Saturday October 7 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Edmonton Oilers 2
If Travis Green's Vancouver Canucks can keep delivering the kind of game that they gave their fans on Saturday night, those empty seats at Rogers Arena will fill up fast.
Green earned a regulation win in his first game as an NHL head coach as his Canucks shut down Connor McDavid in an entertaining tilt against the high-powered Edmonton Oilers.
Here are your highlights:
The pregame conversation was dominated by outrage about Green's decision to scratch Brock Boeser from the opening-night lineup. It caught me by surprise—Green had been rotating Boeser and Virtanen in the same lineup slot through practice all week. I figured if he was only going to play one of them, Virtanen was better suited to match up against Edmonton.
The loud argument against this thinking is that Boeser, as the only rookie to make the opening-night roster, is the poster child for the rebuild and the hope for the future—and that he can score goals.
Don't get me wrong—I like Boeser a lot. He was a big part of the reason why I made the trek up to Penticton in September for Young Stars, and I have certainly dedicated my fair share of chatter to his prospects as a legitimate Calder Trophy candidate this season.
I put the brakes on my lofty expectations as his effectiveness dropped off through the final week of training camp. In Vancouver's last preseason game—against Edmonton—his stat line at game's end was completely blank. He didn't record a single shot attempt, not a hit, not even a giveaway. Nada.
So—with the strong-skating Oilers on the schedule once again, I was happy to see the more physical, fluid Virtanen get the nod in Boeser's place. Brock's time will come—and I doubt it'll take very long.
@Canucks Green on Boeser "He's going to play soon, it's one game. It's not like he's going to sit here for a month and not play."
Derek Dorsett's name came up a lot as a player who could have been scratched to make room for Boeser. The grinding winger returned to the lineup after missing almost a year recovering from neck surgery by playing arguably his best-ever game as a Canuck.
Along with Brandon Sutter and Markus Granlund, Dorsett was tasked with shutting down Connor McDavid's line, which had been on fire in Edmonton's season-opener against Calgary last Wednesday.
Vancouver's shutdown line won the matchup game hands down. Dorsett played a masterful agitator's game, turning the tables to the point where it was McDavid sneaking up behind Dorsett to give him a little whack with his stick during the third period.
Dorsett made six of the Canucks' 16 hits in the game, including the one on Oscar Klefbom on the end boards that freed up the puck for Brandon Sutter's goal.
Going in, we knew that Dorsett was being tagged as a key penalty killer, and that rang true. He led all forwards with 3:44 of shorthanded ice time on a PK that went 4-for-5—Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got 'em in the third period thanks to a sweet back pass from Patrick Maroon.
Offensively, Bo Horvat showed that he has every intention of raising his game to justify his new $5.5 million-a-season contract by scoring Vancouver's other two goals and being named the game's first star by Hockey Night in Canada.
His first goal was fantastically reminiscent of Connor's show-stopper from the other night in Edmonton...
Hockey Night in Canada did put the clock on Horvat, as they'd done with Connor in the previous game. McDavid hit just over 40 km/hr on his goal against the Flames—Bo maxed out at about 36. Impressive!
The goal that turned out to be the game-winner was the wraparound squeaker that chased Cam Talbot just 32 seconds into the second period, after he'd given up three goals on just seven shots.
Kudos, as well, to Jacob Markstrom for bouncing back after allowing a goal on the first shot of the game. He was dynamite the rest of the way, especially in the last minute when the Oilers pressed hard with the extra attacker.
All told, Markstrom made 33 saves and was named the game's third star.
The breakdown of the team's ice time looks very different from what we've seen in the past. Only two players on the entire team played more than 20 minutes—that shutdown pair of Edler and Tanev, who were also excellent in keeping McDavid at bay.
The only player below 10 minutes? Yep, Jake Virtanen—whose ice time was hurt because he didn't play at all on special teams. Jake's only shot attempt was an early miss that led to the Oilers coming back the other way to score the opening goal, but he did draw two penalties and showed a good burst of speed to break in alone on the Edmonton goal in the third period.
You know who we didn't see much, especially at 5-on-5? The Sedins and Thomas Vanek. The three of them played about 13-14 minutes each, with more than five of those minutes coming on the power play. Daniel finished with two shots, Vanek had three and Henrik was an impressive 7-for-10 on draws, but the group didn't show up on the scoresheet.
We may not have seen Boeser but if Game 1 is any indication, the torch is definitely being passed to the next generation!
It's only one game, but I'm so happy for Travis Green that his plan came together about as well as he could have hoped. As I mentioned yesterday, this marks the Canucks' first regulation win over Edmonton since Connor McDavid entered the league, so Green's first win comes against high-end competition—and he absolutely held the upper hand in the coaching battle on Saturday night.
If he and the boys keep delivering entertaining, winning hockey, hopefully that'll buy him some breathing room with this city's always-emotional fanbase.
The Canucks are off today. They'll be back on the ice for practice on Monday at Rogers Arena, ahead of Game 2 of their Canadian homestand against Alex Burrows and the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday.
The Utica Comets play their second game of the season this afternoon, once again in Toronto against the Marlies. Nikolay Goldobin was the lone goal-scorer in Saturday's 3-1 loss to the Marlies. It was a tight game; the game-winning goal was scored by Kerby Rychel at the 12:08 mark of the third period, then the Marlies added an empty-netter.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»