Sometime during the third period on Tuesday night, I re-christened Toronto's goaltender.
Big Sieve Dave.
Still wearing his red-tinged pads and gloves as a reminder that he was a Calgary Flame barely a week ago, David Rittich made his third appearance in four games for the struggling Toronto Maple Leafs, who were looking to snap an 0-2-2 skid.
But Rittich looked unsteady in the early going and downright bad in the second half of the third period.
The end result was a feel-good 6-3 win for the Canucks, who have made tongues wag about how maybe they'll be able to turn this vicious schedule over the next month into an unlikely road to a playoff spot.
While the Canucks were struggling with Covid-19, the Flames and the Montreal Canadiens left the door open for a potential photo finish in the North Division.
Vancouver was off the ice from March 25 to April 17. During that time, the Flames went 4-6-0, then lost in regulation to Ottawa on Monday night. The Habs have gone 5-7-0, including a regulation loss to Edmonton on Monday.
Now the Canucks have all the games in hand. So here's how the race looks as of Wednesday morning:
4. Montreal - 43 GP, 47 pts
5. Calgary - 45 GP, 41 pts
6. Vancouver - 39 GP, 39 pts
It's certainly no slam dunk that the Canucks will win all four of their games in hand, in order to draw even with the Habs. But with Carey Price now in concussion protocol and Brendan Gallagher on the sidelines, Montreal has been struggling to put it all together — and continues to struggle to score when they're playing most anybody other than Vancouver.
But we knew this might happen. After their 10-day Covid-related break, the Canadiens are dealing with a tough schedule of their own — playing their last 25 games in 44 days. That averages out to 1.76 days between games.
The Canucks, of course, are set to play 19 in 32. That averages out to 1.68 days between games — even less time, with more road games, but fewer games in total.
Montreal has played 12 games in 22 days since coming back, including their day off on Tuesday. They won three of their first four before things started to go sideways — just 2-6-0 in their last eight. They've got 13 in 22 to go.
Back in mid-February, the New Jersey Devils also won their first two games when they came back from their Covid pause. Then they went 1-8-0, which effectively sewered their season.
As of Wednesday,
SportsClubStats has Montreal's playoff odds at 84.6 percent, with Vancouver at 11.6 percent and Calgary at just 3.9 percent. But with so few games now left on the schedule, those numbers can move pretty dramatically with every outcome.
Other models yield different odds, depending on how they're constructed. For example,
MoneyPuck has Calgary still at 12.7 percent and Vancouver at 9.7 percent, while
The Athletic gives Vancouver a very bullish 25 percent chance, compared to just 3 percent for Calgary.
In the world of hockey media, I often hear reporters say that they don't root for teams, but they root for stories. And the idea that the Canucks' medical crisis could turn out to be a galvanizing event that pulls the team together and sends them on a miracle stretch run is a feel-good story that I think everybody could use right now.
If it's true that the club struggled to find its identity at the beginning of the season after losing key locker-room leaders like Jacob Markstrom and Chris Tanev, I feel like the Covid experience — and standing up as a group to buy themselves more recovery time — has brought everybody closer together. Now, offseason acquisitions like Braden Holtby and Travis Hamonic, and young guys like Nils Hoglander and Jalen Chatfield, and even the brand new arrivals like Travis Boyd and Matthew Highmore have all been through something big, together, and been supported by each other.
This clip cuts off, but Thatcher Demko's bear hug of Holtby at the end of Tuesday's game was overflowing with supportive emotion. They were arm in arm as they skated off the ice.
Holtby was good again on Tuesday. And Hoglander's now on a three-game goal streak that dates back to before the pause. But I liked the fact that after Bo Horvat drove the bus in the first game back on Sunday, we saw Brandon Sutter and Tanner Pearson step up offensively on Tuesday night. And with Alex Edler serving the first night of his two-game suspension and Tyler Myers reeling from a 30-plus minute game on Sunday, Travis Green was able to insert Nate Schmidt and Olli Juolevi onto his blue line after they cleared Covid protocols, to help spread out the defensive responsibilities.
Juolevi logged a decent 14:50, and Myers' ice time came in at a much more reasonable 22:47. He was just behind Travis Hamonic, the high-minute man at 23:06, and Quinn Hughes had a great night with a goal, two assists and seven shot attempts in 22:15. It was a nicely balanced outing for the blueliners, which is important. And that kind of player management gets a lot easier when a team gets to play out the second half of the third period with a pretty comfortable lead — even if they did take about five shots at the empty net before Sutter finally sealed the deal with 36 seconds left to play.
As for how the Canucks were able to keep a win within reach, I was at the game on Tuesday and I felt like they were, for the most part, able to keep the game at a tempo that suited their collective lung capacity. Near the end of both the first and second periods, the Leafs revved things up and created pressure that seemed to overwhelm Vancouver's defenders. But for the most part, the game was a bit of a grind. It sure didn't feel like the shots were 19-8 for Toronto in the middle frame.
I rather expected that we'd see something similar to what the Leafs did to the Canucks in their first couple of games this season, where they put their foot on the gas in the third period and cruised to dominant wins. But somehow it was Vancouver, for the second straight game, that had the edge in the late stages, when I expected them to be at their most fatigued.
Winning brings energy. And belief. On my way home after the game, I found myself remembering back to 1994. That rather mediocre Canucks season turned on a dime once the Petr Nedved trade was finally consummated. Then, the team rode that wave all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Even last summer, the Canucks needed some time to get their feet under them before they got into gear in the bubble.
If this moment fizzles out, it'll be understandable. But I'll appreciate every day that it lasts.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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