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Bo Horvat gets 2/3 of a Gordie Howe hat trick, scores winner against Bruins |
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Saturday October 20 - Vancouver Canucks 2 - Boston Bruins 1 (OT)
Bo Horvat is turning into Mr. Saturday Night. For the second straight week, Horvat notched the Canucks' game-winning goal—in overtime at Rogers Arena this week, against the Boston Bruins.
Here are your highlights:
I'm sure the players were happy to be home after their long road trip—especially when Vancouver continues to enjoy endless sunshine that is wildly uncharacteristic for October. But just two days after looking like they'd run out of gas in Winnipeg on Thursday, the Canucks were playing in their seventh different rink in 15 days—and were suddenly back on Pacific Time. So it's not surprising that the team's energy flagged as the game wore on.
Once again, the Canucks started strong, building a 5-1 shot advantage through the first half of the first period and scoring the first goal of the game for the first time since their season-opener against Calgary back on October 3.
The goal came against Boston's third defensive pairing, on the first career NHL shift for rookie callup Urho Vaakanainen.
With Torey Krug already on the shelf due to an ankle injury, the Bruins' blue line took a huge hit on this Western road swing when both Kevan Miller and Charlie McAvoy were sent back to Boston before Saturday's game. Vaakanainen played in the Providence Bruins' 4-3 road overtime loss in Bridgeport, Connecticut on Friday night before getting the word that he'd been called up. The 19-year-old then endured a long travel day with limited sleep and a three-hour time change before stepping on the ice for his NHL debut.
Before the goal, he and his partner Matt Grzelcyk collapsed in on Jake Virtanen on the end boards, but Jake was able to bank the puck off the net before reclaiming it in open ice, then shovelling it toward the crease. Brandon Sutter had just come on to replace Adam Gaudette. He then also outbattled Vaakanainen and Grzelcyk before putting the puck past Jaroslav Halak.
Not a great start for Vaakanainen but he settled down as the game went on, finishing with two shot attempts and one giveaway in 12:28 of ice time. His partner Grzelcyk saw more action thanks to his fill-in role as point man on the Boston power play, which went 0-for-3. Safe to say he's a downgrade from Krug or McAvoy?
Brandon Carlo led the way in ice time for Boston defensemen at 23:43. The Bruins must have breathed a sigh of relief when he was able to shake off his close-range block of a Brock Boeser shot that initially sent him hobbling to the bench during a first-period penalty kill.
Boeser inflicted some pain on Joakim Nordstrom in a similar situation in the second period and I'm sure both moments brought back some flashbacks for Bruins fans. Remember when Boeser's shot broke the leg of Boston's Adam McQuaid last season?
The high point of the middle portion of the game was Bo Horvat's tilt against Noel Acciari, which came after Horvat laid a solid open-ice hit on Joakim Nordstrom early in the second period.
Considering the fight was just the second for Horvat in his NHL career, he acquitted himself well. After all the conversation over the last week, fans in this market would be ecstatic if he can add more of a physical presence to his game.
Interestingly, Horvat's fighting major was his first penalty of the year. He's now well on his way to eclipsing his career high of 27 penalty minutes from the 2016-17 season.
Beyond that, there were long stretches during this game where not much was happening. The Canucks' attack wilted as the game went on, while the new shutdown line of Brandon Sutter, Loui Eriksson and Antoine Roussel did an outstanding job of containing Boston's dangerous top line of Bergeron, Marchand and Pastrnak. Saturday marked the first time in seven Boston games that none of those players recorded a point. The only other time it happened this year was in the Bruins' 7-0 loss to Washington in their season opener.
Back in the net for the first time in 11 days, Jacob Markstrom was sharp all night, even as the Bruins generated more shots on goal as the game went on. He was beaten just once, over his glove by Nordstrom at the 7:45 mark of the third period.
In the late stages of the third period, I felt like the Bruins had plenty of zone time and conjured up some quality opportunities, but the defensive effort was there and Markstrom was solid when needed.
That set the stage for overtime, where the Canucks absolutely dominated in puck possession. The winning goal came at the 3:12 mark, at the end of a very long shift for Boeser and Horvat. The pair had been planning to change but made one more push after Brandon Carlo coughed up the puck at the Vancouver blue line. Boeser was able to gain possession against Marchand to create the give-and-go for Horvat's fifth of the year.
After getting off to a rough start to the year defensively, Horvat and Boeser have both been plus-one in each of the last four games and have whittled their season plus-minus number down to a more respectable minus-three. Between them, they're responsible for four of the team's five game-winning goals so far—current press box staple Brendan Leipsic has the other. And Horvat's six points now rank him second in team scoring behind Elias Pettersson, while Boeser's tied for third with five.
The team is off today. Hopefully the guys will be able to rest up, because they've got six games on the schedule in these last 10 days of October.
The Canucks are building some good vibes, but it won't mean much if the wheels fall off the wagon again as they get deeper into the grind of the season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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