Monday February 28: New Jersey Devils 7 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Thursday March 3: Vancouver Canucks at New York Islanders - 4:30 p.m. PT
There's no doing things the easy way for the Vancouver Canucks.
Facing a healthy and energized group of New Jersey Devils, the Canucks laid an egg in Monday's 7-2 loss. Bruce Boudreau was perplexed.
"We talked about it in the morning meeting, the evening meaning, I mean, the preparation for the day,"
Boudreau said. "I wish I had an answer to it. I don't. I've racked my brain over why some games we can play so good in the first period, and then other games. . . if there's going to be something bad, that's going to happen in the first period.
"I read every important notice to these guys on what this game was all about tonight, and to not come out as well as we're supposed to come out is shocking to me."
He acknowledged that the club didn't get the saves it needed from Jaroslav Halak, who gave up six goals on 14 shots in 26:19 of ice time before getting the hook in the second period. But Boudreau's concern was more wide-ranging — touching on the flat start and also some poor decision-making from the defense.
Bottom line: two much-needed points were squandered. And Tuesday's games didn't do the Canucks many favours either. Edmonton, Anaheim and Winnipeg all won, with the only sort-of-good news being that Vegas beat San Jose in regulation.
After their win over the Rangers, the Canucks had climbed to 10th in the West in points percentage, a hair ahead of Anaheim. After Tuesday's games, they're 12th by that stat — behind both the Ducks and the Jets after both teams pulled out wins in games that they could have blown. Sigh.
My old reliable playoff prognosticator,
SportsClubStats, doesn't always update in a timely manor anymore. But it is up to date as of Wednesday morning, showing that the Canucks' playoff chances dropped by 1.9% thanks to Tuesday's outcomes, to an 11.3% total chance of making the postseason.
If you look at the Canucks' graph through the season, you can see that they'd dropped to practically zero in December, when Travis Green was let go, and have been bumping along around that 10% mark through most of the Boudreau era.
As we get closer to the end of the season, individual games can have big impacts on those numbers, changing teams' prognostications quite dramatically from one day to the next. The question is whether the Canucks will be able to stay with the pack long enough for those games to have significance.
And what to do about Halak? I saw some folks on Twitter on Monday who thought he might as well have finished out the game once the score had ballooned to 6-1. Let Thatcher Demko get the rest he needs.
Boudreau said he wasn't too worried about Demko, since the club does have two days off before facing the Islanders at their new UBS Arena on Thursday. And I can get behind the argument that when Boudreau has a reputation as a player-friendly coach, the whole team would be jolted if Halak didn't get the mercy hook and out of a game where he clearly wasn't at his best.
That's water under the bridge for now. But the Canucks still have five more sets of back-to-back games over the last 27 games of their schedule. A pair of those coming up in quick succession later this month: at home on Mar. 19 and 20 against Calgary and Buffalo, respectively, then on the road on Mar. 23 and 24 for two tough games against Colorado and Minnesota.
Halak has a full no-move clause, and the consensus seems to be that he's disinclined to waive it for a trade. Rosters do expand after the deadline, but teams are still subject to salary-cap limitations and have only a limited number of call-ups available. So it could be possible for the club to recall Spencer Martin and carry three goalies down the stretch, but a move like that would come at a price.
Still, something for management to consider if the Canucks are still making a push through their upcoming homestand.
If you're a subscriber to The Athletic,
Dom Luszczyszyn slices and dices the numbers around Vancouver's playoff prospects a few different ways in his latest '16 Stats' article
Even after making some adjustments in his model to account for the Canucks' improved play since Boudreau's arrival, he still pegs the team as a longshot. According to his model, the biggest difference in the club since Boudreau came on board is the improved play of Thatcher Demko — whose play has been so good that it's probably statistically unsustainable. If he can keep it up, Luszczyszyn says the Canucks could end up being a 97-point team. But with the race in the West being what it is this year, that still gives them just an 18% chance of reaching the postseason — better, but still a long shot.
Of Canucks fans, Luszczyszyn says. "I love them and their sometimes deluded takes regarding their team. Never out of it, even when the odds look increasingly stacked against them. We love the optimism."
He also says "What we’re really seeing is a franchise goalie carrying a modest roster."
Look how that worked out in the playoffs for the 2019 St. Louis Blues and the 2021 Montreal Canadiens. Even the Canucks themselves — nobody calls him Bubble Demko anymore, but he came oh-so-close to stealing that series against Vegas.
That's why, until they're definitely out, I'm still going to hope that they can get in. Stranger things have happened in this league.
For more on Demko, you can listen to his interview on this week's Spittin' Chiclets podcast.
And for more on the how the Canucks' fortunes have changed under Boudreau, Luszczyszyn has a player-by-player breakdown based on a stat he calls 'Game Score.'
Can't say I'm surprised to see Juho Lammikko with the biggest improvement under the new coach. Seeing Tanner Pearson and Travis Hamonic listed next, just ahead of Matthew Highmore and Brad Hunt, is a bit of an eye-opener, though. And then we get to Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller.
And while Brock Boeser's overall Game Score of .6 is one of the higher numbers on the team, he has also experienced the fifth-biggest drop in performance since Boudreau arrived, according to the model. That's a surprise. And while Jason Dickinson and Nils Hoglander hold down the bottom two spots, by a pretty significant margin, it's a little unnerving to see Bo Horvat's name third from the bottom, having gone from 0.66 to 0.5.
If you're a subscriber, the chart offers plenty of food for thought — and maybe offers hints of some under-discussed possibilities that could transpire at the trade deadline? We shall see.
In the meantime, there's a revenge game on Long Island set to be played on Thursday night. With Demko, surely, between the pipes.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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