Saturday December 7 - Vancouver Canucks 6 - Buffalo Sabres 5 (OT)
The Vancouver Canucks busted out some vintage jerseys and honoured some members of the 1982 squad that went to the Stanley Cup Final — then played a game befitting Saturday's 80s theme.
In the end, J.T. Miller delivered the victory with his 13th goal of the year on a 4-on-3 overtime power play.
Here are your highlights from an entertaining matinee win over the Buffalo Sabres.
In addition to bringing back their black skate jerseys by popular demand after debuting them this season in their overtime loss to Colorado on November 16, the Canucks rolled out their Flying Vs for warmup.
Do you love 'em enough to buy one — or to deliver a very unique Christmas gift to the special hockey fan in your life? The autographed warmup jerseys are now being auctioned off, with proceeds to the Canucks for Kids Fund.
The other special touch before the opening puck drop was the introduction of five members of that motley group that rode the wave of Towel Power to the 1982 Stanley Cup Final. Richard Brodeur, Harold Snepsts, Darcy Rota, Thomas Gradin and Stan Smyl honoured that legacy appropriately — and it was pretty cool to see 66-year-old Rota and 63-year-old Gradin in full gear!
As expected, the Canucks also welcomed some bodies back to their current lineup. Jay Beagle and Micheal Ferland slotted in on the fourth line, and Jacob Markstrom took the backup's seat on the bench after returning from his father's memorial service in Sweden. Nikolay Goldobin and Zack MacEwen have now been dispatched back to Utica, and Loui Eriksson was scratched as the 13th forward, so here's how the lines shook out.
We talked about how Beagle's shutdown acumen was missed while he was sidelined, but his first game back was a rough one, defensively. He and Tim Schaller were on the ice for Buffalo's first four goals, including one while on the penalty kill, so the pair of them finished at minus-three for the game, while Ferland was a minus-two. On the bright side, Beagle's second-period tripping penalty set up the play that led to the Canucks' third goal of the day, when Travis Green quickly got his scorers on the ice and Josh Leivo tallied his second goal of the game, 20 seconds after Beagle's penalty expired.
I'm going to plug my GameFlow article again here, because the visualization that came out of Saturday's game is pretty enlightening.
The Canucks came out strong after a relatively light week, dominating the first period and opening the scoring thanks to Josh Leivo.
Before the season began, I wasn't sure where Leivo and Tanner Pearson were going to fit into the Canucks' plans, with so many forwards in the mix. But give them credit — they've gelled pretty well with Bo Horvat. With five points in his last five games, Leivo is now up to six goals and 16 points in 30 games. That's a level of production that's well above his career average of 0.33 points per game, and is great value for Vancouver, considering he's making just $1.5 million this season.
In fact, Leivo may be playing himself out of the Canucks' future plans. If he keeps this up, he should earn a nice raise when he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year.
As for Tanner Pearson — he assisted on Tyler Myers' shorthanded goal, which put the Canucks up 4-3 early in the third period. That brings Pearson to 8-11-19 for the year to date, on pace for 22 goals and 52 points. His career high came in 2016-17, when he had 24 goals and 44 points. That earned him the $15-million contract he's playing under now, which pays him $3.75 million for this season and next.
Speaking of career highs, Antoine Roussel has kicked up the production from the third line since his return to action. He picked up his second and third of the year on Saturday, so he's now on pace for 81 goals if he can keep it up for the remaining 52 games of the season.
Roussel's probably going to keep his Movember mustache as long as he keeps scoring like this, but he simply said “Stop it,” to reporters after Saturday's game when his projection was presented to him, according to
Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet.
Heading into Saturday's game, I mentioned that the Sabres' penalty killing was a weakness. Despite the fact that the Canucks have drawn more power plays than any other team in the league this season, Buffalo was whistled for minors just twice on Saturday — an early trip by Kyle Okposo on Adam Gaudette, and the interference call on Henri Jokiharju in overtime which negated what would have been a game-winner by Jack Eichel.
That certainly had all the trappings of a make-up call, especially after Bo Horvat was pulled by the concussion spotter as the Canucks tried to defend their one-goal lead late in the game, even though no penalty was called on Brandon Montour's fly-by headshot on the captain.
The Sabres did tie the game to earn a point, and Horvat passed his testing. He made it back to the ice in time to congratulate his teammates as they filed off after sealing the win, and told reporters after the game that he's fine. Hopefully his head still feels good this morning, as the team enjoys a day off on Sunday.
As you may have heard, Saturday marked the 13th time in 30 games that the Canucks have scored five or more goals this season — after hitting that number just 11 times over all of last year. Their goals per game are up from 2.67 in 2018-19 to 3.33 so far this year, while goals league-wide are now just a hair above last year's pace — up from 3.01 goals per game to 3.02 through Saturday's games.
After eking out the win on Saturday, the Canucks are 11-1-1 in those 13 high-scoring games, thanks to the infamous losses to Pittsburgh and Washington. And historically, they're in very lofty company:
The crazy part — it's feast or famine. The Canucks also have scored two goals or less in 14 of their games this year — and they're 2-10-2 in those games. The've finished with four goals just once this season — in that overtime loss to Colorado, the last time they wore the skate jerseys. And they've scored three goals just twice — on that early-season road trip when they beat St. Louis 4-3 in the shootout, then hung on for the 3-2 win over the New York Rangers.
All told, that puts the Canucks eighth overall in the league at the moment for average goals per game.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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