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With help, the Vancouver Canucks can still make the playoffs. Here's how: |
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Saturday April 23 - Calgary Flames 6 - Vancouver Canucks 3
Tuesday April 26 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Seattle Kraken - 7 p.m. PT
We've reached the last week of the 2021-22 regular season, and there's still a path to the playoffs open for the Vancouver Canucks.
After dropping both of last week's road games by 6-3 scores, the Canucks haven't made it easy on themselves. But if they win out and get some help, they can still sneak into the second wild-card spot.
With 87 points and three games remaining, they can no longer catch L.A. (96 points) or Nashville (94 points). But there's still a way they can squeak past Dallas and Vegas.
The Golden Knights could have ended things for Vancouver if they'd earned two points against San Jose on Sunday night. Instead, the Sharks did what they did to Vancouver earlier in the season — scoring a last-second goal to force overtime. And Vegas actually had a 4-2 lead with less than three minutes left to play in regulation. With James Reimer pulled for the extra attacker, Nick Bonino scored his second of the night and 15th of the year with 2:06 remaining in regulation before Timo Meier tied the game with 0.9 seconds left on the clock.
Back on Feb. 17, the Canucks still prevailed against San Jose, thanks to J.T. Miller's overtime winner. The Golden Knights were not so fortunate. Overtime solved nothing and the only successful scorer in the shootout was Sharks rookie Thomas Bordeleau, playing his fifth NHL game after signing out of the University of Michigan on April 16.
So, here's where everything sits after that game:
Wild Card 2: Dallas - 93 points - 3 games remaining - 30 regulation wins
9th: Vegas - 90 points - 3 games remaining - 33 regulation wins
10th: Vancouver: 87 points - 3 games remaining - 31 regulation wins
To squeak into Wild Card 2 and earn a date with the Colorado Avalanche — who are currently on a four-game losing streak....
• Vancouver needs to win all three of its remaining games, in any fashion
• Dallas needs to lose all three of its remaining games in regulation
• Vegas needs to beat Dallas in regulation on Tuesday and lose its other two games in regulation
If all of those outcomes occur, the final standings would look like this:
Wild Card 2: Vancouver - 93 points - 31 or more regulation wins
9th: Dallas - 93 points - 30 regulation wins
10th: Vegas - 92 points - 34 regulation wins
Regulation wins are the first tiebreaker. Vancouver already has enough regulation wins to beat Dallas in that category, without needing more, as long as Dallas doesn't get even one more point.
But Vancouver can't beat Vegas on the tiebreaker. Even if they won their last three games in regulation and got to 34 regulation wins, they'd lose the second tiebreaker. That's regulation/overtime wins (ROW) and in that category, Vegas currently holds a 38-35 edge over Vancouver. Add in the win that Vegas must get over Dallas on Tuesday to make this work, and that would bump them to 39 — too high for Vancouver to catch.
The three teams' remaining schedules:
• Vancouver: Tuesday vs. Seattle, Thursday vs. L.A., Friday in Edmonton
• Dallas: Tuesday vs. Vegas, Wednesday vs. Arizona, Friday vs. Anaheim
• Vegas: Tuesday in Dallas, Wednesday in Chicago, Friday in St. Louis
Therein lies, probably, the biggest hurdle: it's highly unlikely that Dallas will lose three in a row on home ice, especially with the final two games being against Arizona and Anaheim.
Also, of course — this presupposes that the Canucks will win their last three games.
The late collapses in both Minnesota and Calgary suggest that, at this point, the team is running on fumes.
They were able to hang with the Wild until the late stages of the second period, even briefly taking a 3-2 lead on Elias Pettersson's 31st goal of the year.
But the Pettersson/Boeser/Garland line got burned on its very next shift, when Mats Zuccarello scored his 24th of the year. And the Wild utterly dominated the third period, outshooting Vancouver 15-4 and beating Demko twice before Ryan Hartman finished things off with an empty-netter.
As an aside — if you think that Conor Garland is too small to be an effective NHL player, take a look at Zuccarello. He's listed at 5'8" and 181 pounds — and I'm pretty sure he was listed at 5'7" earlier in his career. But at nearly 35, he's having a career year, with 79 points.
Yes, he's playing with Kirill Kaprizov, but I think that's a mutually beneficial relationship. Still, it's an impressive jump from his previous high of 61 points in 2015-16, the year before Mika Zibanejad came along.
I thought then-Wild GM Paul Fenton was out of his mind when he signed Zuccarello to that five-year contract with a cap hit of $6 million a season. But three years in, Zuccarello's competitive fire is burning hotter than ever. The Wild will have some serious budget issues to address in this offseason but for now, I'm very interested to see what this group can do in the playoffs.
In Calgary on Saturday, the Canucks followed a similar blueprint to Thursday. After falling behind 2-0, they caught up with Quinn Hughes' sixth goal of the year late in the second period, then a sliding beauty from Garland early in the third.
This time, it took just 14 seconds for the Flames to re-take the lead, on Brett Ritchie's third of the year. And while the Canucks kept pressing, outshooting the Flames 11-6 in the third and getting one more late goal from Elias Pettersson, Calgary's counterattack was effective. The Flames scored on four of those six third-period shots, including Johnny Gaudreau's empty-netter.
As hot as they've been, Gaudreau's line was held in check by Vancouver at even strength. Elias Lindholm opened the scoring on the power play early in the second period, with Gaudreau drawing the primary assist. Matthew Tkachuk was held off the scoresheet but was on the ice with Lindholm for Dillon Dube's second goal of the night, in the third period. Lindholm also drew the lone assist on that play.
Still on the Flames front — the Masterton Trophy nominees from all 32 teams were announced Monday morning, and Chris Tanev is this year's nominee for Calgary. After I argued for years about how under-appreciated he was during his time in Vancouver, it's nice to see him getting some attention on his current team — and he certainly does embody 'perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.'
I'm also in agreement on the Canucks' nominee, Luke Schenn, who has become a fan favorite and battled back to become an NHL regular after having been on the waiver wire multiple times over the past few seasons — including during his two years in Tampa Bay.
An honorary British Columbian who makes his offseason home in Kelowna, Schenn's career resurrection began after Jim Benning acquired him from the Anaheim Ducks in January of 2019, along with the seventh-round pick that became defense prospect Viktor Persson, in exchange for Michael Del Zotto.
Schenn played 25 regular-season games with the Lightning in the 2019-20 season, and 33 games last year. This season, he's at 63 games. His plus-13 is the best of his career, and his four goals and 15 points aren't far off his career bests: he hit five goals and 22 points twice each during his early-career years with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Just one game on Monday's NHL schedule, with Chicago hosting Philadelphia. So everyone has a moment to breathe before the big Dallas/Vegas game at 5:30 p.m. PT on Tuesday, followed by Kraken vs. Canucks at 7:00.
Enjoy the games!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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