Thursday, Feb. 16: Vancouver Canucks 5 - San Jose Sharks 4 (OT)
Saturday, Feb 18: Vancouver Canucks at Anaheim Ducks
I'm not exactly sure how to feel about the Vancouver Canucks' overtime win in San Jose on Thursday.
The bottom line — they got the two points, and strung together back-to-back wins for the first time in a month. They wake up on Friday morning just three points out of the second wild-card spot.
But they couldn't lock down the game after dominating the first period and building a 2-0 lead on the road. Here's the graphical visualization of how they let their advantage slip away.
The shots were 15-4 for Vancouver through 20 minutes, and 24-12 for the Sharks the rest of the way.
The Canucks also got clobbered in the special-teams battle — 0-for-4 on the power play, while the Sharks went 2-for-3 thanks to a pair of power-play tallies from Timo Meier.
Meier still isn't the most consistent player — Thursday's effort came after four games without a point and six without a goal. When he's on his game, he's a beast. And I'm not sure if his inconsistency is a product of the team he's playing on, or part of the cause.
With 23 goals and 50 points in 43 game, Meier repped the Sharks at the All-Star Game for the first time a couple of weeks ago. And even with his inconsistency, he's on his way to passing his previous career highs of 30 goals and 66 points from the 2018-19 season, the year the Sharks got to the Western Conference Final before falling to the St. Louis Blues.
Now 25, Meier was drafted ninth overall in 2015 — the same year the Canucks plucked Brock Boeser at No. 23.
As of this moment, their NHL output is exactly identical. Meier has been more durable, with 111-127-238 in 360 career games. Boeser has been more opportunistic, at 113-125-238 in 297 games.
Only two players from that draft class who were selected after Boeser have out-pointed him so far. Sebastian Aho (No. 35) has 166-203-369 in 410 games and Travis Konecny (No. 24) has 102-146-248 in 396 games.
As such a tidy comparable, it's worth looking at Meier's contract, too. He re-upped in the 2019 offseason, same as Boeser, on a four-year deal that carries a cap hit of $6 million. He'll be an RFA at the end of the 2022-23 season, but his real salary next year is $10 million. That's the qualifying offer he'd need to receive in order for the Sharks to retain his rights — which makes Boeser's $7.5 million actually look somewhat reasonable.
That being said, Boeser doesn't have 50 points already this year. He has picked up the pace since Bruce Boudreau came on board, with 18 points in 25 games, and he's on a two-game scoring streak after tallying his 15th of the year in San Jose. But that still leaves him at 28 points in 44 games this season. If the Canucks do end up trading him, they'll be at risk of selling low.
And while the Canucks were still able to salvage two points out of a game that looked completely winnable after 20 minutes, they also allowed the Sharks to pick up a point thanks to Alexander Barabanov's last-second goal that forced overtime.
Barabanov has been a useful player for the Sharks this season — now up to 26 points in 40 games. Not bad for an undrafted 27-year-old who was scooped up at the 2021 trade deadline in exchange for minor-league center Antti Suomela, who has spent this season with the Toronto Marlies.
In overtime, J.T. Miller stepped up. He scored the game winner at 2:39 of overtime, on a delayed penalty against the Sharks, saving the Canucks from having to deploy their actual power play.
On the broadcast, John Shorthouse pointed out how that play developed as a result of Thatcher Demko's sharpness, getting himself to the bench quickly so that the Canucks could set up a 4-on-3 opportunity.
Right before that, I noticed how effectively Demko quick-upped the puck during the 3-on-3. For all the things that Demko does well, I don't generally spend much time thinking of him as a strong puck-handler, but I think that part of his game has improved as well. On a night when he wasn't as sharp as usual as a stopper, he still had a big hand in helping Vancouver secure the win.
With Quinn Hughes back in the lineup, Bruce Boudreau chose to scratch Brad Hunt — and got another excellent game out of Kyle Burroughs. With assists on Juho Lammikko's goal-mouth tip and Conor Garland's third-period tally, Burroughs recorded his first multi-point game in the NHL. In just 12:21 of ice time, he also added four hits, three blocked shots, and got into it with Jeffrey Viel in the first period, leading to offsetting roughing minors.
According to
Natural Stat Trick, Burroughs held his own nicely in terms of possession on Thursday, too: his expected goals share was 69.06%.
For me, he has been a very pleasant surprise this season.
Now — the cruel reality of the Western Conference standings.
Even though the Canucks got their two points in San Jose, they fell back a spot, as Winnipeg and Edmonton surge. The Jets beat Seattle 5-3 on Thursday and the Oilers knocked off the Ducks 7-3 to move to 4-0-0 under new coach Jay Woodcroft.
That moves the Oilers back to third place in the Pacific Division standings, with 57 points. Nashville's in the first wild-card at 60, then the Kings and Ducks are both at 55, the Stars at 54 and the Jets now tied with the Canucks at 52 — and one spot ahead in the standings, but virtue of two fewer games played and two more regulation wins.
The Sharks also remain within striking distance — three points back with two games in hand after picking up the loser point on Thursday.
The good news is that, so far, most of the inter-conference games that affect the Canucks have been decided without overtime. The fewer total points shared among opponents, the better.
Friday night's schedule has two games that Canucks fans should monitor: Dallas at Chicago and L.A. at Vegas.
The Canucks will get their next chance to move up on Saturday, when they open a three-game homestand against Anaheim. It has been a bit of a rough ride for the Ducks lately, losers of three straight since the All-Star Break and 0-3-1 in their last four.
Those results coincide with a performance dip from John Gibson, who has given up 15 goals in his last three starts. In Calgary on Wednesday, he got the hook after giving up four goals on 20 shots in 28:05, then came back to surrender seven in Edmonton on Thursday.
It'll be interesting to see if Dallas Eakins goes back to his starter again on Saturday, to play his third game in four nights.
Rogers Arena will be back to 100% capacity on Saturday, too — just in time for fans to get their first-ever live look at Trevor Zegras.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»