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Elias Pettersson has three-point night as Vancouver Canucks fall to Flames |
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Saturday October 6 - Calgary Flames 7 - Vancouver Canucks 4
The Elias Pettersson hype train is moving at warp speed and is still picking up steam.
Once again, the kid was the story as the Vancouver Canucks couldn't protect their lead on Saturday, splitting their opening-week series with the Calgary Flames.
Here are your highlights:
Pettersson followed up his two-point performance in his NHL debut on Wednesday with three points on Saturday—once again, cheered on by his parents, who got the full Hockey Night in Canada treatment.
If you take a peek at the NHL scoring leaders this morning, you'll see a five-way tie for the lead in the very early Art Ross Trophy race: Jonathan Toews, T.J. Oshie, Jamie Benn, Matthew Tkachuk—and Elias Pettersson.
Crazy. Two games into the regular season last year, Brock Boeser was still a healthy scratch before starting his charge for the Calder Trophy.
In the rookie scoring race, Pettersson has already opened up a three-point lead over his closest competitors—players like Max Comtois of Anaheim and Colin White of Ottawa. And the comparisons are already becoming epic. We started with Henrik Sedin; this week, I've heard Pettersson's name mentioned in the same breath as everyone from Pavel Datsyuk to Wayne Gretzky.
After all the fuss about his low ice time on Wednesday, Pettersson jumped up to 16:05, including more than five minutes of power-play time. Tyler Motte and Jay Beagle were down to just 12 minutes apiece. Pettersson also seems to be quickly picking up the faceoff game: after going 3-for-9 in the circle on Wednesday, he improved to 6-for-10 on Saturday. That was the best success rate on the Canucks, ahead of Bo Horvat (54 percent), Brandon Sutter (40 percent) and Jay Beagle/Markus Granlund (each 33 percent).
One thing we learned Pettersson isn't good at: packing for a long North American road trip.
With mom and dad along for the trip, maybe they can pick up some shorts and an overcoat for their boy along the way. Temperatures are expected to reach the high 20s/low 30s in Carolina and Florida this week, then hover around freezing by the time the trip wraps up next week in Winnipeg.
The final score looks worse than it was—Calgary took the lead on a power-play goal with 5:32 left to play while Nikolay Goldobin was in the penalty box after a weak slashing call, and the last two goals were scored into an empty net. Once again, the Flames badly outshot the Canucks—this time, by a margin of 37-20, including 17-7 in a second period where Vancouver outscored Calgary 2-1.
As for all the retribution talk? That amounted to nothing. Dalton Prout logged a relatively quiet 13:45 of ice time. He did take the interference penalty on Pettersson that led to EP's second goal of the game, and recorded two hits—one on Tyler Motte, the other on Sven Baertschi.
Bo Horvat picked up a couple of power-play points on Saturday but at even strength, his line with Baertschi and Boeser is still struggling to find its rhythm. I'm not ready to sound the alarm yet on this group—hopefully they'll find their groove at some point on this road trip.
Meanwhile, down on the farm, the Utica Comets picked up their first win of the season when they held on for a 3-1 victory over the Belleville Senators on Saturday night. Brendan Gaunce and Reid Boucher scored on Mike McKenna, who had an outstanding run to the Calder Cup Final with the Texas Stars last season, and Darren Archibald added an empty-netter.
Jonathan Dahlen had some good chances but was held off the score sheet, and Petrus Palmu recorded two shots on goal after drawing into the lineup. Scratches on Saturday included Jonah Gadjovich and Lukas Jasek, both for the second-straight game, as well as Kole Lind.
If you subscribe to The Athletic, Mike Halford did an enlightening interview with Comets' GM Ryan Johnson on Saturday.
One of Johnson's key points is that even though the AHL is a developmental league, no team can survive by icing a lineup full of kids. That's why the Carter Banckses and Wacey Hamiltons of the world stick around, year after year—and why it's guys like Boucher and Gaunce who are putting up the goals.
Along with Dahlen and Gaudette, Olli Juolevi is another kid who is getting some praise for his game. Early reports are positive—and he picked up his first North American pro point on Saturday with the primary assist on Boucher's power-play goal.
The AHL livestream is still on its free preview through Monday, but the Comets will be in practice mode for the next few days. They host Charlotte on Friday before travelling to Toronto for a pair of games against Sam Gagner and the Marlies on Saturday and Sunday.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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