The Canucks salvaged a point in their shootout loss to Minny, losing their 4 game winning streak but keeping their point streak alive. Here are your minimal highlights:
A traveling, earlier, road trip game against a Minnesota Wild team that has allowed just 14 goals in their last 8 games was a tough task for the Canucks. They seemed off their A-game (aside from DeSmith), and at the end of the day the results reflected that.
Zadorov echoed that feeling: “I don't think we were sharp from the start. They were a little bit more competitive than us. Casey kept us in the game and allowed us to take one point.
“A one o'clock game, it's a little bit different preparation. The travel last night, a two-hour difference (travelling east), sometimes it's hard to get your legs going. I thought we had a decent third period; the first two weren't good enough for sure. But, I mean, the best part in this league, you know, we've got a chance to go tomorrow and play better hockey.”
A one goal, low-event hockey game in the afternoon could have been tilted by a powerplay goal or two. The Canucks were stymied on 5 chances, though, even against the 31st ranked PK in the league.
“Same as the five-on-five play, the execution wasn't there,” Tocchet noted of the missed PP opportunities. “We were static. We'd shoot it and nobody’s in front, (and) we got a lot of shots blocked. There was a lot of opportunities to make some plays and I thought we just shot in the shin pads of guys.”
“Definitely, a difference there,” Hughes added. “I mean, four or five power plays, whatever we had, we got some shots on net, but just didn't score.
“I don't think we played bad by any means. Our A-game? Maybe not. But definitely our B-plus plus or B game. We did a lot of good things, they did some good things. I mean, 1-1 game, we had our looks and didn't come up with it.”
The boys traveled after the game to Chicago, so a good nights sleep should get them ready for their tilt with Chicago today. Tocc thinks as much, as well:
“An 82-game schedule, you're going to play games where you have to grind. Some guys, maybe they don't have their legs. I think our team will actually have better legs tomorrow. You could tell guys were a little bit off. But yeah, there's games in an 82-game schedule that you win that you don't deserve. There's games that you have to grind it out and try to play a 1-1 game like we did.”
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