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Vancouver Canucks power play ignites in 6-2 win over Washington Capitals |
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Thursday October 26 - Vancouver Canucks 6 - Washington Capitals 2
Well, that was fun! The Vancouver Canucks showed no signs of rust as they returned from their first road trip of the season with a resounding 6-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Thursday at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
In Thursday's pregame blog, I said I was hoping to see an improvement in the Canucks' power play, and I certainly got my wish. Vancouver went 3-for-6 on the night—and all three goals were scored by the Baertschi-Horvat-Boeser combo.
Sven finished the game with two goals and an assist and was named first star. He's now up to eight points on the season despite having gone pointless in the Canucks' first three games.
Bo tallied his fourth goal and third assist of the year and was named second star. He's now up to seven points in 10 games, which puts him on pace for 32 goals and 57 points. I think that'd be acceptable production for a $5.5 million player.
Brock didn't score but he finished the night with four shots on goal—and three assists. He was named third star, and now leads the Canucks in scoring with nine points—despite having been scratched for the Canucks' first two games. His 1.13 points per game ranks him in the top 25 in the NHL—tied with Taylor Hall at the moment—and he's tied for third in rookie scoring, behind Arizona's Clayton Keller (11 pts) and Tampa Bay's Mikhail Sergachev (10 pts).
The three even-strength goals came from Thomas Vanek (his fourth), Markus Granlund (his second) and Derek Dorsett (his team-leading sixth).
I loved this play by Dorsett—way to stick with it!
He's basically one-on-three on this play. You can't stop him—you can only hope to contain him!
Dorsett's six goals tie him with 17 other players for 11th spot in the Rocket Richard Trophy race, including David Pastrnak, Nikolaj Ehlers, Tyler Seguin, Brad Marchand and John Tavares. Good company!
Like he did in the Canucks' first game of the year against Connor McDavid, Dorsett also had an outstanding night containing Alex Ovechkin on Thursday. The Great 8 was limited to four shot attempts, and took a charging penalty on Dorsett out of frustration in the third period.
Tom Wilson also let his temper get the best of him when he insisted on fighting Erik Gubranson after the defensemen's first-period hit knocked Brett Connolly out of the game and sent him to undergo the concussion protocol.
After the fight, Gudbranson appeared to be checking his wrist in the penalty box—the same wrist that was surgically repaired last season? After serving his fighting major, he played just one 10-second shift the rest of the game.
He is at practice this morning, which is no surprise to me. Gudbranson played through pain for awhile last year before deciding to shut it down for the surgery. Now in his last year before reaching unrestricted free agency, this season is crucial for his future. At this point, I'm assuming his mantra is "He'll play—you know he'll play!"
A strong sign that the Canucks' transition to the next generation is in full effect—the twins got just as much power-play time last night as the Killer B group but on a six-goal night, they didn't register a single point.
If you missed it, I wrote yesterday about how Daniel's currently at 990 career points. When he hits 1,000, he'll be only the second player in franchise history to reach that milestone, after his brother did it last year.
With the goose egg last night, Daniel's now sitting at four points in 10 games. At that pace, it'll take him another 25 games to get the 10 points he needs to crack 1,000. It could be a bit of a wait—hopefully he and Henrik will have a night sometime soon when they re-kindle the old magic.
In net, Anders Nilsson had another strong performance, stopping everything he saw until the Canucks chased Braden Holtby with their fifth goal of the game before giving up two goals in garbage time. Overall, the Canucks played a strong defensive game against an undermanned Caps team, limiting Washington to just four shots on goal in the first period and 12 shots through 40 minutes.
Jonathan Quick shut out the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night, so he's now tied with Nilsson for the league shutout league. Nilsson now ranks just behind Quick in second place in the league in both save percentage (.943) and goals-against average (1.89).
The games in the Canucks' current homestand are well spaced out—they don't play again until Dallas comes to town on Monday. So Travis Green could continue to ride his hot hand in net if he feels inclined to do so.
As if all this good news isn't enough on its own, I'll wrap up today by sending you over to Canucks.com for Ryan Biech's prospect update. As if Elias Petterson's five-point game on Thursday wasn't enough, Biech also reviews the strong recent play of Jonathan Dahlen, Petrus Palmu and Olli Juolevi.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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