanen suffered a hip pointer after he took that cross-check from Ryan Getzlaf on Monday night. Click here to get the lowdown on the injury from Wikipedia, which describes hip pointers as being extremely painful, with typical recovery times of one to six weeks.
I'm going to assume, for now, that means we won't see Virtanen on the ice till next week at the earliest.
As for Chris Tanev, he's supposed to be evaluated today for his hand injury, which came on top of a pre-existing problem:
Tanev blocked that shot against Ducks with his hand. Was already nursing a hand injury. #Canucks
Sutter played his last game on November 10, so he has already been out of action for three weeks.
On the bright side, Alex Biega played well last night, and Yannick Weber delivered what might have been his best game of the season. He even made a heads-up play on the power play to set up the Canucks' only goal! Biega slotted straight into Chris Tanev's spot, playing with Alex Edler, leaving the Hamhuis-Weber and Sbisa-Bartkowski pairings intact.
As for Jacob Markstrom, it sure was nice to see him absorb so many of the Kings' 40 shots with his body, limiting the rebounds, scrambles and second-chance opportunities that undid the Canucks in Anaheim. He couldn't be faulted on either of the goals.
Once again, I'll say that I hope he gets more action, even in non back-to-back situations. I'd love to see him split the duties with Ryan Miller during the upcoming homestand.
As for Alex Edler's horrific giveaway on the OT winner—I was kind of expecting something like that to happen. Three-on-three has totally gotten into the Canucks' heads; they're now just rolling over.
Henrik: "it is one of those things where we just have to maybe try & get it to a shootout & go from there. Maybe win one and build off that"
The bewilderment goes all the way to the top of the organization. Ben Kuzma featured this quote from Trevor Linden in yesterday's pregame report in The Province, when asked how the Canucks can be good enough to be competitive in games, but not good enough to win them:
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “It’s such a crazy time, 3-on-3. Is it tactical, is it personnel? At times it’s if you don’t bury it, it comes right back at you. It might even be creeping into the mental side, but we’re in the fight. We’re scoring enough goals, but your goaltender has to be your best guy and your special teams have to be good. When you’re on the wrong side of that, it’s hard to win.”
As I mentioned yesterday, the beatdown in Anaheim on Monday reminded me of the Torts days. So did watching the team hang on for dear life in the third period, unable to keep pace when the opposition stepped up its game with the result hanging in the balance.
I have to assume that they're gassed from all the travel and the heavy schedule. Vancouver's one of just three teams to have already played 26 games this season, and their 16 road games are tops in the NHL.
It looks like there is some correlation between road schedules and results. Vancouver's actually higher in the standings than any of the teams that have played even 15 road games. The Canucks are now 19th in the league, while Winnipeg's 22nd, Colorado's 26th, Columbus is 29th and Edmonton is 30th.
It'll be interesting to see if any or all of these teams can turn themselves around once they start playing more home games.
The Canucks are taking Wednesday off. And they won't get back on a plane for 10 days or so, after their upcoming four-game homestand. They're still facing three playoff teams in Dallas, Boston, Buffalo and the Rangers but at least they get a day off between each game—and a three-day break before they hit the road for ANOTHER six games away before Christmas.
Vancouver will still play more road games (7) than home games (6) this month, but at least there's one less game in total than that brutal November schedule, which saw 10 road games and just four at Rogers Arena.
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