Saturday November 26 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Colorado Avalanche 2 (S/O)
Playing their third game in four nights, on a back-to-back, at altitude, mostly with five defensemen, the Vancouver Canucks rode a shootout goal by Markus Granlund to a 3-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night.
Here are your highlights:
After struggling to get leads in games through the early part of the season, the Canucks scored first for the fourth consecutive game when Loui Eriksson scored his fifth of the season on the power play at the 3:46 mark of the first period.
Though he didn't get his first goal as a Canuck until the 14th game of the season, Eriksson now seems to have settled in, with five tallies in his last nine games. He's also responsible for the Canucks' last two power-play goals and is currently tied for fifth in team scoring.
The other big news of the first period was an injury to Alex Edler, who left the game midway through the frame after blocking a shot with his hand.
Edler taking the shot to the hand. He barely used it rest of the shift, before leaving the bench later. pic.twitter.com/qYquTah3d8
Edler can be frustrating to watch, with his shattering sticks and his point shots that get blocked, but he's the defensive glue that holds this team together. He has missed one game due to injury so far this season—the 6-3 loss to Toronto on November 5.
Edler was also injured in Denver last season. The Canucks were 20-20-12 when they went into the Pepsi Center on February 9th. They won the game 3-1 but suffered two season-ending injuries, losing Edler to a broken leg and Brandon Sutter to a broken jaw. That's where the season fell apart—the rest of the way, Vancouver went 11-18-1.
To make matters worse, it looked for a time like the club would be down to just four defensemen later in the first period after Luca Sbisa crumpled on a weird fly-by cross-check from Blake Comeau.
Thankfully, Sbisa missed only the last 1:36 of the first period. He took a regular shift the rest of the way and finished with 24:06 of ice time.
Without Edler, Ben Hutton ended up being the high-minute man at a career-high 26:02. Troy Stecher also player a career-high at 24:30 and so did Nikita Tryamkin, at 20:10. That's a lot of heavy lifting by a pretty raw group of blueliners, and we'll be seeing a lot more of them if Edler is out for any period of time.
Philip Larsen is ready to get back into action, so here's how the pairings could look when the Canucks open a three-game homestand against Minnesota on Tuesday.
This is not an endorsement, but if Edler is gone, I bet WD goes with Hutton-Gud as the top pair. Tryamkin-Stecher, Sbisa-Larsen.
Up front, Willie Desjardins once again limited the use of his fourth liners, but Joseph LaBate managed to take advantage of his 4:41 of ice time to tangle with one of the NHL's last remaining heavyweights, Cody McLeod, for his first big-league scrap.
The game's other highlights included this gorgeous pass from Bo Horvat to Alex Burrows to set up the Canucks' second goal early in the third period.
The goalies were the first two stars of the game, with Jacob Markstrom deservedly earning top honours. The Avs outshot the Canucks 35-31 in the game and dominated puck possession for long stretches, but Markstrom was outstanding in his first game in a week—especially considering that he also withstood a couple of nasty collisions over the course of the game. At 6'6", Markstrom goes down hard, but he shows an impressive ability to get back up and just keep going!
The win moves Vancouver up to 25th place in the bunched-up NHL standings, sandwiched between Carolina and Winnipeg as one of three teams with 20 points. They're now 4-3-1 since snapping the losing streak and, while still sixth in the Pacific Division, are currently just three points out of a Western Conference wild-card spot.
A couple of other quick updates before I sign off for the day.
First, more details on Sven Baertschi's foot injury from The Province. Iain MacIntyre has been on the road with the team:
It wasn’t the first shot to the foot that injured Sven Baertschi Wednesday in Phoenix, but a second one late in the game that ruptured his skin. Blood spilled from Baertschi’s skate after the game. The cut required stitches, which burst the next day.
Desperate to play Friday in Dallas after scoring three points against the Coyotes in the game he dedicated to former Vancouver Giants captain Craig Cunningham, Baertschi tried skating in the morning but had to abort due to discomfort and inflammation.
Pain and the risk of infection kept the winger out of the lineup again against the Avalanche, but the Canucks are hopeful Baertschi will be able to play Tuesday when Vancouver opens a three-game homestand against the Minnesota Wild.
Second, Dhiren Mahiban caught up with Jake Virtanen in Toronto yesterday, where the Utica Comets dropped a 4-1 decision to the Toronto Marlies. From The Hockey News:
"Playing 20 minutes a night almost is pretty nice," Virtanen told Mahiban. "You’ve got to get that feeling back from junior, that’s what I’m trying to build off. I was playing all the time in junior and I want to come down here and play lots of minutes and get that confidence."
He recognizes that his path so far has been less than ideal.
"For the development, I bet you Vancouver would’ve wanted me come down here for a year (as a 19-year-old), just for the experience," Virtanen said. "But with the whole 20-year-old thing, they had to send me here this year. Obviously my goal is to get back to Vancouver as quick as possible and that’s what I want to do."
Virtanen also doesn't bite when asked about the "stuff" he needed to collect when he returned briefly to Vancouver before settling into Utica for this longer-term stay.
"I honestly have no idea, to be honest," he said. "I actually still don’t understand that really."
Virtanen has two assists, no penalties and is a minus-1 in his seven games so far with the Comets.
Finally, the Canucks and Sabres were linked once again in this Saturday's edition of the Headlines on Hockey Night in Canada.
Friedman says Buffalo's been watching Utica "quite a bit"
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