The Canucks’ expected perfect road trip was tarnished Thursday night, losing 2-1 to the Blues. Missed opportunities and lack of finish made the difference last night. Here are your highlights:
Not the best way to start the longest road trip of the year: the Canucks just couldn’t bury their chances in a close loss that they played alright in. After the ever-steady 3rd line gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead two minutes into the first, the Canucks missed a number of opportunities to add to that throughout the game, especially in the third.
“I thought we missed a glorious chance (to win) in the third,” Tocchet said. “We had about four or five missed nets. We've got to hit the net on those shots. We had some guys going, some guys weren't, but we had some chances we didn't bury.”
I guess you can keep that PDO sky high if you don’t even register a shot on net?
Either way, the Canucks needed more from their top 6, and it wasn’t there. Would a healthy-scratch Kuzmenko have helped? Not that he’s been on fire this season, but his skill-set is one that can break a game for a goal or two. The Canucks are (small sample size incoming) 2-3-1 without him in the lineup, and 22-8-2 with him. As has been discussed, the Canucks need to get another top 6 forward or two, as the top of their lineup has stumbled recently. This is an interesting little tidbit from MacIntyre:
In the last nine games, the third-line trio has generated 10 goals and 27 points. With 10 points, Blueger leads Vancouver in scoring during that three-week stretch, one point ahead of Joshua and two ahead of Garland, whose eight points ties him for third on the team with J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson over the nine games.
It’s not terrible that the third line is putting up points at the moment, but you need your top two centers to make a difference in close games. And last night, the potential 10-14 million dollar Swede did not. Having a consistent Kuzmenko in the top 6 would be a big help for this team, though he seems more likely to be traded than to become a staple again right now.
There were a couple pluses from yesterday though:
The Knights lost in regulation, and the Kings in OT, so the Canucks still sit atop the Pacific for now. Last year at this time, MoneyPuck had the Canucks at 2.5% playoff odds, while this year they’re sitting at 98.9%! (Are those advanced stats? Are projections expectations? I’ll let you hash that out.)
As well, Quinn Hughes – to no one’s surprise – was named to the All Star team. I think a couple other boys will make their way onto the team, hopefully have a solid Canucks representation there this year.
“It's a great honour; it's hard to get in there,” Hughes said. “I believe we've got four or five guys that should be in there. It is what it is with the league doing one guy from every team, but hopefully we get another guy or two in there.”
The Canucks are back at it Saturday against the Devils, and likely with Kuzmenko back in the lineup (unless he gets traded… there’s a lot of teams just a bus ride away in the east.)
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