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Jack Hughes wins the first showdown vs. brother Quinn; Rangers up next |
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Saturday October 19 - New Jersey Devils 1 - Vancouver Canucks 0
If you slept through the Canucks' Saturday-morning matinee, you missed a bit of history — and our first look at Quinn Hughes on the first power-play unit. Hockey-wise, though, there wasn't much worth talking about as the New Jersey Devils earned their second win of the season with a 1-0 shutout of the Vancouver Canucks.
Here are your highlights:
Of course, the big news of the day was the first-ever NHL Hughes-vs-Hughes matchup. As promised, the clan showed up in large numbers. Their "divided loyalty" T-shirt actually looked pretty respectable, although Jim was having none of it.
The Devils' special teams have been terrible this season but they made the difference on Saturday. Jack's goal came on New Jersey's first power-play of the game, late in the first period, with Tyler Myers serving two minutes or less for holding forward John Hayden.
I guess Jay Beagle doesn't have a book on Jack's faceoff approach yet. Beagle doesn't lose many defensive-zone draws on the penalty kill, but the 18-year-old got the better of him to start the play. After 13 seconds, the play was stopped due to a high stick, and Beagle did get the subsequent win over Taylor Hall. But the Devils kept the puck in the zone — and Hughes eventually freed the puck after a long battle along the boards that may have tired out Beagle and Tim Schaller. Eventually, Taylor Hall took control of the play and after Beagle failed to clear a bouncing puck, Hall threaded a pass through to Jack, who wristed the puck over a sprawling Thatcher Demko for his first career NHL goal.
The goal was just the second of the year with the man advantage for the Devils — and just the second allowed by the Canucks' penalty killers. Go figure.
Special teams got plenty of action at both ends of the ice throughout the game. The Devils finished the game with 23 minutes in penalties off 10 infractions, while the Canucks took seven penalties for 17 minutes.
And even though the Devils came into the game having given up nine goals in 27 shorthanded situations through the season for a brutal 66.7% kill rate, the Canucks couldn't beat Mackenzie Blackwood. Their seven power-play opportunities were the most they've had in a game this season. Oddly, the second-most came two weeks ago in Calgary, when they had six power plays and were also shut out.
The Devils were also perfect on the penalty kill against Kaapo Kakko and the Rangers on Thursday. There seems to be a correlation with winning!
Travis Green is well aware that Canucks fans have been clamouring to see Quinn Hughes on the first power-play unit. After seeing John Hynes confidently and successfully roll Jack out on New Jersey's first unit, and seeing his usual group fail to connect on its first two tries, Green finally relented midway through the second period — after Hughes and Chris Tanev were on the ice with the big line when Travis Zajac was called for tripping Elias Pettersson.
After the TV timeout, Pettersson, Boeser, Horvat, Miller and Hughes went to work, generating a bunch of chances but only a couple of shots on goal. The Devils deserve credit for their defensive commitment, which included 23 blocked shots in the game. Petey wasn't shy to pull the trigger on Saturday, either. He finished with 12 shot attempts but just two made it through to Blackwood. He missed the net six times, and four other shots were blocked.
With just over five minutes to go, tempers flared after Alex Edler caught Blake Coleman with a fly-by elbow to the head.
The Devils took exception — which led to a brief scrap between Brandon Sutter and Micro Mueller. What?
That's Sutter's first fight in a Canucks uniform.
Earlier this season, the Devils built some big leads they weren't able to protect — up 4-0 in their opener against Winnipeg before losing 5-4 in the shootout and giving up five straight goals to lose to Florida last Monday after jumping out to a 4-1 lead. But even though the Canucks started the third period at 4-on-4 and got one more power play in the final frame — and had just a one-goal deficit to overcome — Vancouver was able to generate just five shots in the third. Ultimately, that spelled the end of their four-game winning streak.
Quinn did get the best of Jack on this 4-on-4 breakout early in the third, though...
I mentioned in Friday's blog that Mackenzie Blackwood won both his games against Vancouver last season. What's crazy is that the Devils won the seven matchups before that, too.
Jersey's win streak now stretches to 10 games against Vancouver. The Canucks' last win came at Rogers Arena nearly five years ago, a 2-0 win on November 25, 2014. Ryan Miller got the shutout, while Alex Burrows and Shawn Mattias scored on Cory Schneider.
Sunday October 20 - Vancouver Canucks at New York Rangers - 10 a.m. - Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650
Standings current through Saturday afternoon...
Vancouver Canucks: 7 GP, 4-3-0, 8 pts, fifth in Pacific Division
New York Rangers: 5 GP, 2-3-0, 4 pts, eighth in Metropolitan Division
The schedule-maker has been working some weird voodoo on the New York Rangers this season. After kicking off their year with two wins, the team had a full week off before getting back in action. Their 4-1 home loss to the Edmonton Oilers a week ago kicked off a three-game losing streak, and they'll play their third game in four days after identical 5-2 losses in New Jersey and Washington when they host the Canucks on Sunday.
One last time, I'll shamelessly plug the season preview I wrote on the New York teams, where I talked with MSG Networks analyst and former Ranger captain Dave Maloney about everything from David Quinn's role as coach of this rebuilding team to the role of key new additions like Artemi Panarin, Jacob Trouba and Kaapo Kakko and the hot start by Mika Zibanejad that saw him named the first star for the NHL's first week, which saw him start the season with back-to-back four-point games. With assists on both Rangers goals in Washington on Friday, he's now up to 10 points for the year.
So far this season, the Canucks have been great on the penalty kill (now 91.7 percent) and terrible on the power play (now 12.9 percent — although there are six teams in single digits and Ottawa is still at ZERO). The Rangers have been pretty average in both areas — 21.1 percent with the man advantage and a success rate of 78.3 percent while shorthanded. Trouba has been a workhorse on the blue line, averaging 25:28 per game. In net, duties have basically been split despite the light schedule. Small sample size, but so far Henrik Lundqvist is 1-2-0 with a 3.73 goals-against average and .896 save percentage, while 23-year-old sophomore Alexandar Geogiev is 1-1-0 with a 2.56 GAA and .928 save percentage.
Lundqvist played Thursday and had Friday off, so I'd guess he'll get the start against the Canucks.
As for Vancouver, expect to see Jacob Markstrom back in net as he returns from his leave of absence. He re-joined the Canucks on Friday and served as backup against the Devils, so he should be ready to go after two days back on the ice.
Will we see other lineup changes? Perhaps, although I'm not sure how much they'll help players who could be fatigued. Adam Gaudette might be able to provide some energy after three games as a healthy scratch, but it's the top guys who might be hurting. Despite spending four minutes in the penalty box, Alex Edler led the Canucks in Jersey with 25:08 of ice time, but Bo Horvat was right behind him at 23:45 — and took 26 faceoffs in the choppy game against the Devils, winning 19 of them.
Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson all logged more than 20 minutes — as they also did as they worked to come from behind in St. Louis on Thursday. So there might not be much gas left in the tank for the final two games of this trip, at MSG on Sunday and in Detroit on Tuesday.
Still — it'll be interesting to see how the Canucks stack up against a Rangers team that's being lauded for executing its rebuild much more quickly than people originally anticipated but probably still has a way to go before returning to true contender status.
Hopefully it'll be more entertaining than what we saw in Newark. Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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