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Brock Boeser lone bright light as Vancouver Canucks downed by the Jets
December 12, 2017, 2:30 PM ET [343 Comments]
Carol Schram
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Monday December 11 - Winnipeg Jets 5 - Vancouver Canucks 1

Are we at the crossroads of the season already? Brock Boeser looks determined to forge on by himself, but the Vancouver Canucks were humbled by the Jets in Winnipeg on Monday night.

Here are your highlights:



The Canucks have scored just four goals during their current three-game losing streak. Jake Virtanen has one—and Boeser has the other three. Playing with the Sedins last night, Boeser scored his 16th of the year. That ties him with Brayden Schenn and Anze Kopitar for sixth in the league in goals (in fewer games), keeps him at that tidy point-a-game mark and places him in some very exclusive company.




The way things have been going, of course there was a collective gasp when Boeser went down in a heap after blocking shot by Blake Wheeler near the end of the first period.

I can't find video of the actual shot-block or him grimacing when he got to the bench. I wouldn't exactly call this a "hobble," but Brock did look pretty tentative as he skated to the dressing room shortly afterward, at the end of the first period.




It was a relief to see him back on the bench to start the second, and Boeser did continue to play a regular shift. Playing primarily with the Sedins, he finished the night with 18:05 of ice time—adding one more shot and two more blocks the rest of the way. I sure hope he still felt OK when he woke up this morning.

The Canucks are now back in Vancouver, preparing for an every-other-day four-game homestand against Nashville, San Jose, Calgary and Montreal over the next week. They're not practicing today, but there will be a media availability session where we'll hopefully get assurance that Brock's OK and can keep chasing those records.

As for the rest of the team—it's tough to find many positives.

Jacob Markstrom slipped back into his nasty first-shot/first-goal habit as a dribbler from Dmitry Kulikov slipped between his pads to give the Jets the early lead at 1:28.




It's too bad. Other than that goal, Vancouver played a very good road period in the first, outshooting the Jets 10-4. They topped Winnipeg in overall shots by a margin of 26-24, but didn't feel dangerous.

The win was well out of reach by the time Markstrom ended his game as inauspiciously as he started—with this terrible giveaway.




It's hard to believe that it has been less than a week since we were lauding Markstrom for his first career shutout. Things change fast in this game.

New guy check: Michael Chaput struggled on his penalty-killing duties and Nic Dowd played just two shifts after taking a second-period hooking penalty on Nik Ehlers with the score 2-1—which led to Ehlers' power-play goal after Chris Tanev had his stick knocked out of his hands. They're no Horvat and Baertschi.

Travis Green pulled a fast one when he went back to Alex Burmistrov against his old team, the Jets, instead of inserting Nikolay Goldobin, but Burmi didn't exactly take advantage of his opportunity: three missed shots, one giveaway and 3-for-13 on faceoffs.




I wonder if Goldobin did something specific to get under Green's skin? His two most recent scratches have come after that practice in Vancouver last Friday when Green lost his temper.




Jeff Paterson also had an interesting piece on Alex Edler earlier this week. He stayed out of the penalty box last night but has taken at least one penalty in nine of the 16 games he has played since coming back from his injury.




I'll leave the dissection there for now. We'll have more fuel to add to the fire, I'm sure, when I set up the Nashville game on Wednesday morning.

One more grim bit of news today:




As I mentioned just a couple of days ago, Rodin was looking good with his new team Davos HC with five points in five games. Guess we won't be seeing him in the Spengler Cup after all.

At least we have World Juniors!

Excellent news to see Kole Lind and Jonah Gadjovich on the same line at Team Canada's first practice in St. Catharines today.




More to come from Sweden, Finland and USA as the week progresses...
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