Friday December 18 - Vancouver Canucks 4 - Detroit Red Wings 3 (S/O)
With captain Henrik Sedin out of the lineup, the Vancouver Canucks fired 40 shots at Jimmy Howard over 65 minutes, then relied on call-up Linden Vey to score the shootout winner and collect the first two points of their six-game road trip in game number four.
Coming into a back-to-back situation against a rested Red Wings team with injury issues mounting, the game looked like a sure loss on paper. But Detroit came out flat and managed just five shots in each of the first two periods as the Canucks took a 2-0 lead on goals by Jared McCann—his first in 15 games—and Sven Baertschi, his first goal in 14 games.
Joakim Andersson got the Wings on the board before the end of the middle frame, setting up a gritty third period where emotions ran high and the Wings outshot the Canucks 14-12. Radim Vrbata picked up his 10th goal of the year early in the third to put Vancouver up 3-2, then Henrik Zetterberg sent the game to overtime by squeaking a goal-line shot over the shoulder of a surprised Ryan Miller with 1:07 left in regulation.
The Canucks were outshot 4-1 in overtime but might have played their best 3-on-3 session of the year, maintaining possession for significant stretches and keeping the odd-man rushes against to a minimum. Willie stuck with a two-forward, one-defenseman rotation and wisely chose to avoid using Yannick Weber in the extra frame, leaning on Matt Bartkowski, Ben Hutton, Chris Tanev and Alex Edler.
Despite their terrible week, the Canucks' two points puts them right back into the thick of the playoff battle in the Pacific Division.
This point was made last night about the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference but it also applies to the Anaheim Ducks, who are five points out and sit in last place in the Pacific:
On the day he learned that he wouldn't be going to the World Junior Championship, Jared McCann was vaulted into the Canucks' No. 1 center spot, playing with Daniel Sedin and Jannik Hansen. Ain't nobody gonna complain about the quality of those linemates.
McCann handled himself nicely with his goal, four shots and a hit in 15:58 of ice time. He did not match up well in the face-off circle, though, going 2-for-17. Vancouver's team faceoff percentage dropped a little lower with just a 35 percent success rate on the night.
Props, as well, to Bo Horvat, who played his best game in quite awhile. Horvat handled a big chunk of defensive responsibility in 19:59 of ice time, got four shots on goal, and earned an assist that was his first point in 12 games.
Saturday, the road trip continues. The Canucks have moved on to South Florida and will play the Panthers on Sunday afternoon.
Since that game has a 1 p.m. PT start time and I'm out working late again tonight, let's set it up now.
Sunday December 20 - Vancouver Canucks at Florida Panthers - 1 p.m. PT - Sportsnet Pacific, TSN1040
Vancouver Canucks: 34 GP, 12-14-8, 32 pts, fourth in Pacific Division
Florida Panthers: 33 GP, 17-12-4, 38 pts, fifth in Atlantic Division
Early in the season, who would have expected that when the Canucks made their pre-Christmas visit to the Sunshine State, the Florida Panthers would be sitting three points ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Atlantic Division standings?
That's the situation, thanks to a tidy 7-3-0 run by the Panthers in their last 10 games. In their last three games, Florida has outscored their opponents 12-2 in road wins over the New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes.
With just 76 goals against, the Panthers are tied for the fourth-best defensive record in the league—led, of course, by our old pals Willie Mitchell on defense and Roberto Luongo in net. As he approaches his 37th birthday in April, Luongo's numbers aren't too far off his career-best 2010-11 season, when he posted a .928 save percentage and 2.11 goals-against average. This year, he's at .927 and 2.20 but when he was with the Canucks, he went 31-14-8. So far this year, in 26 games he's 12-11-3—not getting quite the same results in the win column.
Luongo's strong play is good news for Canucks fans. The longer Luongo can play well, the more we can bury our heads in the sand about the horrific cap-recapture penalties that Vancouver will be hit with when he retires.
After the way the Pittsburgh Penguins handled their recent announcement that Pascal Dupuis "would not play hockey anymore" even though he still has one year after this remaining on his current contract, I wonder if this will become the norm. Rather than retiring, all aging players who leave the game will simply be shifted to long-term injured reserve until their contracts run out.
With the structure of the cap-recapture penalties, the Panthers would also receive benefit from going this route—as long as Luongo didn't wait till there were two years or less left on his deal before calling it a day.
Not too much has come out of the @strombone1 social media account this season, other than a campaign for teammate Jaromir Jagr to re-grow his mullet.
We'll see how Jagr's flow is coming along tomorrow.
Luongo played the back half of Florida's back-to-back on Thursday and Friday so for the third time this week, the Canucks will find themselves facing a goaltender coming off a shutout as they did in Chicago and Minnesota.
Other notes from Florida: Derek McKenzie is sidelined with a knee injury and Dave Bolland is currently in the AHL on a conditioning assignment.
Bolland, 29, is in the second year of a five-year contract that pays him $5.5 million a season. He's 1-4-5 in 25 games with the Panthers this year.
That should set us up for Sunday's game. Hopefully you'll be able to take some time out of your busy holiday schedule to watch—it'll be entertaining if the Canucks can bring the same effort that they showed in Detroit.
To wrap up today, I want to revisit the Alex Burrows issue one more time before we put it to bed. I found it very interesting to read the opposing viewpoints in yesterday's comments, so I wanted to get an idea of how those positions break down.
So: a poll question!
surveys & polls
Enjoy Sunday's game. I'll catch up with ya on Monday morning.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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