Tuesday April 1: New York Rangers 3 - Vancouver Canucks 1
It seems appropriate that Alain Vigneault's New York Rangers would be the team to finally crush the Vancouver Canucks' minuscule playoff chances right down to zero with their win on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
Dallas shut out Washington on Tuesday by a 5-0 score, while Phoenix lost to Winnipeg in a shootout, so that puts both those teams six points up on the Canucks, who have just five games left on their schedule. According to
SportsClubStats.com, that's enough to officially put the playoff idea to bed.
Will we finally get a chance to see Jacob Markstrom?
Vancouver's games are well spaced out the rest of the way; there's only a back-to-back against Edmonton and Calgary to wrap up the season. Markstrom should certainly get one of those games—most likely the road game in Edmonton. I'd like to see him get a shot against the Ducks next week as well, since Eddie has had a couple of less-than-stellar games against Anaheim.
That'll probably be the most action he sees. Two games to make an assessment about whether to keep him around next year—hmmm.
Speaking of Markstrom, Roberto Luongo remains sidelined with what's being called a "strained neck" over on the TSN.ca
injury page. He's listed as "questionable" for the Panthers' next game on Friday.
The Canucks are practicing Wednesday at noon at Rogers Arena, so maybe we'll start to get some indication from Torts about whether or not he'll give the youngsters a more prominent role as the team plays out the string.
But first—a little more about Tuesday's game.
For two teams heading in different directions in the standings, I thought the Canucks and Rangers were pretty evenly matched. It wasn't like the Anaheim game, where the Ducks were able to turn up the gas in spurts, just enough to put Vancouver in its place. If I was a Rangers fan, I wouldn't be planning the parade route down Broadway just yet.
Yes, Vancouver got into another early 2-0 hole, but luck was on the Rangers' side on both those goals. Dan Carcillo made it 1-0 at 4:59 when he banged home a puck that Eddie Lack thought he had frozen. Daniel Sedin said flat-out in his in-rink interview during one of the intermissions that "the first goal shouldn't have counted." There was plenty of arguing from the team and booing in the stands, but no video review or talk of "intent to blow the whistle."
The second Rangers goal came on the power play, with Tom Sestito off for high sticking. The penalty kill was going great, with a couple of easy, early clears. Then Alex Edler's stick broke when he used it to block a shot from Brad Richards. I was impressed at how quickly Ryan Kesler handed over his stick to Edler, and how the Canucks maintained their box, but clearly the concentration was lost. Benoit Pouliot snuck behind the defensive formation and was wide open when he tipped a sweet pass from Derick Brassard into a gaping net after Eddie Lack committed in the opposite direction.
For a player that's never been on my radar, Pouliot was terrific all night. A fourth-overall pick in 1999, the 27-year-old has bounced around from team to team over the last few years. He was signed by the Rangers as a free agent on a one-year, $1.3 million deal last summer. Pouliot matched his career high with 32 points on Tuesday—hardly dazzling numbers, but he has five points in his last five games and was New York's best forward, named the third star of the night.
As for the Canucks, it looks to me like Daniel Sedin, Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows have taken a big step forward, health-wise, from the way they've been hobbling around for the last few games. Kesler was the Canucks' best player, logging 22:10 of ice time and recording seven shot attempts and six hits. He scored Vancouver's only goal and was the most engaged Canuck all night—not looking at all like a guy who has checked out.
Daniel also had three shots—which is high for him these days—and assisted on Kesler's goal, while Burrows had three shots, three hits and one unfortunate elbowing major late in the game.
I didn't mind the play at all. I was happy to see the Canucks competing right to the final whistle—it was just unfortunate that Ryan McDonagh went down in such obvious pain.
He appears to be fine, though. Doesn't sound like he'll miss any action:
I wondered if there was something wonky with the ice in that spot to the left of the far goal last night? McDonagh's injury happened in almost the same place as Zack Kassian's fall at the end of the first period, which also looked like it had done some serious damage. He was writhing in pain on the ice for several minutes before being helped off the ice by his teammates, putting no weight at all on his right leg, so I was stunned to see him back, competing, for the rest of the game.
What may have hurt Kassian more than his kneecap was his horrible pass-attempt back to Yannick Weber on the point while Vancouver was trying to get back into the game on consecutive third-period power plays. Weber dove to his right to try to keep the puck in the zone but he missed, allowing Rick Nash and Marty St. Louis to execute a perfect two-on-one to put the game out of reach and finally get last year's Rocket Richard Trophy winner his first goal as a Ranger.
At this point, an unfortunate read by Kassian, but I'll take it. I was glad to see him and Nick Jensen getting power play time; hope they get more through the rest of the season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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