Tuesday January 30 - Vancouver Canucks 4 - Colorado Avalanche 3 (OT)
The Vancouver Canucks started strong, then lost the plot, but came back to defeat the Colorado Avalanche on Sven Baertschi's overtime goal on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
Last year, the Canucks went 9-3-3 between the Christmas break and the All-Star Break and had pushed their way into the playoff conversation, two games over .500. But they lost three straight after the All-Star Game and ultimately went 7-22-3 over the last three months of the season to secure that 28th overall spot in the NHL standings.
This year, the story has been somewhat reversed. The swoon began in early December, then the Canucks went 4-7-1 between Christmas and the All-Star Break. But now they're healthy, and Travis Green seemed to do a good job of setting the tone with his team ahead of Tuesday's game against Colorado.
The game got off to a good start when Bo Horvat opened the scoring with his first goal since November 28, breaking in alone before beating Jonathan Bernier on the blocker side.
The goal is Horvat's 11th of the year. Even with the time he missed because of his injury, he's on track for 22 goals this season—two more than last year's previous career high.
Word is that Horvat's conditioning was actually better than ever when he returned from his injury—and his skating looks terrific for a guy that couldn't put weight on his foot for about a month. Horvat's production cooled a bit down the stretch last year, but he didn't go really cold till the last month—his final goal of the year came on March 5.
He looked focused and determined last night, so we could see a stronger showing from Bo down the stretch this year.
Michael Del Zotto extended the Vancouver lead to 2-0 just after the halfway point of the first, threading through a point shot for his third of the year as part of a Canucks fourth-line shift.
Though the Canucks were outshot 11-8 in the first period, Jacob Markstrom stopped every puck he saw and the home team went to the dressing room with a two-goal lead.
The second was more of a disjointed affair, with the Canucks whistled for four penalties while the Avs took three. Colorado was also able to create some havoc around the net while scoring three straight goals to take the lead—the first from rookie J.T. Compher and the other two by captain Gabriel Landeskog.
But fourth-liner Dominic Toninato took a penalty for shooting the puck over the glass as time expired in the second period, then a cross check by Nikita Zadorov on Henrik Sedin set up a 5-on-3 for the Canucks early in the third.
Though the key players from the first power-play unit had already been on the ice for 1:41, Travis Green left them on the ice and was rewarded by Daniel Sedin's game-tying goal just as Toninato's penalty expired—officially, a 5-on-4 goal that also sprung Zadorov from the box right at the two-minute mark.
From there, the pace slowed, with both teams aiming to preserve their single points.
After 60 minutes, the Canucks headed for overtime for the ninth time in 50 games, with a record of 2-3 in overtime and 0-3 in shootouts. Alex Edler blocked a shot attempt by Colorado's Mikko Rantanen, then Brandon Sutter fed Baertschi for what proved to be the game winner, 1:07 into the extra frame.
Baertschi capped off his 11th of the year with a Jagr-esque salute, and the fans—at least the ones who aren't fully in favour of the tank—went home happy.
With the win, the Canucks wake up this morning tied with the Florida Panthers, Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens with 46 points. The four teams occupy spots 25-28 in the league standings.
Here's the scene at practice today, as the Canucks prepare to continue their homestand against the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.
I'm guessing that today is a maintenance day for the Swedish trio. Edler led all players with 28:30 of ice time last night and is tied with Mark Giordano for ninth in the league with an average of 24:59 per game in the month of January. The Sedins? Sure, give 'em a day off—perhaps from the media as well as the on-ice drills.
Monday's big media storm landed via this segment on TSN:
Will the Canucks re-sign impending unrestricted free agent Erik Gudbranson rather than trading him at the deadline?
Trevor Linden addressed this question during his sitdown on TSN1040 a little later...
...and
Ben Kuzma of
The Province had this conversation with Jim Benning:
“We play five times a year against Anaheim, Los Angeles, Calgary and Edmonton and they have all have big, strong and physical wingers,” said Benning. “I thought Erik was starting to play well as a physical force and he’s 26. That’s when defencemen start to be what they can be.
“We look at him as a physical stay-at-home defenceman for us and he can make it hard to get to the net. We’re going to talk to his agent and see where it’s at and if that doesn’t work out, we’ll go to the net step.”
Benning believes Gudbranson skates well enough in an up-tempo system where the Canucks active a blueliner to create odd-man rushes on the breakout. He also believes he’s a good penalty killer and strong in the corners. He doesn’t believe the notion that he’s just trying to create a buzz and a trade market for Gudbranson.
“I don’t have a comment on that because I’ve been honest in telling you (media) guys what our intentions are and what we’re trying to do,” stressed Benning. “If we can’t figure out a deal, we’ll look at our options after that.”
I see the logic here. Gudbranson knows that he hasn't shown especially well over the last two years, so he could be willing to entertain the idea of a shorter-term contract extension at reasonable money where he could try to improve his stock before (hopefully) hitting a home run with a longer-term contract that would get him close to the end of his career. In his case, there's no guarantee that a deal he'd sign as a UFA this summer is the best deal he'd ever get.
Word is that the Canucks have had lots of calls from other teams on Gudbranson—and I've said before, because of what they paid to acquire him, they'd need to extract reasonable value when they deal him in order to preserve the optics. If the level of the offers isn't there, maybe it is best that he stays.
If the team and Gudbranson's agent can't come to terms on what an extension would look like, then there's no choice but to move him.
What do you think?
surveys
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»