Thursday March 2 - San Jose Sharks 3 - Vancouver Canucks 1
Bo Horvat scored his 19th goal of the season and new acquisition Joseph Cramarossa recorded his first fight for his new team as the Vancouver Canucks kicked off their California road trip by dropping a 3-1 decision to the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night.
Here are your highlights:
I confess—I got a little hopeful when Bo Horvat opened the scoring at the 7:38 mark of the first period, on the power play no less!
Reunited with Sven Baertschi, who was back in the lineup after missing nine games with a concussion, Horvat did a great job of holding his ground in the slot and converting a pass from Ben Hutton to give the Canucks the early lead.
Of note: the goal was Horvat's 41st point of the season in his 62nd game. He has now surpassed the 40 points he collected in 82 games last season for a new career high.
Also of note: the Canucks had gone 0-for-17 on the power play in their previous six games before Bo's goal on Thursday. It was the first for Vancouver with the man advantage since the Buffalo game back on February 12.
Combine that power outage with the Canucks allowing seven goals on 18 penalty kills over those same six games, and it's not a stretch to say that poor special teams cost the Canucks their shot at the playoffs this year.
Right now, Vancouver is 28th on the power play with a 14.4 percent success rate, and 25th on the penalty kill at 77.4 percent. With key penalty killers Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen now gone, that latter number is probably going to get even worse over the last 20 games of the season.
The only other real highlight of the game was the first-period fight between Cramarossa and Sharks' tough guy Micheal Haley.
I was worried that we wouldn't see Cramarossa again for quite awhile after he took that hard shot from Haley, but he did return to action midway through the second period and finished the night with two hits and 6:26 of ice time.
I like the new guy's attitude and his willingness to try to make a good impression against a tough foe. Last night's bout was Cramarossa's eighth (!) fight of the season which puts him in the top 10 in the league for fight frequency this year. Jared Boll, also now of Anaheim, leads the league with 13.
Haley's listed at 5'10" and 205 pounds but as we've seen before, he's tough as nails.
“I’ve played against him (Haley) a lot and there’s no (fight) history there, but he asked and I’m not one to turn things down — so I gave him a go,” Cramarossa told Ben Kuzma of The Province. “He’s obviously known as a pretty tough guy around the league and stepping out of your comfort zone shows a little courage.
“I did what I had to do and hopefully that goes a long way. I would have liked for us to get the win obviously, but I tried to get on the body at the right time.”
Cramarossa did not, however, earn a "real good" from coach Willie after the game.
“Haley was challenging him and it was good to (see) that he didn’t back down,” Desjardins told Kuzma. “But I need more physical play from that line and I didn’t think they were very good tonight.”
Top to bottom, the Canucks were a passive team on Thursday, outshot 32-18 and able to muster just five shots in the third period when they were down by two goals. The Sharks dominated possession for large stretches of the game and some strong play by Ryan Miller kept the score respectable.
As we've also seen twice in Vancouver this season, the Sharks are an elite team that's very well positioned to come out of the Western Conference once again in this year's playoffs. Just as I thought the Canucks and Red Wings were pretty evenly matched when they squared off last Tuesday, it's crystal clear that Vancouver and San Jose are now light years apart.
He missed his chance to play against his old team due to immigration issues, but former Sharks prospect Nikolay Goldobin is expected to be in the Canucks lineup on Saturday.
Goldobin is with the #Canucks in California and ready to play.
It sounds like Goldobin carries himself with a little more swagger than most of the current Canucks, so it'll be interesting to see how he meshes into the Vancouver locker room. His agent is ex-Canuck Igor Larionov, so he's in good hands on that front.
Since he's in just his first pro season, Goldobin's entry-level contract won't expire until the end of the 2018-19 season, according to CapFriendly. He'll also be waiver exempt for another two seasons or 149 games, so the Canucks will have plenty of time to figure out what they've got with this prospect.
Two other quick notes to wrap today:
• Alex Burrows became an instant fan favourite in Ottawa, scoring both goals in Ottawa's 2-1 win over Colorado on Thursday. The Montreal native talked about how Ottawa was a good landing spot for him because it would bring him closer to his family, and his parents followed up by attending his first game with his new team.
I also can't get over how much Alex looks like his dad!
• Finally—another great story. Squire Barnes sits down with Gino Odjick for an update on his health.
Three years ago, Gino says his heart was operating at 20 percent of its regular capacity. Thanks to successful treatment for his rare disease, he says he's now at 60 percent and climbing. Chalk up another win for Gino in arguably the biggest fight of his life.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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