Thursday February 9 - Vancouver Canucks 3 - Columbus Blue Jackets 0
The Vancouver Canucks improved their record on their six-game road trip to 1-1 as they earned their seventh road win over the year with a 3-0 shutout of the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night at Nationwide Arena.
Here are your highlights:
The Blue Jackets looked fairly lifeless throughout the game, but they did outshoot Vancouver by a total margin of 33-24. Ryan Miller had an impressive return to form with a strong positional game that limited second chances for Columbus. His most spectacular pair of saves came off Cam Atkinson at a crucial point in the game—with Vancouver leading 2-0 at the beginning of the third period.
Watch as @Canucks' Ryan Miller robs Cam Atkinson on a breakaway and follows it up with another incredible save from below the goal line. pic.twitter.com/V7HOZKaQcx
All three of the Canucks' goals were slump-busters.
Daniel Sedin picked up his 12th of the year and his first in 10 games to open the scoring early in the second period, converting a rebound off a Markus Granlund shot.
Granlund's move to the first line due to Sven Baertschi's injury paid immediate dividends. Because he's a shooter, there was some concern that his playing style might not mesh with the twins but in this case, the shot-and-a-rebound approach got Sergei Bobrovsky moving and got the Canucks a lead.
Up next, Loui Eriksson scored his 11th on the year—and his fifth on the power play—as he moved onto the top unit with the Sedins thanks to Baertschi's absence.
Nice pass by Troy Stecher to set up this goal as the power play was coming to a close!
The goal was Megna's fourth of the year and his first in two months. The last time Megna scored was the two-goal night that helped the Canucks earn the road win in Tampa Bay back on December 8.
As for Reid Boucher? He finished the night with three shot attempts, two of them on goal, in just 7:10 of ice time. The Canucks spent just 1:58 on the power play on Thursday—they had two power-play opportunities, but they scored on the first one and the second was abbreviated due to overlapping penalties. Willie did manage to get Boucher out for 33 seconds on that second opportunity; he had changed by the time Megna scored two seconds after the man advantage ended.
I almost forgot the best highlight of the night—man-beast Nikita Tryamkin imposing his will on a not-exactly soft Boone Jenner.
The best part of this scene is the sense of surprise that comes off Jenner, who logs in at 6'2" and 216 pounds and is among the top 40 players in the league with an average of 2.6 hits per game. He's not used to being on the losing side of these exchanges!
The win pulls the Canucks' record for the season back to .500 and moves them up one spot in the Western Conference standings by virtue of two games in hand over the Winnipeg Jets. Elsewhere, the Kings and Blues won while the Preds and Stars lost and the Flames were idle.
St. Louis moves back into third place in the Central with 61 points, Nashville and L.A. hold the wild card spots with 60 and the Flames drop out of the playoff picture at 59. When all is said and done, the Canucks gain one point in the playoff race and see SportsClubStats raise their postseason odds by 1.9 percent, now to 5.2 percent.
Just two games on the NHL schedule tonight. Keep an eye on the Blackhawks at Winnipeg, starting at 5 p.m. PT.
Saturday February 11 - Vancouver Canucks at Boston Bruins - 10 a.m. - Sportsnet
I'll set up Vancouver's next game now, as well, since it's one of three games that start early on Saturday morning. The Canucks have travelled to Boston and practiced on Friday to prepare for their game against the Bruins under their new coach, Bruce Cassidy.
Up & at it early in Boston for practice at the Garden. Everybody on the ice except Baertschi. pic.twitter.com/sFYGEq6W6k
After further testing, Baertschi has now been sent back to Vancouver to deal with the fallout from the concussion he suffered in Nashville, so I imagine we'll see the same forward lines against Boston tomorrow.
With every point now so important, Willie Desjardins is hedging his bets on goaltenders for the weekend back-to-backs against Boston and Buffalo.
Desjardins says no decision has been made yet on goalies for both games this weekend, but Miller likely starts tomorrow vs Bruins.
It makes me especially happy to see Bo Horvat, the world's oldest 21-year-old, acting like a kid. His smile has been on display a lot more often since All-Star weekend.
I really liked Daniel Sedin's comments during and after Thursday's game, too. When asked about his goal, Daniel was quick to take responsibility for the fact that when the team needs to be better, that includes him.
"We needed to turn this thing around. To do that, you need your goalie to be good. He was great." - Daniel Sedin
I do feel like the chemistry is better on the team this year—they're still battling even though the odds are long.
For me, this week's dismissal of Boston coach Claude Julien just about puts a fork in the rivalry between the Canucks and Bruins that was born during the 2011 Stanley Cup Final.
Out of those rosters from six (!!) years ago, here are the players that remain on both sides:
Vancouver: Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin, Alex Burrows, Jannik Hansen, Alex Edler, Chris Tanev
Boston: David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Zdeno Chara, Adam McQuaid...and Tuukka Rask, though he was the backup to Tim Thomas and didn't see any action in the series
Though there aren't many guys left on either side from that playoff series, the ones who remain are pretty important to their teams.
Brad Marchand has always been a Canucks antagonist and even though he flirted with the role of national hero with his strong performance for Team Canada in September's World Cup of Hockey, lately he has been back to his pesky ways—on the radar almost daily, it seems, for his chippy playing style that skirts the edges of the rule book.
Marchand still gets under opponents' skin, but his offensive game has also improved by leaps and bounds. He's currently tied for third place in league scoring, just three points behind Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. His 57 points in 56 games are just three less than the career-high 60 points he tallied last year, but his 24 goals so far are a bit below the pace he'd need to match the 37 he scored in 2015-16.
I am very much looking forward to seeing Nikita Tryamkin and Zdeno Chara look each other in the eyes for the first time!
As for new coach Bruce Cassidy, he's a 51-year-old who was promoted from the ranks of assistant. A defenseman who was chosen in the first round by the Chicago Blackhawks in 1983, Cassidy played just 36 NHL games before segueing into coaching starting in 1996.
Cassidy has been with the Bruins organization since 2008 and spent three years as an assistant with the AHL's Providence Bruins before moving up to the head coaching job for five years starting in 2011-12. He became an assistant with the big club at the beginning of this season—presumably filling the void left by the departure of Doug Jarvis, who's now with the Canucks.
Cassidy does have previous NHL head coaching experience. He spent 107 games behind the bench of the Washington Capitals in 2002 and 2003, posting a 47-47-9-6 record and losing in six games to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2003 playoffs.
Cassidy's off to a good start in his new gig. Boston beat San Jose 6-3 in the first game under the new regime on Thursday.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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