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Can Halak, Canucks contain the surging Ducks and streaking Troy Terry? |
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Tuesday November 9 - Anaheim Ducks at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m.
Who had the Anaheim Ducks four points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks in the Pacific Division standings when the two teams meet for the first time this season on Tuesday night?
Last year, the Ducks finished with the second-worst record in the NHL — and plucked Mason McTavish with the third-overall pick in the draft for their troubles.
Fans at Rogers Arena could get their first look at the 18-year-old McTavish as the Canucks host the Ducks on Tuesday. After scoring his first NHL goal in Anaheim's season-opening game, McTavish suffered a lower-body injury in Game 3, but returned to the lineup for his club's 4-1 home win over St. Louis last Sunday.
The Ducks have also received more attention than usual lately thanks to Troy Terry, who has put together a league-leading 11-game point streak. Last season, the 24-year-old hit career highs with seven goals and 20 points in 48 games. Apparently no one told him that he should have peaked by now — this year, he already has a career high eight goals to go along with 14 points, in just 12 games.
If the Canucks can shut down Connor McDavid twice already this year, surely they can contain Troy Terry??
Terry's currently playing on a line with a couple of veterans who are also having resurgent seasons. Adam Henrique and Ryan Getzlaf both have 11 points in 13 games — and last week, Getzlaf passed Teemu Selanne to become Anaheim's all-time leading scorer. That's a well-deserved honour for the club's long-time captain, who has been a lifer in Anaheim and chose to decline free-agent offers to join more obvious contenders during the offseason.
Driven by their top line, the Ducks have now gone six games since their last regulation loss. They're bringing a four-game winning streak to Vancouver, on a new-style road trip that will see them stop in Seattle on Thursday before returning to the Honda Center to open a three-game homestand with another game against Vancouver next Sunday.
The Ducks' recent success has come with the club missing some key players from the lineup. I haven't seen any lineup updates yet for Tuesday, but the club has been missing Jakob Silfverberg, who's in Covid-19 protocol, and Rickard Rakell, who has an upper-body injury. My preseason Calder Trophy pick, Trevor Zegras, has a relatively modest five points so far this season and has missed the last two games with an upper-body injury. He was knocked out by a dangerous trip by New Jersey's P.K. Subban, which cost the veteran defenseman a fine of $15,000, and was last reported to be questionable for Tuesday's game.
The Ducks sit top 10 in the NHL in scoring, averaging 3.23 goals per game. And they've got six power-play goals in their last four games, which is bad news for Vancouver's struggling penalty kill.
And while the Ducks were very porous defensively during the early part of the season, they've cleaned up that part of their game over the last week. Anaheim has allowed just four goals in total over their four-game winning streak, which earned John Gibson the NHL's Third Star of the Week accolade.
Gibson is putting up a good fight to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team — 5-2-2 with a 2.40 goals-against average and .923 save percentage. Given his historic success against the Canucks, even when the Ducks are bad, I expect we'll see him in net on Tuesday night, although it's too bad he won't be going head-to-head against one of his Olympic challengers, Thatcher Demko.
The Canucks took an optional morning skate on Tuesday, so I won't expect to see any significant changes in the roster up front. But Harman Dayal from The Athletic is reporting that Jaro Halak will get his third start of the year.
Halak's personal numbers are good at 2.07 and .917, but he's 0-2-0 so far for the season. I guess Travis Green is looking to get Demko a bit of a rest with the 3-in-4 on the road coming up later this week — Thursday in Colorado, Saturday in Vegas, then Sunday in Anaheim.
Demko currently sits fourth in the league in minutes played and third in shots against. He's 5-4-1 so far, with a goals-against of 2.59 and a save percentage of .918 — the best of his career to date.
And of course, Demko added to his collection of highlight-reel saves on Sunday, when the Canucks returned to that high-event, fun playing style that we saw early in the season with their 6-3 victory over the Dallas Stars.
Even eagle-eyed John Garrett, who is rarely wrong about these things, thought Jamie Benn's shot here hit the post. But Demko once again showed his willingness to never give up on a play.
That save came early in the game, before the Canucks got their power-play rolling and broke things open. A goal there for Dallas could have been a game-changer.
It was certainly heartening to see Vancouver's power-play start clicking on Sunday, going 3-for-6 against the Stars even if the penalty kill let them down again, successfully killing just 1-of-3 shorthanded situations — the first half of Oliver Ekman-Larsson's double minor.
But after seeing how that top power-play group really put their heads together to get back on track on Sunday, and after hearing Jason Dickinson talking about how he's losing sleep over the penalty-kill issues, I feel like we're seeing a higher level of buy-in and accountability from the Canucks this season. Whatever was going on in last year's weird Covid world, the Canucks didn't seem to be able to find a way to work themselves out of their funks.
It's too bad that so many potential points from this homestand ended up being squandered. But the club will gain a ton of goodwill in the marketplace if it can close things out with a win against the Ducks, another team that usually owns them and that is going very well right now.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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