Monday February 21 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Seattle Kraken 2
The Vancouver Canucks' first-season rivalry with the Seattle Kraken is certainly going better than what we saw with Vegas back in the 2017-18 season.
Vegas sauntered into the NHL and promptly swept its first-season series with Vancouver. The Canucks salvaged one loser point in the final meeting.
Nov 16, 2017: Vegas 5 at Vancouver 2
Feb 23, 2018: Vegas 6 over Vancouver 3
March 20, 2018: Vegas 4 over Vancouver 1
April 3, 2018: Vegas 5 at Vancouver 4 (shootout)
Of course, the Canucks weren't the Golden Knights' only victims. And Vegas's regular-season success was only a precursor to its insane run to the 2018 Stanley Cup Final.
It really was an impossibly high bar for Seattle to try to match. And the Kraken's results against Vancouver this season are also a microcosm of how their year is going.
Oct 23, 2021: Vancouver 4 at Seattle 2
Jan 1, 2022: Vancouver 5 at Seattle 2
Feb 21, 2022: Vancouver 5 vs. Seattle 2
The Canucks and Kraken will meet one more time this year, at Rogers Arena on April 26.
Jared McCann did get his revenge goal, playing his 400th career NHL game. He's up to 21 goals for the season, and his 33 points also lead the Kraken.
And while the Canucks' first-rounder from 2014 was also deemed expendable in Florida and Pittsburgh before landing in Seattle, he actually ranks 12th in points among players from his 2014 draft class. He's three points ahead of fourth-overall pick Sam Bennett, who has logged 452 games. But the player that jumps out at me today is one who was taken one selection after McCann, at 25. David Pastrnak now has 476 points in 488 NHL games, second in the 2014 draft class behind Leon Draisaitl — who's 100 points ahead at 576 points.
What an incredible find Pastrnak was for Boston, that late in the first round. Draisaitl wasn't half bad at No. 3, either.
Anyway...
After Saturday's debacle against the Ducks, it was great to see the Canucks bounce back with a solid 60-minute game against Seattle. Was it the best game yet from the fourth line? They got the scoring started just 11 seconds into the first period, thanks to Tyler Motte's sixth goal of the year.
Bruce Boudreau has shown great faith in this line ever since his arrival, and now it's really starting to click — becoming an 'Identity Line' of sorts, like the Islanders have with Matt Martin, Cal Clutterbuck and Casey Cizikas.
But rather than being bruisers, Vancouver's group is known more for its tenacity — and speed. That combination makes for great hustle — and good results.
As
Bruce Boudreau said after Monday's game, "They do what you ask them to do, and they can all skate. They pressure, pressure, pressure. And where they used to just hold their own (defensively), now they're starting to score some goals and that makes them even more valuable in my mind."
Motte also picked up an assist on Monday night, giving him four points in Vancouver's last four games. Before that, he'd been in a six-game pointless drought.
Juho Lammikko logged a pair of assists against Seattle. He also has four points in his last four games, giving him 11 points in 45 games with Vancouver this season. He had five points in 44 games with the Panthers last year, so the 26-year-old has brought more than could have been reasonably expected when Jim Benning snagged him to help shore up Vancouver's center depth after Brandon Sutter turned out to be unavailable to start the season.
Matthew Highmore logged one assist on Monday, his first point since Feb. 1, although he recently missed three games while he was in Covid protocols. Having missed significant time with injury this year, Highmore is now up to seven points in 25 games. That ties his career high from last year, when he had two points in 24 games with Chicago and five in 18 games with the Canucks.
Highmore teased the idea that he could be more than a run-of-the-mill fourth liner during the 2020 playoff bubble, when he had three goals and an assist in nine playoff games as the Blackhawks upset the Edmonton Oilers before falling to Vegas. So it's great to see him delivering on that potential.
This trio has become so valuable that it's time to dig into their contract status, to see whether the Canucks will be able to hang onto them over the long term.
Per
CapFriendly, Motte is an impending UFA. He turns 27 next month, and is finishing off a two-year deal that's paying him $1.45 million in real dollars. It carries a cap hit of $1.225 million.
Highmore and Lammikko are both set to become RFAs with arbitration rights.
Lammikko turned 26 in January and is on a one-year deal worth $750,000. Highmore is a few days away from turning 26, on February 27. He's finishing up a two-year deal that he signed in Chicago. Last season, it still had a two-way component. This year, he's earning $750,000 and carrying a cap hit of $725,000.
After all those years of hearing about the Canucks' overpriced fourth line, the organization has finally cobbled together what the cap tacticians dreamed of — a trio that's effective and cheap. Together, Lammikko, Highmore and Motte have a combined cap hit of $2.7 million — $300,000 less than Jay Beagle is earning in Arizona, in the final year of the deal he signed with the Canucks in 2018.
After getting into 30 games with the Canucks last season, Beagle has played just 21 games for Arizona this year. I had forgotten that his contract with Vancouver also carried trade protection, including a five-team no-trade list for the 2021-22 season. So he would have had to be OK with finishing out his deal with the Coyotes.
For all the noise around Vancouver's potential big trade targets — Miller, Boeser, even Garland — Motte, in particular, is also an intriguing figure. He's part of the engine driving this team right now, but that's exactly why he'd draw interest at the trade deadline.
Can the Canucks afford to keep him?
After Monday's win, Vancouver continues to keep pace in the Western Conference playoff picture. As of Tuesday, they're up to 11th place, five points behind eighth-place Los Angeles, but still with a slightly lower points percentage than the 12th-place Jets, who have two games in hand.
You want a meaningful game in February? Look no further than Thursday, when Jacob Markstrom and the red-hot Calgary Flames visit Rogers Arena for the first time this year.
The Canucks played Calgary at the Saddledome on Jan. 29, dropping a 1-0 decision in overtime. That's the last time any team took a point off the Flames, but also kicked off the 10-game winning streak that Calgary will be riding into Vancouver.
Will the Canucks have what it takes to be giant killers again, less than two weeks after taking down Toronto?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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