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Vancouver Canucks winning, make no headway in standings as road trip begins |
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The Vancouver Canucks have hit the road for their last major trip of 2016. It's a five-gamer through the Eastern Conference, which starts off with a date against the New Jersey Devils.
Our old pal Cory Schneider is confirmed to be starting in net on Tuesday in Newark. The Devils are coming off a 5-4 overtime win in Nashville on Saturday, where they came back from a 4-1 deficit after two periods to grab the win. They stayed overnight in Nashville and apparently had some fun before coming home.
The other highlight of this trip for Canucks fans will be Saturday's visit to Florida—to check in on Roberto Luongo, see how the team is adjusting to new coach Tom Rowe (1-1-1 so far) and log Erik Gudbranson's first game against his old squad. Jared McCann was sent down to the minors on November 21 after going 1-2-3 in 17 games with the Panthers. He's 1-1-2 so far in five games with the Springfield Thunderbirds.
Nearly a month has now passed since the Canucks snapped their losing streak. In that time, they're a respectable 7-4-1 but have made only slight gains in the standings—they start the week 26th overall.
They're still only four points out of a wild-card berth, but haven't been able to move out of sixth place in the Pacific Division standings. Their opponents keep getting points, too!
Here's how the division stacks up right now, with each team's record over its last 10 games:
1. San Jose Sharks, 31 points, 6-3-1
2. Edmonton Oilers, 31 points, 5-3-2
3. Anaheim Ducks, 29 points, 5-3-2
4. Los Angeles Kings, 28 points, 6-2-2
5. Calgary Flames, 28 points, 6-3-1
6. Vancouver Canucks, 24 points, 6-3-1
7. Arizona Coyotes, 20 points, 3-3-4
If you ignore Arizona, the other six teams are tracking on very similar trajectories. L.A. has the best 10-game record with 14 points, while Edmonton and Anaheim are the worst with 12 points. The Sharks, Flames and Canucks land in the middle with 13 points gained.
So—it's great that the Canucks aren't losing ground, like Arizona has been. But if these trends continue, it's going to be extremely difficult to make any kind of a move into a playoff position. Games within the division will be crucial and Vancouver hasn't done well on that count so far this season. They're 3-3-1 so far, but two of those wins have come against the Coyotes.
The schedule around the Christmas break will be crucial. Once the Canucks get back from the road trip, they'll play home games against Tampa Bay and Columbus, then six games against division/conference rivals—two against the Jets and singles against Calgary, L.A., Anaheim and Edmonton.
The big news of the day—long-term injured reserve for Derek Dorsett.
The report says that Dorsett's spinal surgery will be performed in California. It's expected that he'll make a full recovery and be able to return to hockey, though no timetable is being offered for that return. Neck surgery is usually serious business—we have probably seen the last of Dorsett for this season.
Dorsett played 71 games in 2015-16 and 14 this year, so he has crossed that 70-game threshold that's needed to count him as one of the two veteran forwards that the Canucks will be required to expose in next spring's expansion draft.
On that same note—Luca Sbisa has five games to go. If he stays healthy, he'll be qualified by the end of this road trip.
I expect Sbisa will continue to carry a big share of the defensive responsibilities during this trip. His ice time has gone from 19:41 to 21:06 to 24:23 in the three games since Alex Edler was injured. That 24:23 on Saturday was still 43 seconds less than team leader Ben Hutton but was Sbisa's highest ice-time total of the last two years.
He had a couple of 25-plus minute games when paired with Kevin Bieksa during his first season in Vancouver but is handling the responsibilities much better this time around—plus-one with two assists in his last three games.
Speaking of Bieksa, he may be a Duck now, but he got some revenge on Micheal Ferland for the Canucks' 2015 playoff loss in Calgary on Sunday night:
Ferland was injured in the fight.
Here's how the Canucks lines look at today's practice in New Jersey:
No changes; Joe LaBate and Alex Biega continue to skate as the extras.
I wonder if Biega will bump Philip Larsen off that third pairing at some point on this trip? The Canucks do have one set of back-to-back games which could facilitate some roster juggling—Saturday in Florida, then a 5 p.m. ET game on Sunday in Washington.
I also wonder if Jannik Hansen might return at some point on this trip? I don't think he travelled with the team, but he did skate with the other extras last Friday at UBC. The original prognosis for his fractured rib was 4-6 weeks—it has now been four weeks and two days since he was injured in Toronto on November 5.
I don't expect to see Alex Edler or Chris Tanev on this trip. Tanev was not with the group on the ice at UBC last week and as far as I know, he hasn't started skating yet. His last appearance was that one game in Montreal on November 2 but he has basically been on the shelf since October 23—just over six weeks ago.
A couple of other quick notes to wrap up today:
And a shout-out to Thatcher Demko for back-to-back wins over New Jersey's farm team, the Albany Devils, this past weekend. The 2-1 road win on Friday and 3-1 home win on Saturday marked the first-ever regulation victories over the Devils for the Comets franchise, which is now in its fourth season.
With a division-leading 7-3-0-0 record in their last 10 games, the Comets have moved up to fifth place in the AHL's North Division with a record of 9-11-1-0 overall. Demko's record is now 6-4-1 with a 2.52 goals-against average and .911 save percentage. He has played five of six Comets games since Richard Bachman was injured on November 19, and has gone 4-1-0.
Jake Virtanen also picked up his first-ever AHL goal in Friday's win over the Devils—and it was a beauty!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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