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Can Boudreau's Canucks keep rolling against the formidable Hurricanes? |
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Sunday December 12 - Carolina Hurricanes at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m.
One of Bruce Boudreau’s central tenets is the idea of setting manageable goals.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, I’d recommend you have a listen to the latest episode of the ‘Straight From the Source’ podcast from Minnesota Wild beat writer Michael Russo at The Athletic. He does a lengthy interview with Boudreau, who he knows well from his time in Minnesota. The conversation covers lots of Canucks content as well as giving Vancouver’s new coach a chance to show his personality and what makes him tick.
On the podcast, Boudreau mentions an idea which he has also presented to the local media over the last week. For the Canucks, rather than start thinking about whether or not they can get back into a playoff spot, they should just focus on trying to make up one point a week.
A perfect 3-0-0 week is a good start toward making those moves happen. I was curious to see how much the lay of the land has changed in the last seven days.
On December 4, after the Canucks fell 4-1 to Pittsburgh, Vancouver sat 28th in the NHL standings with a record of 8-15-2 for 18 points — a .360 points percentage. And that was after picking up wins over Ottawa and Montreal earlier that week.
The day before the changes began, Vancouver was last in the Pacific Division, second-last in the Western Conference, and eight points out of the second wild-card spot.
Here’s a quick look at how the wild-card picture looked.
Pacific
1. Calgary 35 pts
2. Edmonton 32 pts
3. Anaheim 30 pts
Central
1. Minnesota 35 pts
2. St. Louis 28 pts
3. Nashville 27 pts
Wild Card
1. San Jose 27 pts
2. Dallas 26 pts
This Saturday, after all the games were complete, Vancouver sat 24th in the league standings with a record of 11-15-2 for 24 points — a .429 points percentage.
They’ve passed Seattle, to move up to seventh in the Pacific. They’ve passed Chicago, to move to 13th in the Western Conference. And now they’re seven points out of the second wild-card spot.
A perfect week = a one-point improvement in playoff position. Tougher than it sounds!
There are two other interesting takeaways from this week’s results: both Edmonton and Calgary have hit a wall, so from top to bottom, the Pacific has tightened up. And both wild-card teams changed.
Pacific
1. Calgary 36 pts
2. Anaheim 35 pts
3. Edmonton 32 pts
Central
1. Minnesota 39 pts
2. St. Louis 34 pts
3. Nashville 33 pts
Wild Card
1. Colorado 32 pts
2. Winnipeg 31 pts
The loser point was big for the Jets against Vancouver on Friday night. And Vancouver has two upcoming games before the end of the month against San Jose (also 31 points) and one against Los Angeles (28 points). If the team’s going to make any meaningful headway, it is going to need to come out on top of at least 2-of-3 of those contests.
But first — the Carolina Hurricanes, who have done the Canucks a favor this week by dishing out losses to Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton, outscoring their opposition 9-4 in total through those three road games.
Sebastian Aho is absolutely scorching hot, with points on seven of his team's nine goals through this stretch and 12 points in his last five games. Now up to 32 points for the season, he's tied for fifth in league scoring with a pretty interesting collection of characters — Kyle Connor, Steven Stamkos, Kirill Kaprizov and Artemi Panarin.
J.T. Miller remains the Canucks' leading scorer — not far back, actually, with 27 points in 28 games. He has four points so far in the Boudreau era, and eight in the last six games, since the losing slide ended.
In net on Sunday, it'll be Thatcher Demko vs. Antti Raanta. Demko will be making his league-high 24th start of the year. And after his personal numbers ballooned to a 3.33 goals-against average and .898 save percentage after that three-game road trip from hell that triggered the current changing of the guard, he has given up more than three goals just once in 11 subsequent starts and four in total in three games under Boudreau.
Demko's now back to 2.73 and .915 — and the Canucks have another week before they hit a back-to-back in their schedule, with games against Toronto next Saturday and Arizona on Sunday.
As for Raanta — he hasn't played much this season, but has a solid 4-1-1 record and 2.41 goals-against average despite a ho-hum .904 save percentage.
A lot of nights, I feel like Carolina does just enough to secure two points. Their record of 19-6-1 has them tied for second in the league in points percentage, behind only Florida, and one point back of the Panthers, Capitals and Maple Leafs in the actual standings. Eight of the Hurricanes' 19 wins this season have come by one goal. But eight have also come by three-goal margins. So they can twist the knife when they feel like it.
Another impressive thing about the Hurricanes' record is that they've played 16 of their 26 games on the road so far this season — and are 12-3-1 away from home. This is their second trip out west already. In mid-November, they took seven of a possible 10 points with wins in Vegas, Anaheim and L.A. an overtime loss in San Jose and an outright loss in Seattle.
Even without any back-to-backs, they may have run out of gas a bit toward the end of that trip. The Canucks will be hoping the schedule works in their favour on Sunday, as they look to keep the Boudreau era perfect.
Sunday's morning skate is optional, so we'll have to wait till warmup to see exactly how the Canucks' lines will shake out against Carolina.
As for new team president/interim GM Jim Rutherford, he'll meet the local media for the first time on Monday morning — with Francesco Aquilini also scheduled to make his second press conference appearance in a week.
And finally — a shout out to the Abbotsford Canucks for spoiling Evander Kane's AHL debut by beating the San Jose Barracuda 5-1 on Saturday afternoon. Kane had five shots on goal, but was held without a point. The two teams will square off again on Sunday at 3 p.m. PT.
Enjoy the games!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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