Monday February 16 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Minnesota Wild 2
After the Minnesota Wild pulled goaltender Devan Dubnyk and applied their full-court press in an attempt to tie last night's game in the dying seconds, I thought back to last year and had a strangely comforting thought:
"Thank goodness Kevin Bieksa and Alex Edler won't be out there to somehow surrender the tying goal."
For the most part, the Canucks haven't needed to be in that scrambly defending-a-lead situation much this year. And of course, Bieksa and Edler are missed.
But the Canucks applied a positive spin of their own with an improbable and wildly entertaining win in a lively Rogers Arena. On a Monday night! Against Minnesota!
Here are your highlights:
As I mentioned over the weekend, I had my doubts about Chris Tanev's health after Saturday's game in Calgary.
Here's a look at him crashing into the net on the Flames' first goal that night.
Tanev took Monday's morning skate, but was scratched for the game. He was seen with a bandage on his hand—which also looks like it took some pretty serious impact from that collision—but now the scuttlebutt seems to be shifting back to my original assumption: it's probably his head that's a bigger issue.
So, it was into the fire for 26-year-old rookie Alex Biega, who made his first NHL game a memorable one by scoring the game-winning goal with a perfect point shot through traffic.
It's almost like the Canucks let Nino Niederreiter have his second of the game, just so they could ensure that Biega's goal was the game-winner—though it wouldn't have been so bad if Bo Horvat had been the hero, either.
He scored Vancouver's second goal—his seventh of the season and eighth point in his last 10 games. The goal came on an excellent hustle play, where he took a shot, then circled around the net and tapped home the loose puck after Jannik Hansen directed the it back towards the net. Horvat's hockey savvy and growing confidence are making him more and more fun to watch with every passing game—even on a night when he goes 4-8 in the face-off circle.
Ronalds Kenins spent the first period living up to his reputation as a heavy hitter, drawing cheers from the crowd as he made the boards rattle. For the most part, I thought Adam Clendening did a nice job of stepping into a more prominent role on the thin blue line—though he and partner Ryan Stanton were nowhere to be seen on Minnesota's second goal, where Linden Vey was somehow left alone, trying to defend, in front of the net.
Here's how the ice-time broke down on Monday night for the rag-tag defense:
Dan Hamhuis: 26:41
Yannick Weber: 22:17
Luca Sbisa: 19:09
Alex Biega: 16:53
Ryan Stanton: 17:53
Adam Clendening: 15:55
Some surprises here—including the fact that newcomer Biega played more than Clendening did.
I had my over/under for Dan Hamhuis' ice time set at around 35 minutes, so 26 is more than reasonable. We saw what happened last year when the coach leaned on his key players to play huge minutes as the lineup got thinner: they broke down. I think the Canucks will have a much greater chance of staying successful with a more evenly-deployed group of defensemen, like these stats show.
It's the same with the forwards. Zack Kassian turned in his first no-show in awhile, but even he finished the night as the team's low-minute man, at 10:41.
The game's awesome ending makes it easy to forget that the Canucks did surrender the first goal, not even halfway through the first period. Eddie Lack also managed a miracle stop of a dribbling Jonas Brodin shot early on, which could have been a game-changer if it had gone in.
After going 10 games without a loss in regulation, I figured the Wild were due for a defeat. Though the odds were stacked against the Canucks, the win couldn't have come at a better time.
The Flames, Jets and Kings also all won last night, so while the win pushed the Canucks into second place in the Pacific Division and four points up on the Wild, it didn't buy them much breathing room.
What it did, though, was lower Minnesota's chances of squeaking into the postseason by more than 12 percent. With so many teams bunched so close together in the Western Conference standings, those odds are going to be more volatile than the stock market through this final third of the season.
The Canucks now have 67 points, in 56 games. Last season, they didn't hit the 67-point mark until Game 66 on March 8—after the Heritage Classic and the trade deadline. By that point, they were four points out of the playoffs. The rest was history.
Though the Canucks are heading into the polar freeze zone of New York City, I'm sure they'll appreciate having two days off before their next game—though it's against another sizzling-hot opponent, the New York Rangers.
It might not be the worst thing in the world for them to be closer to Utica for the next little while, in case they need to call up more players.
The Canucks will play just one more home game before the trade deadline—on March 1, against the St. Louis Blues.
The strong play of the Canucks youngsters has given Jim Benning some breathing room in terms of his trade needs, and we're seeing that his ability to make minor moves is already paying some major dividends.
Pierre LeBrun
reiterates today that the Canucks are looking for a top-six forward, and possibly some defensive help—and suggests that Zack Kassian and Shawn Matthias are the pieces that would be available.
I trust that Benning won't sell the farm to add pieces. I could see him making more deals that barely ripple the excitement-meter, but will still help the team.
I'll wrap today with the highlight that drew one of the biggest cheers of the night from the faithful at Rogers Arena. Check out this end-to-end rush from the Timbits game. Great stuff!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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