Thursday November 15 - Minnesota Wild 6 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Well, that was pretty predictable. With Richard Bachman making his first NHL start since the final game of the Willie Desjardins era in April of 2017, the Vancouver Canucks lost their third-straight game in regulation for the first time this year when they fell by a score of 6-2 to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.
Here are your highlights:
The loss can't be placed entirely at Bachman's feet. The fact that he was in net at all is symptomatic of the tough circumstances that the Canucks find themselves in—undermanned due to injury and exhausted as the team that has played the most games so far this season (21) and the most road games (14). No other team has played away from home more than 11 times.
Did Bachman get the start on Thursday because Jacob Markstrom is injured? That's still unclear. I've heard chatter about a possible hand injury; there's also talk about the shot that Markstrom took off his knee on Tuesday against the New York Islanders, which looked like it had the potential to knock him out of that game.
As mere mortals, we know how we break down if we get too much physical activity. A lack of recovery time makes it hard to come back at 100 percent and if we're tired, we put ourselves in position to get hurt due to poor form, overcompensating with other muscle groups or a lack of mental sharpness.
Markstrom started nine straight games before Thursday, including back-to-backs on Monday and Tuesday. As far back as Game 2 of that string—the win against the Wild at Rogers Arena on October 29—I was wondering if he was trying to use mind-over-matter to gut it out on the ice because he knew the team didn't have another viable option while Anders Nilsson is sidelined with his broken thumb.
Nilsson was with the team throughout the road trip and has been taking some controlled shots in practice but has not yet been medically cleared to return to action. Sounds like that won't happen before Saturday's game against Montreal, either.
As for Bachman, the 31-year-old is staring down the possibility that this might be the end of the line for him at the NHL level.
Looking at a snapshot of the Canucks' season so far, one stat that leaps off the page is the difference in their penalty killing since Brandon Sutter went down with his shoulder injury against the Wild on October 29. While he was healthy, the Canucks were perfect on the PK in nine of their first 12 games, with an overall kill rate of 85.1 percent.
Sutter had helped the Canucks kill off the first half of a Markus Granlund double-minor for high sticking when he was injured on a hit by Matt Dumba just over four minutes into the second period of that game. The last part of Granlund's penalty was negated when Eric Staal was called for interference, but the Vancouver penalty killers got burned later in that game when Ryan Suter scored Minnesota's second goal of the game while Loui Eriksson was in the box on a tripping call, giving the Canucks a 4-for-5 success rate for the night.
Since that night, the Canucks have been perfect on the penalty kill just once in eight games. Overall, they've successfully killed just 17 of 26 shorthanded situations for a success rate of 65.4 percent—and the Wild were a perfect 2-for-2 on Thursday.
Don't expect to see Sutter back anytime soon, either. The prognosis after his MRI was for a 4-6 week recovery period. It already seems like he has been gone forever, but it has been just two and a half weeks.
As for Vancouver's other injured players, it doesn't sound like help is on the way anytime soon:
Edler went down with his sprained MCL on October 24, so he has just passed the three-week mark on his recovery timetable.
If you missed it, Edler's agent also confirmed what we pretty much already knew earlier this week: his client's top preference is to sign a contract extension with the Canucks rather than waiving his no-trade clause for a chance to play for a contender at the trade deadline.
I did unearth one positive injury tidbit — an aside from
Ben Kuzma's pregame chat with Devan Dubnyk in Minnesota, on Thatcher Demko:
"He practised last week and is not playing this week because of illness, and not a setback, according to the Comets," Kuzma reported.
Reid Boucher is also back in action for Utica. He has at least one point in every game he has played for the Comets this season after tallying an assist on Wednesday when he returned after missing three and a half weeks with a leg injury.
On a snowy day in Utica, the Comets host the Syracuse Crunch on Friday night before travelling to Hartford to take on the Wolf Pack on Saturday.
The Canucks travelled back to Vancouver on Thursday night and are off today. Don't forget, Saturday's game against Montreal is an early one, with a 4 p.m. puck drop!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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