The Canucks' playoff dream grew significantly more distant over the last 48 hours.
And honestly, it's not terribly surprising. Adrenaline is bound to drop at some point, after the initial excitement of getting back on the ice. And while the Canucks were 5-0 against the Ottawa Senators this season as they headed into Thursday night's game, there was no reason to take the opposition lightly.
Even during the blowout losses early in the season, Ottawa generated plenty of chances — firing 36 shots or more on net in all three of those games, but rarely able to beat Vancouver's goaltenders.
Then, when the teams met in Ottawa in mid-March, the Canucks only eked out their wins — the first one in overtime and the second in a shootout.
And coming into Vancouver this week, the Senators had won three of their last four games, and climbed within three points of the Canucks in the North Division standings.
Yes, Vancouver has seven games in hand. But the optics for their playoff push will take a major hit if Ottawa climbs out of the cellar with another win over Vancouver on Saturday.
For now, it's only the playoff math that looks grim. A regulation win for Montreal in Edmonton on Wednesday combined with the Canucks' loss on Thursday puts Vancouver's postseason odds at 7.6 percent on Friday morning, according to
SportsClubStats.
Meanwhile, the North Division is looking at another potential scheduling hiccup on Friday morning. It's reported that a player from the Calgary Flames has tested positive for Covid-19. As I write this, the Flames' morning skate has been cancelled.
It's hoped that Friday's game against Montreal can go ahead. But as we learned from the Canucks a few weeks back, that could change when the next batch of test results come in later in the day.
The Flames and Habs are supposed to be kicking off a three-in-four series, which would be of much interest to Canucks fans. Somebody has to get the points — assuming they play, of course.
If any games are missed, they're going to be tough to reschedule. The Habs are currently set to wrap up their season a week before the Canucks, on May 12. But the Flames are booked to play their last four games against Vancouver, between May 13-19. Any further postponements are probably going to necessitate another big re-juggling.
As for Thursday's Canucks game, the story starts with Matt Murray. Around these parts, most fans remember him as being on the wrong end of some big nights for the Canucks' scorers. And for the most part, that's true.
But here's the weird thing: after Thursday's game, Murray's record against the Canucks improved to 3-5-0 in nine appearances. And all three of his wins have been shutouts. The other two came with Pittsburgh during the 2016-17 season, when the Pens were in the midst of their Stanley Cup period — so maybe Pierre Dorion did know what he was doing when he acquired Murray and signed him to that big contract last summer.
Since coming back last week from the upper-body injury that has been bothering him for much of the year, Murray is now 3-1-0 with two shutouts, and has given up a total of just five goals in those four games.
And of course, his hot hand is not a one-night problem for Vancouver. Their next three games are all against Ottawa — and spaced out nicely enough that one goalie could conceivably play them all.
At the other end of the ice, Thatcher Demko took the loss in his return to action. His performance wasn't bad; both goals he gave up were on the power play, and were somewhat flukey.
But he also wasn't worked all that hard. After a rather blah first period, the Canucks did carry the play for most of the final 40 minutes. Final shots were 31-25 for Vancouver — so Ottawa won for the first time against the Canucks in the game where they managed to put the fewest shots on net.
Hockey is weird.
Speaking with the media after the game, Demko admitted that his case of Covid-19 hit him pretty hard.
"I struggled with it," he said. "I think a lot of guys did.
"It was tough on the body. The biggest thing for me was just some fatigue, just the body aches and some of the brain fog stuff that you’ve seen in the media. Stuff that comes with Covid.
"I just wanted to make sure I was feeling better before I got back in the lineup and obviously it’s a tough situation for everyone that was dealing with it."
Demko also acknowledged that even though the Canucks are back and playing, he figures none of his teammates who contracted the virus are feeling 100 percent.
With that in mind, it looked like it was going to be another heavy night for the Vancouver defence on Thursday, after Travis Hamonic was initially assessed a game misconduct following his fight with Brady Tkachuk early in the first period.
I liked seeing Hamonic step up to defend new teammate Matthew Highmore. He doesn't drop the gloves as often as he did back in his New York Islanders days, and I thought the decision spoke to the cohesion that is developing in the dressing room, even extending to the most recent arrivals.
But the instigator call seemed like a stretch. And the game misconduct was an outright mistake. It was corrected by the beginning of the second period.
Hamonic was at 1:55 of ice time when he was penalized, and finished the game at 16:00. That was probably good news for Tyler Myers. He ended up playing 10:45 in the first period, including 3:39 on the penalty kill and 46 seconds on the power play.
Myers finished the night at 25:16 — behind Quinn Hughes, who played 27:16 as Travis Green tried everything he could to generate some goals.
Nate Schmidt also nudged up to 20:07, and Green leaned hard on Miller, Boeser and Horvat up front. All three played more than 22 minutes while, at the other end of the spectrum, Marc Michaelis saw just 3:17.
On the blue line, Jalen Chatfield also played less than 10 minutes. And while Jake Virtanen logged enough ice time to get called for two penalties in the game, he finished at just 11:35.
Since the Canucks returned to the ice, Green has been opting for rest over practice, giving his group days off on Monday and Wednesday. Friday, he said a limited group would practice, but he wanted to give more rest to the players that he's been leaning on the hardest.
Based on Thursday night, the challenge now will be to find a way to generate more net-front traffic and solve Matt Murray in the rematch on Saturday night.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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