Friday October 16 - St. Louis Blues 4 - Vancouver Canucks 3
Two goals in the final 3:16 of the game weren't enough to save the Vancouver Canucks from suffering their first regulation loss of the season when they were defeated by the St. Louis Blues on Friday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
Though the Blues have been one of the top teams in the Central Division for the past couple of seasons, they hadn't beaten Vancouver in regulation in nearly four years—one of those law-of-averages things that was bound to even out at some point.
Friday was that night.
The Canucks are now 0-1-1 in games when Brandon Prust *doesn't* fight in the first period.
On Friday, Derek Dorsett tangled with Robert Bortuzzo just 1:11 after he scored on a beautiful passing play to put the Blues up 3-0 midway through the game. And, whaddaya know, the Canucks started to look a little more interested after that.
We heard the first of our new individual player goal songs just over a minute later, when Luca Sbisa fed Brandon Sutter for a slick shorthanded goal to get the Canucks on the board.
Yeah, they use Tim McGraw's "I Like It, I Love It" in Nashville, but the song certainly embodies Sutter's farm-boy heritage. And it was a slick goal—the 100th of his career, to boot.
The Canucks started a serious push to get back into the game when they opened the third period with a 2:27 man-advantage opportunity while Vladimir Tarasenko was serving his double minor for high-sticking Sutter.
But the power play let them down again. Like last season, it's a hole in Vancouver's game in the early going—now 26th in the league at 1-for-18, which is a success rate of 5.5 percent.
An effective Radim Vrbata would make a difference. He continued to struggle last night, getting just one of his four shot attempts on goal during the evening.
Sitting an unproductive Sven Baertschi may have made sense, but giving his spot on the second line to Derek Dorsett probably did not. Working with Vrbata and Bo Horvat, the line struggled all night. Horvat and Dorsett were on the ice for three of the Blues' goals against, and Vrbata was on for two.
It wasn't a banner night for Matt Bartkowski, either. He finished the night as a minus-two and took a dangerous third period penalty when he tripped a streaking Steve Ott and caused him to crash into Ryan Miller.
I was worried about Miller's recently-rehabbed knee for the rest of the game. He was staying down for a long time after stopping the puck after that collision, and did allow one more goal—which turned out to be the game-winner.
The Canucks put on some great pressure at the end, though, which earned them a standing ovation from the fans that stayed at Rogers Arena till the bitter end.
Jared McCann's goal song was an EDM track I wasn't familiar with:
And Daniel went back to the vault with "Electric Worry" by Clutch—which the Canucks have used in the past.
If I remember correctly, I think this came after "Holiday"? I was trying to figure out if Daniel was tapping into the memories of his Art Ross season, but I believe 2010-11 was still during the "Holiday" era.
I thought both Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann played well—and Willie gave them both plenty of opportunities when the team needed offense during the third period. Ben Hutton may have had his best game to date—he and Luca Sbisa were plus-two on the night, and each tallied an assist. Hutton's 21:25 was also the second-highest ice time of the night among the defensemen, behind only Alex Edler.
With the power play struggles and a tough night for the other two D-pairs, the cries are growing louder to get Yannick Weber into the lineup.
Expect to see Willie make more adjustments when the Canucks host Edmonton on Sunday.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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