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Quinn Hughes sets new franchise record but Canucks' playoff dream has ended |
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Tuesday April 26 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Seattle Kraken 2
Thursday April 28 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Los Angeles Kings - 7 p.m. PT
OK, now it's really over.
With Spencer Martin ably filling in for injured Thatcher Demko in net, the Vancouver Canucks took care of their own business on Tuesday, beating the Seattle Kraken 5-2. They comfortably swept their season series with their new geographical rival, with three 5-2 wins after the 4-2 nail-biter at Climate Pledge Arena back in October.
But the faint playoff dream flickered to darkness early in the second period, as soon as the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars finished regulation time in a 2-2 tie. The single point for the Stars moved them to 94 points — too far ahead for Vancouver to catch. And Miro Heiskanen ultimately scored the shootout winner to give Dallas an additional point, bumping them into a tie with Nashville at 95, with two games to go for each team.
So as much as everybody on Twitter was salivating over Tuesday night's Flames/Preds game as a possible playoff preview, that is not yet guaranteed.
We do know that Nashville and L.A. have each now officially clinched playoff spots.
Dallas has not, but could clinch on Wednesday. Vegas is four points back, but holds the edge in the tiebreaker. The situation will be settled with one more point gained by the Stars in their last two games or one more point lost by Vegas in their last two games.
After Tuesday's high-stakes affair, both teams now go into back-to-backs. Dallas hosts Arizona while Vegas visits Chicago. They'll both close out their schedules on Friday.
As for the Canucks — they were clearly disappointed that they'd come up short when they spoke to the media after Tuesday's game. But I'm pretty impressed that they made it all the way to Game 80.
That's their best outcome since Jim Benning's first season in 2014-15, when they finished with 101 points before getting waxed in the first round by the Calgary Flames.
And to be fair, in the shortened 2019-20 season, they finished with 78 points in 69 games for a .565 points percentage. That was good for seventh in the Western Conference, so they didn't need the expanded 24-team format to get into the playoff bubble, although the margin was miniscule. Eighth-place Calgary was at .564 and ninth-place Winnipeg at .563. And to their credit, the Canucks were sitting at a plus-11 goal differential that year, and not just because of Jacob Markstrom's heroics. They were second in the conference in goals scored that year, too.
This season, they're at a .556 points percentage with two games to go, and with a goal differential of plus-13. Vegas is on the outside looking in, right now, at .569.
Tuesday night also saw Quinn Hughes make history, setting a new record for points by a Canucks defenseman in a single season. He earned first-star honours with a goal and two assists against Seattle, and is now up to 66 points — three ahead of Doug Lidster's old record of 63 points from the 1986-87 season.
Speaking after the game, Hughes seemed more interested in the fact that the record had stood for 30-plus years than the fact that he was the first player in 50-plus years of franchise history to reach this level. It's sobering to see that the only present-day Canucks who were alive when Lidster set his mark were Jaroslav Halak and Brad Richardson, who were both born in 1985.
To his credit, Hughes seemed much more focused on the disappointment of missing the playoffs than on his personal achievement. When talking about his season, he said that the fact that he turned last season's minus-24 into a plus-8 this year was a greater point of pride for him than the record — and that he wants to keep working on that number and improving his two-way play.
Plus-minus is a pretty unfashionable stat these days. But it still has merit as a simple benchmark, and Hughes has referenced it often this season.
He also talked about wanting to grow his game so that he'd be included in the conversation when the NHL's best defensemen are discussed. Hughes currently sits eighth in total points (Roman Josi leads with a ridiculous 93 points). And at 0.89 points per game, that also ranks Hughes eighth among defensemen with more than one game played.
But he does still have some catching up to do on the plus-minus front. The clubhouse leaders there are Colorado's two blue-line stars, Devon Toews (+54) and Cale Makar (+49). And one-time Canuck prospect Gustav Forsling, now of the Florida Panthers, sits fifth on the list at plus-41.
In this high-scoring season, picking up pluses by being on the ice for even-strength goals has spiked this stat. Last year's top plus-minus guys were Toews and Florida's Mackenzie Weegar, both at plus-29 — although that was also in just 56 games. In the last full season, 2018-19, Mark Giordano led the league at plus-39 and five defensemen were at plus-30 or better.
This year, 14 blueliners are above that number.
Hughes' plus-8 ties him for 71st on the list, with Hampus Lindholm of Anaheim/Boston and Erik Cernak of Tampa Bay. But it's a far cry better than last season, when Hughes sat third from the bottom, at No. 314 out of 316.
Also on the last page last year — Oliver Ekman-Larsson, at minus-17 for 307th position. He has also had a nice turnaround season, currently sitting at plus-7 in his first year with Vancouver, and picked up his fifth goal of the year on Tuesday.
Luke Schenn also picked up his fifth of the year on Tuesday, tying his career high in goals on a rare night when Vancouver defensemen outscored the forwards. After his back-to-back Stanley Cup wins with Tampa Bay, Schenn sounded so defeated when he spoke to Dan Murphy after the game as the realization of no playoffs really started to sink in. But he has certainly established himself as an important part of the Canucks' core as the tinkering begins for next season.
As for the goaltending, Bruce Boudreau wouldn't go any farther than calling Thatcher Demko's injury an 'ouch' before Tuesday's game. It wouldn't surprise me if it was something that he was trying to play through last week, and which may even have been part of the thinking behind Spencer Martin's emergency recall before last Tuesday's game against Ottawa.
I know there was talk of illness around Demko's status last week as well. And while I try not to engage in hindsight too much, I do wonder if the playoff dream would have still been alive if Demko had taken the night off, and been better rested for Minnesota and Calgary, while the eminently capable Martin would have been the one to relieve Halak after he was injured against the Sens?
On Tuesday night, the Canucks did a great job of coming out with guns ablaze, and building a commanding 3-0 lead. But their concentration seemed to waver as the end of the Vegas/Dallas game drew near, and Martin bailed them out in a big way when they got into penalty trouble. They went 7-for-8 on the penalty kill, giving up the lone goal just after the end of their second 5-on-3 against. And Martin blew me away with how well he maintained his positioning and concentration after he lost his stick during one of those two-man-short situations.
Already signed to a one-way contract for next season, Martin said after the game that he's still taking things day by day.
With a back-to-back set to finish out the season and nothing for the team to play for, I'd imagine Martin will get one of those last two games to further cement the idea that he's on his way to being Thatcher Demko's full-time backup next season. Arturs Silovs was called up from Abbotsford to back up Martin on Tuesday, so he'll probably get the other game if neither Demko nor Halak is available.
Then, it's on to the playoffs in Abbotsford. The AHL postseason usually starts a bit later than the NHL, but this year it'll be running basically in tandem, with the regular season ending this Saturday. The Abbotsford Canucks have two games left on their schedule, on the road against the Manitoba Moose on Thursday and Saturday. They're currently sitting third in the Pacific Division standings, so they should be set for home-ice advantage in the best-of-three first round against the sixth-seeded Henderson Silver Knights.
So there will be playoffs for Canucks fans to watch next week, even if they're not the NHL variety. Despite the challenges of Covid and the fall floods, it has been a solid inaugural season for Abbotsford. A deep playoff run will go a long way toward further solidifying the franchise's position in the hearts of local fans, especially south of the Fraser River — with Spencer Martin squarely in the spotlight.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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