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Canucks tweak their lines after letting another lead slip away in Philly |
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Saturday October 15 - Philadelphia Flyers 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Monday October 17 - Vancouver Canucks at Washington Capitals - 4 p.m. PT - CityTV, Sportsnet Pacific
Two games aren't enough to start becoming concerned about patterns. But the Vancouver Canucks' loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday was eerily similar to the defeat they suffered three days earlier, in their season opener in Edmonton.
Blown multi-goal lead? Check. Disappointing power play? Check. Shorthanded goal against? Check. And J.T. Miller on the ice every single time the opposition scores? Check on that as well.
Miller brought some serious scrutiny onto himself when he pointed out to the media after Saturday's loss that he has been on the ice for all eight of the Canucks goals against so far.
Hopefully it will help, bringing this unfortunate trend into the light. Maybe by being publicly accountable, he can take the first step toward putting his slow start behind him.
After a pretty lacklustre preseason, as well, I wonder how much he has been impacted by being separated from his family? When he signed his new contract, he mentioned that his wife and kids, including his new baby, were staying back in Pittsburgh until after this first road trip.
They made it up to Philly for Saturday's game and, hopefully, will all be back together in Vancouver in a week's time.
And Miller's certainly not the only top player who has underperformed to start the year. I sure hope the chatter around Bo Horvat's contract isn't feeling like a distraction to him.
Once they can get some circumstances to break their way, that should help them find their swagger again. And while it's far too early to glean anything meaningful from the standings, the bad news is that Vegas has already built a six-point cushion by skating out to a 3-0-0 record under new coach Bruce Cassidy. But the good news is that the rest of the conference is pretty bunched together. Calgary, Dallas and Nashville are the only other teams with more than one win, so the Canucks haven't lost too much ground on the rest of the pack yet.
A couple of other notes from Saturday's game, on the defensive front:
• Very good game from Kyle Burroughs, who opened the scoring with his second career NHL goal and was one assist away from a Gordie Howe hat trick after dropping the gloves with fearsome Nic Deslauriers in the third period. Given how things are going for the Canucks on the right side of their blue line, they're very fortunate that, at 27, Burroughs now appears to be a legitimate NHL defenseman — an easy guy to root for who plays a responsible game and can bring the physicality on a team where that is sometimes in short supply. When he chips in offensively like he did on Saturday, that's a bonus.
• Tucker Poolman watch is on again, after he left Saturday's game following the first period with an undisclosed ailment. Of course, the concern is that it's related to the migraines that plagued him last season. There was no official update at practice in Washington on Sunday.
Poolman didn't practice so that put Jack Rathbone into regular rotation and Riley Stillman over to the right side.
In his small two-game sample, Stillman seems like he has been fine so far — and with Poolman absent, he saw a big jump in his ice time in Philly, up to 16:47 after playing 11:20 in Game 1. Apparently he has some experience on the right side — but it is interesting that Bruce Boudreau chose to make that adjustment lower down the lineup rather than trying to go back to the OEL/Hughes pairing that drew all the headlines in preseason.
Up front, Boudreau has also made some changes as he gets set to return to his old stomping grounds still looking for his 600th career win — he has now been stuck on 599 since the second-last game of last season.
The big switch is at centre, where J.T. Miller slotted in with Vasily Podkolzin and Conor Garland while Bo Horvat centred Tanner Pearson and Brock Boeser. Curtis Lazar also got bumped up, switching spots with Nils Hoglander. But that might be temporary — that spot on Elias Pettersson's right wing will go to Ilya Mikheyev as soon as he's deemed healthy enough to play by the team's medical staff.
As the road trip continues with back-to-backs in Washington and Columbus, we should soon see Spencer Martin in net for the first time this season. I'd guess that'll happen on Tuesday against the Blue Jackets.
And while the Flyers seemed like a beatable opponent heading into Saturday's game, it's still too early to really assess just how much John Tortorella is going to be able to squeeze out of his team. It looks like his methods are certainly working on Travis Konecny, who has three goals and four points in his first two games.
The Capitals and Blue Jackets could be more vulnerable. Washington has started the season 1-2-0, and Darcy Kuemper got his first win with his new team in a 3-1 victory over Montreal on Saturday, after the Caps started their year with losses to Boston and Toronto. The Caps are without injured forwards Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson and Carl Hagelin, who are all out long term, and Alex Ovechkin is off to a slow start with just one assist in his first three games — although I bet Andrei Kuzmenko is pumped for the chance to play against him.
The Caps will be playing their fourth game in six nights when they host Vancouver on Monday night.
I'll have more on the Blue Jackets in the next blog on Tuesday morning. For now, just know that they've opened with three straight multi-goal losses and been outscored 14-5. That being said, they have faced three very good teams in Carolina, Tampa Bay and St. Louis.
Finally — the Abbotsford Canucks were able to right their ship after a rough opener. It was an inauspicious debut for Collin Delia in net as the Baby Canucks fell 8-2 to the Ontario Reign on Friday night. Abbotsford actually had a 2-1 lead in that game at the 4:22 mark of the first period, off goals from Justin Dowling and Arshdeep Bains, but the wheels fell off completely after that. It was 3-2 for Ontario after one, 6-2 after two, and Delia got pulled after the seventh goal, scored with 5:54 left to play in the third period.
An odd time for a pull, especially with replacement Arturs Silovs set to start on Saturday in Bakersfield. Mikey DiPietro backed up in that game, so I wonder if there was an injury issue for Delia?
Whatever the situation in net, things went much better against Edmonton's farm squad. After falling behind 2-0 in the first period, Abbotsford got goals from Vincent Arseneau and Carson Focht to tie the game by the 50-second-mark of the second. There was no further scoring in regulation, and Abbotsford outshot Bakersfield 37-27 by the time Linus Karlsson potted the game winner at 3:09 of overtime.
That was his first official North American goal. He also assisted on both goals on Friday night.
Abbotsford heads to Washington state next weekend, to take on Seattle's brand-new farm team, the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Because their new arena in Palm Springs is not quite ready, the Firebirds are starting with some 'home away from home' games. Friday, they'll play at the Kraken's practice rink, the Seattle Community Iceplex, but on Sunday they're in the big time, at Climate Pledge Arena.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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