Saturday January 9 - Tampa Bay Lightning 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2
A game-winning goal by Nikita Kucherov spoiled a strong overtime performance by the Vancouver Canucks, who picked up a point against the Tampa Bay Lightning thanks to a late third-period goal by Bo Horvat.
After Saturday's action, the point moves Vancouver back into third place in the Pacific Division. Here are your highlights:
I'll get to more details from the game in a moment but first—it looks like Saturday was Chris Higgins' final appearance in a Canucks uniform.
The team announced via a press release on Sunday that they're exploring trade options for the 32-year-old winger.
Twitter is wondering why the announcement was made in this fashion. Here's part of the answer:
Higgins' status with the team has been a bit of an issue ever since the offseason Summer Summit, when word leaked out that Trevor Linden may have privately told a season-ticket holder in a one-on-one conversation that the team had been trying to trade Higgins, but hadn't found any takers.
Looks to me like the move today was meant to be proactive, before that line of questioning could be pursued again by the paying customers.
Here's another reason for pulling Higgins out of action:
The Higgins move is facilitated by the decision to keep Jake Virtanen with the team and by Friday's acquisition of Emerson Etem.
Higgins played 11:16 last night—2:12 on the penalty kill and the rest on a fourth line with Linden Vey and Virtanen. The only player with less ice time was Virtanen.
This is like Christmas all over again for a lot of the regulars on our comment board:
Higgins has one more year remaining after this on a four-year contract that was signed during the Mike Gillis regime, with a cap hit of $2.5 million. According to
General Fanager via Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet, the deal includes a limited no-trade clause.
Here's more on that:
If Higgins has balked at a potential deal or the Canucks are looking to force his hand a little bit, I would think that could be another reason why the team made the decision to go public.
Right now, the team is OK in terms of roster and cap space, but they're carrying 14 healthy forwards (including Higgins) now that Emerson Etem has been added to the mix. Once Jannik Hansen and/or Brandon Sutter get healthy, even more space will need to be cleared at forward—and that day is quickly drawing near:
Hansen's also not expected to be on the sidelines for long:
Stay tuned for even more deals to come!
One more detail on the Higgins situation:
If they can't find a trade partner, they can put Higgins on waivers and send him down to Utica, which will give them the necessary roster relief—and, I believe, cut his cap hit by $900,000. If a team's interested in Higgins, though, they'd probably be better off to explore the trade route—if the Canucks retain half his salary, his cap hit for a new club would be significantly less than what he'd cost if he was plucked off the waiver wire.
After starting the year with a broken foot suffered after he blocked a shot in the Canucks' first preseason game, Higgins has never really gotten on track. He's 2-1-3 in 25 games played and is a minus-12.
For the record, three other Canucks have worse plus-minus ranks this season: Radim Vrbata is minus-13, Yannick Weber is minus-14, and Bo Horvat is a nasty minus-19.
Bo is forgiven, however. He has been playing over his head for the last two months while Brandon Sutter has been sidelined—fourth on the team in average ice time among forwards behind the twins and Sutter. He has also rediscovered his scoring touch and been named the team's first star for two games in a row.
That's none other than Victor Hedman who gets undressed by Horvat as he sets up Sven Baertschi for the Canucks' first goal on Saturday night:
And here's the goal that tied the game. Once again, a super-confident play!
With the strong recent play of Horvat and Sven Baertschi and hearing that the team is doubling-down on moving out veterans and committing to youth, I won't even bother calling out Henrik Sedin for the horrific play in overtime that led to Saturday's winning goal for the Lightning. The Canucks *are* getting better a 3-on-3—each team got three shots in overtime, which could be a record for Vancouver. Still a work in progress—and a format that seems better-suited to those younger players.
Instead, we'll give the last words to Trevor Linden, from today's event:
Change is coming...
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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