Saturday October 11 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Edmonton Oilers 4 (S/O)
In addition to all his other skills, it seems that Willie Desjardins has a keen sense of timing.
With five days off before the Canucks' next game on Friday, the coach could easily have scheduled his shootout practice for some time in the coming week.
Instead, it happened on Friday, and maybe it made a difference in Desjardins' player selections. Chris Higgins scored the only goal to cap off a Canucks comeback and earn the team's second win of the season.
Here are your highlights—enough to make up a package that's 8:27 long!
Despite falling behind 2-0 and 4-2, the Canucks were able to muster enough firepower to come back and seize the win. Daniel Sedin led the way with three assists and six shots on goal.
Though the play was often scrambly on both sides, the addition of Radim Vrbata to the twins' line is looking better with every passing game. The first line is a force, offensively, and the power play looks lethal for the first time in years.
The Canucks went two-for-seven with the man advantage on Saturday and threatened often. If they can get back to a place where other teams will have to worry about the consequences of taking penalties on the Canucks, that should really help to open up the ice.
Daniel says Vrbata is making a difference on the power play in Jason Botchford's
Provies.
Yes,” Daniel said. “And Vey too. He does a lot of the dirty work in the high slot. He doesn’t get a lot of touches but he’s dragging people to him.
“It’s fun right now for Henrik because when he has the puck, he has a lot of options.”
Vey was rewarded with his first-ever NHL goal—the power-play beauty that tied the game seven minutes into the third period. He got people talking about his play, and won 57 percent of his draws on Saturday, but still finished the night with a minus-two. Still, if he can be a key piece of the first unit, his job will definitely be secure for awhile.
Zack Kassian and Jannik Hansen, maybe not so much. Kassian got shuffled down to the fourth line and finished the night a minus-two as well, in 11:15 of ice time, with one shot on goal. Hansen.
But hey—Chris Higgins is looking like a legitimate top-six forward, doncha think? He was a plus-one on the night, played nearly 18 minutes, and popped that all-important shootout goal to win the game.
As for Alex Edler, he also finished the night with a plus-one, led the team in ice time, and won the team's Corsi battle for the second straight game.
Dan Hamhuis also had a super-engaged game, playing more than 23 minutes, tying for the team lead in hits with Derek Dorsett and Chris Higgins (!) and—yep—fighting Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
That was a strange sight: two B.C. boys throwing down, visor-to-visor. Apparently Hamhuis' last fight came in 2010 while he was still with Nashville—against our very own Alex Burrows—while this is the first-ever tilt for the Nuge, who put on
12 pounds of muscle in the offseason and looks ready to use it!
But seriously—it's pretty great to see two normally mild-mannered guys get caught up in the moment like that, and was just one component of a game that was described all-round as much more entertaining than anything we saw last year.
As for Ryan Miller, his game was a bit of an adventure. But on a night where Roberto Luongo got pulled 2:47 into the second period after giving up five goals on 14 shots (and while facing off against Cory Schneider, don't forget), it was good to see Miller dial in his game in the third period and play with confidence in the shootout.
I hadn't realized this is something he's known for:
Better shootouts and a better power play? What a season this could be!
The Canucks open the year with two wins. But against Calgary and Edmonton, any other result would have had the city in panic mode.
Now they have five days to rest and—I dunno—work on defensive systems?—before the rematch with the Oilers next Friday.
We'll have plenty of time between now and then to break down what we've seen so far.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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