Thursday March 7 - Edmonton Oilers 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2
After falling behind 3-0, the Vancouver Canucks came close to mounting a comeback that would have earned them at least a point in Edmonton on Thursday. Jay Beagle and Alex Edler scored, but the Canucks head home with a 3-2 regulation loss; their first defeat at the hands of the Oilers this season.
Here are your highlights:
Early on, it looked like the end result was going to be a lot worse. The Canucks limped out to another slow start. In the game's first 26 seconds, the Oilers' starting line of Leon Draisaitl, Alex Chiasson and Sam Gagner peppered three shots on Thatcher Demko and drew a power play when Derrick Pouliot was sent to the penalty box for high-sticking Chiasson.
That same group combined for the game's opening goal at 5:21 of the first, when a Gagner takeaway led to Chiasson's 19th of the year.
You're not going to like this part: the Oilers' current hot streak has pretty much coincided with Gagner's arrival by trade from Vancouver. The deal that saw him switch spots with Ryan Spooner went down on February 16. On the day of the trade, the Oilers dropped a 5-2 decision on the road to the New York Islanders—with Gagner in the lineup. Since that night, Edmonton has gone 6-2-1.
Gagner has had three goals and two assists, and one game-winner, but he has also played less than 10 minutes in a couple of recent games, so I don't think he's the key reason for Edmonton's turnaround. His trade also happened to come on the same day that Cam Talbot was dealt to Philadelphia in exchange for Anthony Stolarz. Since then, Mikko Koskinen has been showing why the Oilers committed to him as their No. 1 going forward. His save percentage has improved from .905 to .912 and his GAA has dropped from 2.90 to 2.75 as he has played every game. The only blemish on his record since Talbot was dealt came in Toronto on February 27, when he gave up four goals on 16 shots in just over a period before being replaced by Stolarz.
Koskinen wasn't named a star for his performance against Vancouver on Thursday, but he delivered another steady performance as he stopped 35 of 37 shots. He did make one significant miscue, which led to Jay Beagle's goal.
The Canucks' comeback hopes were basically sunk when they took themselves off the power play with a too-many-men penalty with 7:35 left to play in the third. With Brock Boeser still stuck over on the left side of the ice after getting tangled up with Adam Larsson, the second power-play unit jumped on as a group, causing the stoppage in play and the penalty. All told, Vancouver outshot Edmonton by an impressive 9-3 margin in the third period, but their final shot attempt of the game came with 4:28 left to play, when Matt Benning blocked an Alex Edler shot after the teams had returned to full strength.
I was yelling at my TV in frustration as Derrick Pouliot and Alex Biega circled around their own zone as the final seconds ticked away, wondering why they were on the ice. But of course Travis Green was pretty much alternating them with the Edler-Stecher pairing as he tried to generate that tying goal; Ashton Sautner played just three shifts in the third period and Luke Schenn played four.
Edler followed up his 27:06 of ice time against Toronto with a 29:25 night in Edmonton, while Stecher played 27:47 on Wednesday and 26:50 on Thursday.
As well as Stecher has played defensively in recent weeks, he hasn't put up a point in nine games. Funnily enough, Schenn recorded his first assist as a Canuck on Wednesday against the Leafs, and Sautner got his first assist of the year for starting the play that led to Beagle's second-period tap-in in Edmonton.
We're also seeing the goalless droughts for the Big Three starting to become a big deal. Bo Horvat scored twice against Anaheim on trade-deadline day but has since gone pointless in his last five games. Brock Boeser hasn't scored since February 16, but does have six assists in the last eight games. And Elias Pettersson's last goal came on February 14. He has four assists in nine games since then.
Now with 31 goals and 57 points, Pettersson's march toward Pavel Bure's Canucks rookie records of 34 goals and 60 points has slowed to a crawl.
On balance, the outcome of Thursday's game was largely inconsequential, since the Stars and Wild keep winning. Ben Bishop recorded his second-straight shutout on Thursday to give Dallas a 4-0 win over Colorado and keep them in the first wild-card spot with 75 points, while the Wild shut out Tampa Bay (!) to stay one point back with 74.
So while Vancouver's playoff odds drop to just 0.6 percent according to
SportsClubStats, Edmonton's win only moves them up by three-tenths of a point, to a still-very-low 3.8 percent. The Oilers, Blackhawks and Canucks are now pretty much all out of the mix, while Arizona (34.4 percent) and Colorado (24.7 percent) each have a tough road ahead to stay in contention.
Down on the farm, the Utica Comets will try to get rolling again on Friday night in Syracuse after dropping their last two games, including a 5-3 home loss to the Crunch on Wednesday. The Comets remain in fourth place in the AHL's North Division standings, right on the playoff bubble as they're tied with the fifth-place Belleville Senators with 67 points, and 16 games left in their season.
Also, Quinn Hughes watch kicks into high gear on Friday as Michigan's best-of-three playoff series begins in Minnesota. Puck drop is at 4 p.m. PT.
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