Sunday December 7 - Ottawa Senators 4 - Vancouver Canucks 3 (OT)
After building an early three-goal lead, penalties proved to be the undoing of the Vancouver Canucks, who fell 4-3 in overtime to the Ottawa Senators in a wild game on Sunday.
Here are your highlights:
The turning point in the game was a Chris Tanev penalty for deflecting the puck over the glass. Assessed at 10:45 of the second period while Radim Vrbata was already in the penalty box for interference, it took the Senators' power-play just eight seconds to score the team's first goal of the night and start the comeback.
The desperate Senators played hard as they fought to end their five-game winless streak. Mike Zibanejad was named first star with two goals and two assists in arguably the best game of his career—he had nine points in total in his previous 24 games this season.
Defenseman Erik Karlsson put in such a monster performance,
The Hockey News has a story today about how Karlsson may have had the best advanced stats game ever on Sunday. He had a jaw-dropping 23 shot attempts and the Sens attempted 52 shots while he was on the ice, compared to just 17 for Vancouver.
I did Stats for the game last night. With the final shot totals 45-33 in favour of Ottawa and another 25 shots blocked by the Canucks, it was a busy one!
Even the twins were in on the shot-blocking action, I noticed early—which led me to believe that Willie had explicitly instructed the forwards to help out more defensively after all the breakdowns in Toronto on Saturday.
Like the Canucks' own 4-3 overtime win over the Sens back on Remembrance Day, the run and gun style led to plenty of chances, but the Canucks lost their momentum with those three straight penalties after they took a 3-0 lead in the second period.
I try not to dwell too much on bad calls by the officials. Even with all our video review these days, they still happen, and they tend to even out over the course of the season. But there's no doubt that Radim Vrbada did score what could have been the winning goal. It didn't count because the ref blew the whistle after having lost sight of the puck, even though the replay clearly showed that the puck was loose in front of Craig Anderson the whole time.
I can't find video of the play, but I did find Vrbata's postgame comment. Pretty spicy from a guy who normally keeps his cool:
Perhaps the Senators' management took that moment into account when they made the unusual move of firing coach Paul MacLean on Monday morning—after a big comeback win. Can't say I saw that coming, even though the Sens remain four points out of a Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference.
The game's other controversial moment came early in the second period, when tough guy Chris Neil refused to take no for an answer as he tried to engage Derek Dorsett in a fight. Dorsett's a gamer, but wanted no part of the idea. He took some punishment, including one last shot when he was down on the ice that threw him into a rage.
Though both players were sat down for 15 minutes, Dorsett avoided extra punishment—probably because it was quite clear that Neil had crossed the line, as our own Paul Stewart
explains today.
Here are Dorsett's postgame comments:
So. Out of all that, the Canucks did pick up a point, which pushes their record on the road trip to 3-2-1 for seven points in six games. With Tuesday's contest in Montreal still to play before the team heads back to Vancouver, they're assured of a result that's no worse than .500, which isn't bad considering the duration and tough competition.
It seems like the guys could be running out of gas, though. Hopefully the buzz of Jean Beliveau's memorial ceremony before Tuesday's game will spark them to one last good performance before they can come home and get some rest.
One other note before I sign off for today: It looks like I was wrong about Stephane Robidas earning a conversation with the Department of Player Safety for his elbow that has knocked Shawn Matthias to the sidelines.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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