The sporting world has given us lots of reasons to stay glued to the TV inside instead of enjoying the glorious weekend here in the lower mainland.
Yesterday, we had the historic Triple Crown win by American Pharoah, a 1-0 victory for Canada on a Christine Sinclair penalty in the opening match of the Women's World Cup, a wildly-entertaining 4-3 win for the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 2 of their Stanley Cup Final (with ex-Canuck Jason Garrison scoring the winning goal and being named the game's first star) and a controversial 3-2 overtime loss for the Utica Comets in the first game of their AHL Calder Cup final.
To cap it all off, underdog Stan Wawrinka just achieved the near-impossible, knocking off Novak Djokovic to win the French Open in four sets—a match that was just as skilled and high-tempo as the Stanley Cup game last night. Great stuff all around!
On the hockey front today,
Click here for a brand new edition of Elliotte Friedman's "30 Thoughts."
Lots of material from the Competition Committee, and a good chunk of juice from Boston, including new general manager Don Sweeney calling Milan Lucic a "foundational player." Doesn't sound like he'll be on the move anytime soon.
The only direct reference to the Canucks is this tidbit, musing on this summer's coaching changes:
I was very surprised no one waited to talk to a Scott Arniel (Rangers) or a Kevin Dineen (Blackhawks) about any of the vacant coaching positions. All were filled beforehand.
Vancouver’s AHL coach, Travis Green, will be a candidate next season. And, the whole time these searches were going on, I wondered why we never heard the names of Davis Payne or John Stevens from Los Angeles. In their cases, it sounds like they are locked in to the Kings for now (no outs), not that either would be complaining. Stevens may be the highest-paid assistant coach in the NHL.
Travis Green may need to be the best man in Utica if the Comets hope to stay alive in their Calder Cup championship playoff.
The Comets were outshot 37-17 and once again relied heavily on Jacob Markstrom, but fell 3-2 in overtime to the Manchester Monarchs to drop the first game of the Calder Cup final.
The AHL livestream works great—though the picture quality is certainly not what we're accustomed to when watching NHL games, and the audio broadcast originated out of Manchester, so the support was firmly behind the Monarchs. Still, it's nice to see how the Comets have been working their magic—and it appears that there is some sleight of hand involved.
The two teams are right back at it today, at 2 p.m. PT. Here's that livestream information once again if you'd care to tune in:
I'm not tooooo concerned about the fact that the Comets got outshot. I think that has happened many times before in these playoffs. What does worry me is that in addition to dominating possession, the Monarchs also seemed to dominate a physical game that bubbled with plenty of emotion, even as the teams were just starting to get to know each other in their first meeting of the year.
Also—injuries. Manchester defenseman Jeff Schultz left the game in the first period after a heavy hit from Jake Virtanen and did not return, but Utica had limited success in trying to penetrate a team that was undermanned on defense.
More importantly for Canucks/Comets fans, Sven Baertschi's questionable for Game 2.
Baertschi scored Utica's first goal on a nice-looking power play before he was injured. His scoring touch will be missed if he's not available today.
At this point, Baertschi's status remains uncertain.
Cory Conacher scored Utica's other goal—a bit of a floater against the flow of the play. That's his fifth of the playoffs—and his best offensive run in years.
Worth noting—Conacher has been down this road before. As property of Tampa Bay, he was part of the Norfolk Admirals team that won the Calder Cup title in 2012 alongside players like Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn—and was coached by Jon Cooper. Conacher was third in team scoring during that playoff run with two goals and 15 points—one ahead of Johnson.
It certainly looked to me like Jacob Markstrom was bumped on Manchester's overtime winner by Michael Mersch, but he appeared to have been using a sneaky technique to knock the net off the moorings all game long when the Comets' defense got into trouble—plunging forward, then propelling his prone body backwards into the net, using his height to reach the very back of the net and dislodge it with his feet.
Again—the video's not great at the AHL level, so I can't say for sure. But it's something I'll try to watch in today's game. If the Comets can bounce back today with a win, they'll have home-ice advantage in their pockets, with the next three games in Utica as part of the 2-3-2 format.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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