Monday, March 28 - St. Louis Blues 4, Vancouver Canucks 1
Wednesday, March 30 - St. Louis Blues at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m. PT
Once more, with feeling.
After coming out on the wrong end of a 4-1 result in St. Louis on Monday, the Vancouver Canucks will get another chance to try to extract a win from the Blues when they return home to Rogers Arena on Wednesday.
After Jaroslav Halak took the loss in St. Louis on Monday, Thatcher Demko will make his first start of the year against the Blues on Wednesday night. In his career, he's 2-0-1 against St. Louis, with a 1.90 goals-against average and .945 save percentage. That's certainly a positive.
Nothing official yet from the other side. Ville Husso has been excellent in both of the Blues' wins over Vancouver, facing a total of 75 shots and giving up just two goals — to Tanner Pearson back in January, and to Brad Hunt on Monday.
St. Louis is kicking off a three-in-four through Western Canada on Wednesday night. Facing Edmonton on Friday and Calgary on Saturday, then going home for a four-in-six, I imagine they'll split the weekend games between Husso and Jordan Binnington. But I would think they'll go back to Husso against the Canucks. Not only has he been good against Vancouver, he has also dramatically outplayed Binnington this season at 15.4 goals saved above expected, compared to minus 6.3 for Binnington.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with this situation in the offseason. Husso's a 27-year-old impending UFA who made just $750,000 this season. I'm sure the Blues would love to keep him, but they're committed to Binnington at $6 million a year for five more years, and he has a full no-trade clause for the next two seasons before it starts dropping to a more modified list.
I can also think of a couple of teams off the top of my head that could coming knocking if they have a chance to grab a goalie of Husso's caliber for nothing more than the price of a contract...
In terms of the Canucks' shooters, Pearson, J.T. Miller and Conor Garland led the way with five shots each on Monday, but the linemates had pretty rough nights. Miller and Pearson both finished minus-3, and Miller went just 3-for-11 in the face-off circle.
Garland spent some time riding the pine in the first period, and only saw four shifts in the third. He got called out by the coach after the game.
"He didn’t play very well, and I need more out of him,"
said Boudreau, per David Quadrelli of Canucks Army. "I think he's pressing really hard to score because he hasn't scored in a while, but the idea is you can't do it all by yourself when you're pressing. You've got to use your teammates and I think he could've passed the puck, he carried it a little too much, but he was one of the forwards I didn't think had a very good game."
I'll be at the arena tonight, and look forward to seeing how Garland responds to this messaging.
Boudreau's certainly right that it's been awhile since Garland scored: his last goal came 16 games ago, in the 7-1 win over Calgary on Feb. 24. He has five assists since then, which brings his total to 14 goals and 35 points in 63 games this season.
That's below last year's total production in Arizona, when he had 39 points in 49 games. But he had only 12 goals and was seeing significantly more ice time — 17:55 last year, compared to 16:06 this season. He's producing more similarly to his breakout 2019-20 year with the Coyotes, when he had 22 goals and 39 points in 68 games, off 14:09 of average ice time. His shooting percentage is down this year, though — just 8.1%, compared to 13.9% in that breakout year and 8.9% last year.
But he is hitting more this year than he ever has before — 46 hits to date, compared to just 26 in each of the last two years. And his defensive responsibility is usually pretty good. Take it for what it's worth, but he has the best plus-minus of any Vancouver forward at plus-10 — behind only Luke Schenn (+12) and Tyler Myers (+11).
I see Boudreau's remarks as more of an effort to let Garland know that he can bring more to his team — and his line — and to get his head back into a good space for an improved performance.
Other than Demko, it looks like the Canucks will roll with basically the same configuration they used in St. Louis.
Matthew Highmore's status has now been changed to week-to-week, so I expect we'll get an extended look at Will Lockwood in the bottom six, especially with AHL call-ups at such a premium at this time of year.
Nils Hoglander has also now missed seven games with his groin issue.
Monday's loss, of course, stalled the Canucks' engine in the race for a Western Conference playoff spot.
Dallas's 3-2 win over Anaheim on Tuesday night moved them back into the second wild-card spot, four points up on Vancouver and still with three games in hand. Vegas sits one point behind the Stars, with 76 points, and plays Wednesday night in Seattle. Winnipeg is 10th with 74 points and plays in Buffalo on Wednesday — but will be without Kyle Connor and Nate Schmidt, who have been placed in Covid protocol.
And up a little higher in the Pacific Division, there's a showdown for second place on tap in Edmonton on Wednesday. The Oilers have won six straight at home and can pass the Los Angeles Kings in the standings with a regulation win — and the Kings are so injured that they played six rookies in their last game, including three on the blue line. A return to health, getting back players like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jesse Puljujarvi, has done wonders for the Oilers, who are averaging a league-leading 4.80 goals per game in their last 10 games, where they've gone 7-2-1.
The Kings are eight points up on the Canucks, also with 14 games to go. It's a long shot, but they're so banged up that I wonder if they might be in jeopardy?
As of Wednesday morning,
MoneyPuck has the Kings' playoff odds at a solid 89.1%, one percent above Edmonton.
Vancouver is at 7.6%. Some favourable results on Wednesday night's scoreboard could help boost that number significantly. It all starts with a win for the home side.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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