Wednesday March 9 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Montreal Canadiens 3
Friday, March 11 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Washington Capitals - 7 p.m. PT
It was another tour-de-force performance for J.T. Miller on Wednesday, whose four-point night fuelled the Vancouver Canucks' 5-3 win over the visiting Montreal Canadiens. For the most part, it was a tightly contested game, with Montreal also running hot over the last couple of weeks after Martin St. Louis settled into his new head-coaching gig.
The Canucks are now on a three-game winning streak and have won six of their last seven and eight of their last 10. The playoff dream is still alive, but they're going to need to continue that torrid pace.
As of Thursday, they're still 10th in the Western Conference standings, with 64 points. Edmonton sits ninth at 66. Dallas holds down the second wild-card with 67 and Nashville is in the first wild-card spot at 68 — and both those teams have two games in hand on Vancouver.
Anaheim is now one point behind Vancouver — and visits Nashville on Thursday night. So at least two points will be distributed in that game which will negatively impact Vancouver's position. The Stars' next game isn't till Saturday, when they host the New York Rangers.
The other team to watch is Vegas. The Golden Knights sit third in the Pacific with 68 points, with the same number of games played as Vancouver, and announced Thursday that Robin Lehner has left the team to undergo further testing around a new lower-body injury. Coach Peter DeBoer said that is a different issue than the upper-body problem that had him on the shelf recently.
The Golden Knights are 4-5-1 in their last 10 games, and coming off a 2-1 loss in Philadelphia on Tuesday. The road trip continues in Buffalo on Thursday, where Jack Eichel makes his return with his new team.
In the Central — if the Stars and Preds continue to surge, they could overtake Minnesota. The Wild have 69 points and easily took down the New York Rangers in their last game on Tuesday. But they're 3-7-0 in their last 10 games, which means the Canucks have gained 10 points on them since just after the All-Star Break.
The Wild also have three games in hand on the Canucks. They've got two very winnable games on the docket, with a road back-to-back that will see them visiting Detroit on Thursday and Columbus on Friday.
What does it all mean?
As of Thursday morning,
SportsClubStats hasn't updated since Sunday night, when they had the Canucks' playoff chances at 21.7%.
MoneyPuck is up to date, and shows Vancouver at — wait for it — a whopping 33.3!
That's the highest number I've seen yet, and offers some real validation that the playoff push is making progress.
It puts the Canucks comfortably ahead of Anaheim and Winnipeg in the chase, but still well behind Edmonton (61.4%). They've got Dallas (53.8%) and Nashville (60.2%) as the most vulnerable. Vancouver would still have pass two more teams for a chance to grab that second wild-card — and earn a first-round date with death against the Colorado Avalanche.
Are we on the path to a repeat of 2001? Just happy to be there against a Rocky Mountain juggernaut? That's a subject that could bear further examination if the Canucks continue down this road...
But I also wanted to share this link with you. On Wednesday evening, I guested on the Let's Go Devils podcast, featuring HockeyBuzz's own Devils correspondent Sam Woo along with Nick Villano. We talked trade deadline and some other topics that Vancouver and New Jersey have in common.
Here's the link. I pop up about 40 minutes in.
I think I spoiled their party when I suggested that the top priority of Canucks management at this deadline is to acquire a young defenseman that can grow alongside Quinn Hughes — and that I thought Ty Smith would perhaps be an appropriate player to come back in a trade for Brock Boeser or even Conor Garland.
At this point, I actually think the Canucks and the Devils are in similar situations — with lots of potential in their core group, and on the rise. Maybe there's a hockey trade between the two teams that could be explored this summer, but there's really no reason for either team to try to pull the trigger on a deal with each other before March 21.
And finally — if you have a subscription to The Athletic,
Pierre LeBrun has just posted a new profile of Canucks' GM Patrik Allvin and a look at Vancouver's trade-deadline picture.
The piece includes quotes from Allvin as well as comments from a handful of other anonymous team executives. There's a range of thoughts and opinions but even the outsiders acknowledge that because the Canucks are now so close to a playoff spot, the optics in the market wouldn't be great if they start blowing out top players before March 21.
Allvin indicates at this point, there isn't nearly as much trade chatter as he was expecting — a point LeBrun said was also affirmed to him by a couple of other execs.
"I was a little bit surprised there (weren’t) more phone calls. … With the salary cap, it’s not easy to move players. But to be honest, I was expecting a little bit more calls," Allvin said.
And while he's a new man on the job, Allvin mentioned that he doesn't just have the support of Canucks team president Jim Rutherford. He also has pre-existing relationships with other former members of the Penguins' front office who also now sit in GM chairs — including Tom Fitzgerald in New Jersey, as well as Bill Guerin in Minnesota, Chuck Fletcher in Pittsburgh and Don Waddell in Carolina. And, he built a relationship with Ron Hextall when Hextall joined the Penguins — and saw how he operated when taking the reins at mid-season.
We often hear complaints about how all the big deals are done in advance and there's nothing left for the panels to discuss on their all-day trade-deadline shows. Maybe this year will be different? Or maybe it's just too hard to make trades at all right now, especially of the blockbuster variety?
Next up for the Canucks, a visit from the Washington Capitals on Friday. The Caps will be playing their third game in four nights, after beating Calgary on Tuesday and losing in overtime to Edmonton on Wednesday. And they're hitting milestones galore.
Alex Ovechkin tied Jaromir Jagr for third on the all-time goal-scoring list against the Flames, at 766 goals. Up next, Gordie Howe's 801. And Nick Backstrom tallied his 1,000th career point against the Oilers, in just 1,037 games.
Washington had been in a bit of a swoon, but has come out of its slumber with a 3-0-1 record in its last four games. So even though the schedule favours Vancouver here, there are still no guarantees...
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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