Thursday December 8 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Tampa Bay Lightning 1
The hockey gods dished out a couple of early favours, the grinders got some goals and Ryan Miller was spectacular as the Vancouver Canucks torched the Tampa Bay Lightning in their most one-sided win of the season on Thursday night.
Here are your highlights:
Two years ago, Amalie Arena was a fortress. The Lightning had the best home record in the NHL in 2014-15 at 32-8-1 and the Canucks fell into line with a 4-1 loss on January 20, 2015.
Last season, Jacob Markstrom backstopped the Canucks to a 2-1 win in Tampa on December 22nd, one game after Ryan Miller pulled himself one shot into a shootout in Florida due to cramps.
I mention this because last night, he took himself out of the game again—although in a less crucial situation. Vancouver was sitting on a comfortable four-goal lead when Markstrom came in with 6:02 to play in regulation. He stopped just two shots to preserve the win.
Word is, it's nothing serious with Miller...
"Miller felt sore and maybe twisted something, but he should be fine." - Coach Desjardins
...but he wasn't supposed to be sidelined very long when he missed those eight games last Christmas, either. I guess we'll see—hopefully he's well enough that the goalies can split the back-to-backs in Florida and Washington this weekend.
After their loss last night, Tampa Bay's home record drops to 21st in the league at 7-4-1. NHL.com sorts based on total points, which puts Vancouver ahead of the Lightning in 17th spot with an 8-5-1 record on home ice.
The New Jersey Devils are listed in 15th even though they're undefeated in regulation at home—their problem is that they've played just 10 home games so far. What stands out, looking at home records all around the league, is just how big home-ice advantage is these days. Only two teams in the entire league are below .500 at home—Calgary (6-7-0) and Colorado (4-8-2).
So—it's no wonder that I'm feeling rather buoyant after the Canucks earned just their fourth road win of the year in such pleasing fashion. Miller was terrific again, stopping 38 shots before his exit, including 17 of 18 in the second period, when the game was still close.
And the boys got some bounces. Erik Gudbranson and Jack Skille both got their first goals as Canucks.
The pair combined for this beauty to open the scoring on Vancouver's first shot of the game:
Once he got rolling, Skille would add an insurance marker in the third period, while Jayson Megna took advantage of a little ice time with the Sedins to score his second and third of the year.
The 3-0 goal was set up by Alex Biega and Nikita Tryamkin, but Megna was moved in to work with Daniel and Henrik after Brandon Sutter had just completed a penalty-killing shift.
Megna's second of the night came on a don't-quit play with less than a second remaining on the clock in the second period. He and Markus Granlund had come on for a late line change but Daniel Sedin hadn't left the ice yet, and set Megna up for a nice goal off the rush.
On the Lightning side, it was a particularly rough game for ex-Canuck Jason Garrison. He, Nikita Kucherov and Alex Killorn all finished the night at minus-four.
The win was a nice boost for the team after the dark cloud of the Philip Larsen injury on Tuesday. It could also be seen to affirm Jim Benning and Trevor Linden's commitments to their current lineup.
Both men have been making the rounds over the past week, asserting that they're happy with the group that they have and, now, that players with no-trade clauses will not be asked to waive as this year's trade deadline approaches.
This, I think, is the key motivator behind this latest barnstorming tour:
Benning on NTC: I wanted to be honest with our players. I want to try to limit the unnecessary distractions so players can focus on winning
After all the speculation that swirled around loyal soldier Dan Hamhuis last season, I can see why management wants to get in front of this as soon as they can, especially when Ryan Miller, Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen have all been names frequently tossed about as possible trade bait.
That being said—it was less than a month ago that Benning and company were still talking about wanting to add a proven scoring winger. The landscape can certainly change as the season progresses—and I'm sure the speculation will heat up once again as the trade deadline draws near—but Linden and Benning are doing their best to mute these sorts of conversations as much as they can.
The Canucks are now a solid 8-5-1 since snapping their losing streak in early November, and maybe their luck is starting to change?
Canucks continue to have league’s worst PDO, powered by league-worst even strength sv pct and nearly-league worst shooting pct
Among the analytics crowd, PDO is seen as a measure of 'luck' that helps to quantify the randomness of hockey—even-strength save percentage and shooting percentage make up the PDO number.
Vancouver is 2-2-0 in December, since Johnston's tweet. According to Sporting Charts they're still tied for last in the league with a PDO of .982 (1.000 is considered "average" or "normal), but are now ranked 29th, ahead of Dallas. Other teams that aren't far off are L.A. (.983), Colorado (.985) and Boston & Florida (both .986).
Do the Canucks have enough good karma to carry through to Saturday's game against the Panthers?
I’ve been saying the Canucks were due for some bounces, but now it looks like they’re getting *all* of them at once. #slowdown
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»