Wednesday March 14 - Anaheim Ducks 3 - Vancouver Canucks 0
When Daniel Sedin's picking up 10-minute misconducts, it's hard not to wonder if he'd even have any interest in coming back to play another season.
Frustration is mounting as the Vancouver Canucks wrapped up their three-game road trip without a single goal to show for their efforts after a 3-0 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday night at Honda Center.
Here are your highlights:
Michael Del Zotto did hit the post in the first period. That's about as good as it gets these days!
With the loss, the Canucks (and the Arizona Coyotes) are officially eliminated from playoff contention with just over three weeks still to play in the 2017-18 season.
John Gibson's shutout on Wednesday for the Ducks was his third in eight appearances against Vancouver. He was just 20 years old when he earned a 3-0 shutout of the Canucks at Rogers Arena in his first-ever NHL game on April 7, 2014 and now has a 6-1-1 lifetime record against the Canucks.
Darcy Kuemper, now of Arizona, also played his first-ever NHL game against the Canucks, but that was a 2-1 loss for the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Arena back on February 12, 2013, where Jannik Hansen scored the game-winning goal. He has played more minutes against the Canucks than any other team in the NHL; his lifetime record against Vancouver is now 4-5-0 in 10 starts. Last Sunday's shutout was his first against the Canucks and the 11th of his career.
Now in his 11th NHL season, Jonathan Quick is 18-16-2 against the Canucks in his career but has an overall save percentage of .935 against Vancouver. His 1.77 goals-against average against the Canucks is the lowest of any Western Conference opponent. He picked up his fifth career shutout against the Canucks on Monday, more than any other team but Arizona (six).
As for Daniel's late-game frustration with the officiating:
Daniel's other regular-season misconduct came in a 3-2 overtime win in St. Louis on October 25, 2013, when Daniel got into it with David Backes in a fight-filled game—in the first month of the Torts era, not surprisingly.
I'm kind of impressed to see that Daniel's misconduct totals in his 102 playoff games actually exceed those of his 1,295 regular-season games. He got two 10-minute misconducts in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final against Boston.
The first was coincidental with Andrew Ference, early in the third period of Game 3, with the score 4-0 for Boston (was that around the time he took those notorious punches from Brad Marchand?). The second came in conjunction with other misconducts for Max Lapierre, Shawn Thornton and Marchand, after Marchand took a roughing penalty on Daniel late in the Canucks' 5-2 loss in Game 6.
Daniel was also assessed one game misconduct for abusing an official at the end of Game 4 of Vancouver's first-round series against San Jose in 2013, after Patrick Marleau's overtime goal completed the sweep of the Canucks while Daniel was in the box serving a boarding penalty against Tommy Wingels.
So—frustrated thug Daniel is a thing, but it is a bit alarming to think that he's *as* frustrated now as he has been in those high-stakes situations mentioned above.
He downplayed it in his comments after the game:
The other big news on Wednesday was the team's announcement that Erik Gudbranson is being shut down to undergo shoulder surgery—a procedure with an estimated recovery time of six months, that should have him ready to go by training camp.
After playing just 30 games last season before undergoing season-ending wrist surgery, Gudbranson managed 52 games this year. He cut his plus-minus from minus-14 to minus-7 and doubled his goals from one to two, but dropped from six points to five on the year and saw his average ice time drop from 20:20 under Willie Desjardins last year to 18:25 this year under Travis Green.
We had some inkling this was coming. Jason Botchford has the screen grab of Gudbranson's massive shoulder brace that was caught on camera in a pregame shot not long before the trade deadline in his latest edition of The Provies.
Click here and scroll down to see.
There was talk at the time that the image—and, realistically, the ongoing issue itself—would have killed Gudbranson's trade value. You could say that the Canucks were backed into a corner in terms of resigning him—or you could say that Guddy would have been in a real tough spot this summer, trying to lock down a big UFA contract while rehabbing his injury.
Either way, it's an unsurprising ending to the second chapter of Gudbranson's term in Vancouver.
Like last year, we come back and say "With any luck, he'll stay healthy next season and will be able to deliver more of the physical game that we've hoped to see."
The Canucks are off today as they return to Vancouver for one game on Saturday before hitting the road for another four. Nothing official yet, but I expect they'll practice on Friday before hosting the San Jose Sharks on Saturday.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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