Friday March 6 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Colorado Avalanche - 7 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific, Sportsnet 650
Vancouver Canucks: 66 GP, 34-26-6, 74 pts, fourth in Pacific Division
Colorado Avalanche: 66 GP, 40-18-8, 88 pts, second in Central Division
The good news for the Vancouver Canucks is that they've bumped each of their previous slumps this season in the their second game of a homestand after starting a slide on the road. That's where the team is at on Friday, hosting the Colorado Avalanche after dropping a 4-2 decision to Arizona on Wednesday.
The bad news is that the Avs are a beast — two points out of first place in the Western Conference and, with a .667 points percentage, third overall in the league behind only Boston and St. Louis.
Colorado is also rolling right now, with points in its last nine games. But — because hockey is weird — the Avs had a seven-game winning streak snapped on Wednesday when they dropped a 4-3 overtime decision on home ice to Anaheim, of all teams. So ya never know...
I'm sure you've heard that Nathan MacKinnon is a strong candidate for the Hart Trophy this season, after finishing as runner-up to Taylor Hall two years ago.
With 34 goals and 88 points so far this season, he's on pace for the first 100-point season of his career and is leading the NHL in shots for the second-straight season. Take that, Ovi!
In the Art Ross race, Leon Draisaitl now has such a big lead over the rest of the pack that the math barely even makes sense. With 110 points, he's 15 points ahead of second-place Connor McDavid and 22 ahead of MacKinnon, who sits fifth.
Twenty of the 29 skaters who have suited up for the Canucks this year have less than 22 points for the season.
But MacKinnon's name is in the Hart conversation because he really fits the Hart's official criteria of being "the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team."
Unlike in Edmonton, where Leon and Connor share the load, or where David Pastrnak skates on the Perfection Line in Boston or Artemi Panarin has great chemistry with Mika Zibanejad on the Rangers, injuries on the Avalanche have made MacKinnon virtually a one-man show this year — and he has risen to the occasion.
He's on pace for a career season despite the fact that his regular linemates Mikko Rantanen and Gabe Landeskog have both missed significant time with injury. Rantanen has 41 points in 42 games but has been back on the shelf since mid-February with an upper-body injury. Earlier in the season, Landeskog missed 16 games with a lower-body injury. He has 37 points in 50 games this season.
Because Rantanen and Landeskog have missed significant time, the Avs' second-leading scorer is rookie defenseman Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes' Calder Trophy rival. He has 47 points in 56 games — a gap of 31 points between Colorado's top two scorers.
By contrast, the Canucks' top scoreer, J.T. Miller, has 69 points — tied with Evgeni Malkin for 16th in the scoring race. He's supported by Elias Pettersson (63 points) and by Bo Horvat and Quinn Hughes (each 52 points), giving the Canucks' offense a much more solid team foundation.
Nevertheless, Colorado ranks fourth in the NHL with an average of 3.41 goals per game — despite having a power play that ranks a surprising 20th. The Canucks are ninth offensively at 3.23 goals per game and back up to third on the power play, which has been clicking again over the last month or so.
Since February 5, the Canucks are 12-for-34 with the man advantage, for a power-play success rate of 35.3 percent. That's easily tops in the league. But — you're not imagining it — they haven't been drawing as many opportunities as they did earlier in the season.
Through their first 54 games, they averaged a league-leading 3.59 power-play chances per game and converted at 22.7 percent — the eighth-best efficiency, but third overall with 44 power-play goals.
Over the last month, they've averaged just 2.83 power plays per game — and it's not just because the refs are generally putting their whistles away. That ranks them 14th in the league — Chicago and New Jersey lead with 3.36 opportunities per game over the last month.
It's disappointing that we won't get to see the top two Calder candidates go head-to-head on Friday. Makar has missed the Avs' last two games with an upper-body injury and it's reported that he isn't travelling with the team to start this road trip.
Also on the injured list for Colorado, in addition to Makar and Rantanen — forwards Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky, Matt Calvert and Colin Wilson and starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer. They're picking up points with absences that are at least as significant as the Canucks'.
Here's how the lines rolled on Wednesday against Anaheim.
Rookie Martin Kaut was re-assigned to the AHL on Thursday in order to avoid burning that first year of his entry-level contract, while winger Sheldon Dries and defenseman Kevin Connauton were recalled.
As for the Canucks, Jalen Chatfield was re-assigned to Utica on Thursday, which seems like good news with respect to the banged-up defense corps.
So does this dispatch from Friday's morning skate.
The D looks like it will be back to normal against Colorado — and Travis Green is sticking with the Fantenberg/Myers pairing rather than turning back to Jordie Benn.
If you missed it, the Canucks got a couple of mentions in Elliotte Friedman's
31 Thoughts column this week. Friedman admitted that concrete information about the status of Jacob Markstrom's injury rehab has been virtually impossible to come by, which doesn't surprise me at all.
I was interested to hear how, on top of all the other things he has done well this year, J.T. Miller is also serving as a mentor for Jake Virtanen.
He is on me to protect the puck,” Virtanen said. “He’s taught me a lot about doing it right.”
“It’s all about mindset,” Miller says. “He’s big and strong, but sometimes he thinks too much. I want him to be a jerk.” Only he didn’t use the word “jerk.”
I think Jake did have more "jerk" in his game when he was first drafted — and maybe some of that slipped away after he was roasted for undisciplined play with Team Canada at World Juniors — remember that?
It seems like enough time has now passed that Virtanen is ready to get aggressive again. He was terrific against Arizona on Tuesday and it'll be great news if he can take a page from Miller's playbook.
Finally, my daily look at the out-of-town scoreboard.
Despite a recommendation from their local health authority to cancel events that would draw large crowds due to coronavirus concerns, the San Jose Sharks went ahead with their game against the Minnesota Wild at SAP Center on Thursday — and posted
their lowest attendance of the year in a 3-2 loss to Minnesota.
Gary Bettman preached calm about the coronavirus situation at the GMs' meetings on Wednesday, but it is unnerving to see the possibility of NHL cancellations starting to be raised.
For the Canucks, though, the immediate concern is that Minnesota's win moves them to 7-3-0 since Dean Evason took over as coach — and leapfrogged them over a bunch of teams including Vancouver, into the first wild-card spot in the West.
Nashville also won on Thursday, so they've caught Vancouver, Winnipeg and Arizona with 74 points. Those four teams hold down spots 8-11 in the conference. And Chicago also won on Thursday, so the Blackhawks aren't out of it yet, either. They're four points back, at 70.
There's lots of room for more shuffling on Friday night: the Blackhawks play in Detroit, Winnipeg hosts Vegas and Arizona visits Calgary.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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