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Elias Pettersson's 25th goal earns Canucks a point against the Blackhawks |
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Thursday February 7 - Chicago Blackhawks 4 - Vancouver Canucks 3 (OT)
Elias Pettersson's late goal salvaged a point, but the Vancouver Canucks suffered their third-straight loss when Jonathan Toews beat Jacob Markstrom at 3:21 of overtime to give the Chicago Blackhawks the 4-3 win on Thursday at the United Center.
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All things considered, it was another strong effort for the Canucks, who outshot their opponents for the third-straight game on this road trip and broke the 40-shot mark for the second time, firing 43 pucks on Blackhawks netminder Collin Delia.
But Thursday's game was also the Canucks' third one-goal loss. Still faced with a franchise-wide lack of depth, this team shifts from squeaking out wins to squeaking out losses as soon as they lose one player at each position to injury.
Back in the lineup while Alex Edler is recovering from his concussion, Alex Biega did pick up his first goal of the year in his 16th game, threading a slapper through after Tyler Motte and Brock Boeser both had shot attempts blocked by Chicago's Erik Gustafsson earlier in the same shift.
But Edler's loss still ripples through the lineup. He was missed on the Canucks' first-period 5-on-3, which was a golden opportunity for Vancouver to take an early lead. And he was missed on Chicago's 5-on-3 later in the same frame, where the Blackhawks scored twice in 59 seconds after top defensive centres Jay Beagle and Brandon Sutter both landed in the penalty box at the same time.
I'm also not convinced that using Chris Tanev on the left side doesn't just make things worse. That's not exactly a hot take given that he was on the ice for all four Chicago goals on Thursday, even if only one came at 5-on-5. I'd much rather see him eat his usual 20-plus minutes in his usual right-side role—even if that means playing Biega in a limited role on the left. But I guess the problem is that Travis Green doesn't really trust Derrick Pouliot, either. Pouliot played just 12:48 on Thursday, with no special-teams time, while Tanev logged 20:50 including 5:52 on the penalty kill and Ben Hutton broke the 30-minute mark for the first time in his career, playing 5:18 on the power play and 4:22 shorthanded on his way to a 31:18 night.
I'll continue to stump for Guillaume Brisebois to get a chance, as a natural lefty.
I thought we might see Mikey DiPietro take the net after Jacob Markstrom was stung on the collarbone by a high shot from Jonathan Toews while Chicago was killing off Vancouver's first-period 5-on-3. Markstrom went down for several seconds but eventually recovered and showed no obvious signs of discomfort as the game went on.
When Anders Nilsson was injured back in November, I wondered how much Markstrom was playing through injury issues before finally ceding the net to Richard Bachman for that disastrous 6-2 loss in Minnesota. That train of thought returned on Thursday; Markstrom seems to have the mindset that he'll do everything he can to hold the fort until Thatcher Demko is ready to get back into the lineup, even if that means playing through pain.
Shoutout to Josh Leivo for his first-career three-point night in the NHL. In 23 games since joining the Canucks, he's up to 6-5-11—more than he produced during any of his seasons in Toronto. At 0.48 points per game in a Vancouver uniform, Leivo is just behind Nikolay Goldobin (0.50) and just ahead of Antoine Roussel (0.44) and Jake Virtanen (0.40). Such is the state of Vancouver's secondary scoring.
Also, kudos to Elias Pettersson to his second late goal in as many games. His determination to keep shooting until the bitter end is one of those mental shifts that has helped the Canucks this season.
Pettersson's now up to 25 goals, and has a legitimate crack at breaking Pavel Bure's rookie record of 34 here in Vancouver.
How about this?
Pettersson's 48 points still give him a 19-point cushion in the rookie scoring race—Rasmus Dahlin has now moved into second place with 29 points. Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Toronto's Andreas Johnsson are both playing well and are now tied with Colin White for third with 27 points—and Jordan Binnington's strong play in net just vaulted St. Louis over Vancouver and into the second wild-card spot after the Blues' shut out Tampa Bay (!) 1-0 on Thursday. Binnington is now 8-1-1 on the year and could be playing himself into the Calder conversation in net, alongside Carter Hart—although a goalie hasn't been named rookie of the year since Steve Mason with Columbus back in 2008-09.
I haven't talked about Bo Horvat's slump in production yet, but that is starting to become worrisome, especially the fact that he has just one goal since December 20. Has he run out of gas after putting on so many miles with all those tough assignments while Beagle and Sutter were injured earlier in the year?
Here are Horvat's month-by-month splits so far, including his average ice time:
October: 14 GP, 7-3-10, 19:18
November: 14 GP, 4-10-14, 22:16
December: 14 GP, 6-5-11, 20:37
January: 9 GP, 1-5-6, 21:20
February: 4 GP, 0-1-1, 21:26
The Canucks flew home from Chicago late last night, and are resting up with a day off today before taking on the Calgary Flames on Saturday for the nightcap of Hockey Day in Canada.
The good news: 30 of 41 road games are now in the books, and the trips will be shorter from here. The Canucks won't visit the Eastern Time Zone again unless they reach the Stanley Cup Final: they played their last Eastern road game of the regular season in Washington on Tuesday.
Six Eastern Conference opponents are still on the docket at Rogers Arena this year: New York Islanders (Feb 23), Toronto (March 6), NY Rangers (March 13), New Jersey (March 15), Ottawa (March 20) and Columbus (March 24).
The rest of Vancouver's road schedule will see them do two 3-in-4s up next—through California late next week, then through Colorado, Arizona and Vegas at the end of the month. In March, there's a single-game trip to Edmonton and a back-to-back through Dallas and Chicago, then Vancouver's regular-season schedule wraps up with a two-game trip to Nashville and St. Louis in early April.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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