Thursday April 23 - Vancouver Canucks 2 - Calgary Flames 1
Calgary leads best-of-seven series 3-2, Game 6 will be Saturday at 6 p.m. in Calgary
The Vancouver Canucks avoided elimination in front of their home fans with their best game of the playoffs as they beat the Calgary Flames 2-1 at Rogers Arena on Thursday night. Here are your highlights:
With all the fuss that has been made about the wildly passionate crowds in Winnipeg and even the "C of Red" in Calgary, Vancouver's game presentation did everything it could to pump up the faithful in Rogers Arena for Thursday's game. There was plenty of hooting and cheering outside the arena before puck drop, and I think every mic in a very-close-to-full Rogers Arena was turned up to 11 as the Canucks skated onto the ice to the instrumental version of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" while 1994 triple-overtime star "Greg Adams! Greg Adams! Greg Adams!" waved his towel with pride.
I got a little nervous when a new edit of this vintage "Please don't riot" PSA from 2012 ran during the first period. Hadn't considered the possibility that this could be an issue if the Canucks didn't extend the series.
Ryan Kesler and Manny Malhotra have been eliminated from the original version:
I felt better when the Canucks got to the end of the first period trailing 1-0. Vancouver outshot Calgary 17-8 in the opening frame (and in the second period too, coincidentally enough), but they were behind on faceoffs and on the scoreboard thanks to an early goal by David Jones—just like one of their patented regular-season games.
Ryan Miller wasn't tested often but when he was, he looked sharp and confident. The healtfelt ovation he received when he was named third star may have been the best show of support the home crowd has given him all year. They still don't chant his name and haven't come up with some sort of "Loooo" reaction when makes a good save, but Miller's position with this team and this city is going to shift dramatically if the Canucks can dig themselves out of this hole.
Last time more than 1 Canucks goalies got a win in the same playoff series: 2004 vs Flames (3 wins by Cloutier, Hedberg & Auld)
Two other things I liked in the first period: the Canucks successfully killed off an early Ronalds Kenins high-sticking penalty (and eventually went 3-for-3 for the night on the penalty kill) and Henrik Sedin led all Canucks—yes, even the defense—with 7:30 of ice time.
Message received by Willie.
We didn't see much out of Sven Baertschi, who played just 8:57 with Vrbata and Bonino, but he was on the ice for Bonino's goal, which (FINALLY!) tied the game 1-1 with 6:29 left in the second period.
And yes, I love Bonino's towel-waving goal celebration. Seems he's picking up the vibe of what it means to be a Canuck in the playoffs. The "handheld" camera angle in the lower left offers the best view of it:
Other good stuff from a player who has taken a lot of heat in this series:
Bonino took all 4 short-handed face-offs for #Canucks tonight. Won 3 of them. Led all forwards with 2:46 of SH ice-time
Of course, we wouldn't be celebrating the Game 5 win if the twins hadn't combined with Dan Hamhuis to score the winning goal off a third-period offensive-zone draw after a Calgary icing play.
Henrik finished the game with 20:04 of ice time—tops among forwards, with Daniel right behind at 19:22 and linemate Jannik Hansen at 18:32. Hansen didn't make it onto the scoresheet, but he was on the ice for the winning goal, hit one post and generally played an excellent game.
Jannik Hansen gave the #Canucks 7:34 of determined hockey in 3rd period. Led all forwards by a full minute in final frame
But Bonino tells Ben Kuzma a different story in this postgame story in The Province:
Henrik gave a pretty good talk this morning about how they’ve been down 3-1 in series in the past and won and how they’ve been up 3-1 and lost. It kind of of calmed the guys’ nerves down a bit when you know anything can happen. But there weren’t any bad penalties or yelling at the ref, like sometimes we can do. We kept going to the net and thought we would get one eventually.
There's that voice of experience.
A few bodies are missing from practice today, but I'm assuming that's mostly about getting rest for the players who need it.
12 hours later and #Canucks are back on the ice. No Bonino, Kenins, Hansen, Higgins or Richardson at practice. pic.twitter.com/6SlFfAjHte