The Canucks lost 4-3 to Dallas in OT with 10 seconds left, right after Petey couldn’t tuck home a goal on a two-on-oh break right before that. However, with the 1 point on the evening, the Canucks are in 1st place in the NHL. Wowza. Here are your highlights:
The Canucks haven’t exactly been coming out of the gates hot as of late, and that showed up again on the shot clock in the 1st period and through the 2nd. Thankfully, the Canucks have been allowing teams a lot of less-dangerous and outside shots all year, and that seems to be a point of strategy for Tocchet and the guys, as the Canucks held 1-0 and 2-1 leads within the first two periods. Here’s a shot heat map from HockeyViz.com/the Province that shows how they kept the middle of the ice pretty clean against a good Dallas team:
Maybe it’s the schedule and tired legs catching up to the team: no team in the NHL has played more games than the Canucks since October 31st. But, after extending their point streak to 8 games and ending the road-trip 2-0-2, if that is one thing that’s weighing them down, then it should be a boost when their schedule lightens up in the future. Tocchet seemed to take a more long-term stance post-game:
“We didn’t have a lot of energy, but I thought we grinded it. That’s what’s good about this team; we didn’t have energy but we stuck with it. We had the lead. The tying goal, we kind of made a couple of mistakes and it’s in our net. Then we had a 2-on-0 in overtime. It’s good to be upset. But just keep your head up and we’ll march on.”
And, there isn’t too too much to complain about right now: the Canucks are leading the league in a lot of categories. They are currently 1st in the NHL on points, 1st in the West by points percentage, 1st in goals for, 1st in goals differential, and 1st in regulation wins. Currently, the team is 22-9-3, when at this point last year they were 13-15-3. Talk about a turnaround. No wonder Tocchet’s name pops up in Jack Adams conversations!
However, one thing to complain about is the powerplay. Overall on the year it’s been good, ranking 8th at the moment. However, that number is a bit skewed. Through the first 17 games, the Canucks converted at a rate of 33.3%, which would currently have them ranked 1st in the league. However, these past 17 games the Canucks have converted at just 13%, which would rank them 28th overall. A powerplay goal here and there is what separates a win from a loss, so this is something the Canucks need to get back on track. It was particularly bad against Dallas, where it was 0-for-3 and didn’t generate a shot in nearly 5 minutes.
The Canucks can look to shift that back Saturday against the Sharks, a good opponent as any with their 5th worse PK percentage.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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