Thursday, October 1 - Vancouver Canucks 5, Edmonton Oilers 2
Yes, it's standard procedure for the Vancouver Canucks to score a bunch of goals and walk away with a win when they visit the Edmonton Oilers, but Thursday night's game was a little bit different.
Rather than watching the Sedins feast offensively, this time it was Vancouver's young guns who led the way against, essentially, Edmonton's opening-night lineup on their way to a 5-2 victory.
Here are your highlights:
A young line of Sven Baertschi, Bo Horvat and Jake Virtanen made the difference. Grouped together for the first time, they combined for 10 points on the night: Baertschi collected four assists, Horvat had two goals and one assist and Virtanen added two assists and the most talked-about goal of the night—a deflection of a Yannick Weber slap shot that went into the net off his face.
The goal made the score 4-2 for Vancouver, effectively putting the game out of reach for the Oilers. There was a good deal of concern for a bleeding Virtanen as he crouched on the ice in front of the net, but he gave the crowd the "I'm OK" wave as he headed to the dressing room and—to their credit—they gave him a cheer for his resiliency. I guess the hard feelings over the Connor McDavid hit at the Young Stars tournament have now been erased.
Virtanen was cut for nine stitches.
Following in the footsteps of Brendan Gaunce from one game earlier, Virtanen did return to action one period later, and assisted on Bo Horvat's second goal of the night, just 54 seconds into the final frame.
As a Canucks fan, it was pretty thrilling to see Vancouver's young players go toe-to-toe against the speedy youth of the Oilers—and dominate. Even the Edmonton scribes took notice:
Thursday's game was also a coming-out party for Yannick Weber, who picked up his first two points of the season—a goal and an assist, both on the power play.
Ben Hutton got off to a rough start when a bad clearing attempt on his first shift of the game allowed Connor McDavid and Taylor Hall to combine for the opening goal at just 1:29 of the first period. Rather than get rattled, Hutton settled down immediately after that, scoring a goal and finishing the night at plus-one in 19:24 of ice time—paired with Luca Sbisa for most of the night.
Thursday's win came not only without the Sedins, but also without Vancouver's top defensive pairing of Chris Tanev and Alex Eder. Alex Biega and Matt Bartkowski also had solid nights.
Virtanen's best game of preseason put him back in the conversation as a prospect who could or should be on the opening-night roster.
After the game, Willie talked about having "hard decisions" to make, but set the stage for guys to be disappointed when they get assigned back to junior or to Utica.
As much as I'd like to see more from the kids when the regular season begins, I will do my best to temper my expectations.
Taylor Fedun has now cleared waivers, and he and Richard Bachman have been officially assigned to Utica, so the team remains at 17 forwards and nine defensemen, including the injured Chris Higgins. Four more cuts will need to be made.
As well as he has played, I presume Alex Biega is destined for Utica. Pretty sure Ronald Kenins is as well—he doesn't need to clear waivers and had another uneventful (and hitless) game last night in Edmonton.
I assumed Adam Cracknell was an AHL signing when he was brought in, but he has had a good camp and shown some versatility. It wouldn't surprise me to see him on the opening-night roster, especially since the Canucks start the season with back-to-back games against Calgary.
That leaves Virtanen, Gaunce, McCann and Hutton as the rookies pushing for places. There's room for at least two of them. If Benning wants to keep anybody else around, he'll have to put Cracknell or somebody else—Linden Vey?—on waivers.
The waiver wire has been loaded up with some pretty decent players over the past couple of days, as many teams find themselves in similar positions. At this time of year, it's relatively easy to sneak players through to the minors, since so many teams are tight for roster spots and/or salary-cap space.
I'm looking forward to seeing the rematch between the Canucks and Oilers at Rogers Arena on Saturday. Edmonton was 6-0 in preseason before last night's setback, so today is new coach Todd McLellan's first opportunity to give his team a taste of what they'll be in for when things don't go well.
A couple of other quick notes to wrap up today:
• As expected, former Canuck and World Junior gold medal-winning coach Scott Walker has joined Vancouver's management group, as a player development consultant. A good hire!
• Finally,
Elliotte Friedman has sad news on Vancouver Island hockey icon Larry Orr, who drew a thunderous standing ovation when he dropped the puck for the ceremonial faceoff last week at Kraft Hockeyville:
Orr was a huge part of the area’s hockey community, a man Jordie Benn called “the father figure of the peninsula,” in an interview with Kevin Woodley of NHL.com. From the Benn brothers to Matt Irwin to Ryan O’Byrne and beyond, he helped so many young players have the equipment necessary to play.
Orr died of cancer Tuesday night at age 73, but his legacy is immense. As the cost of playing hockey continues to be one of the sport’s biggest challenges, communities need people like him to make sure children get a chance to compete. All the best to his wife, Sandy, and sons Darcy and Derek — the golf professional at Shaughnessy Country Club.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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