Wednesday August 19 - Vancouver Canucks 4 - St. Louis Blues 3
Canucks lead best-of-seven series 3-2
I can hardly believe I'm writing this.
Tyler Motte and Jake Virtanen were the offensive heroes and Jacob Markstrom had another (mostly) terrific game. Now, the Vancouver Canucks are one game away from dethroning the defending Stanley Cup Champions and celebrating their first *real* playoff series win since 2011.
Here are your highlights from Wednesday's thrilling win over the St. Louis Blues.
Where to begin? I liked so many things about this game.
I loved seeing Travis Green channel his old poker-playing self, and keep his lineup decisions under wraps until puck drop, where he inserted Adam Gaudette for the first time since Game 1 against Minnesota and scratched Zack MacEwen.
Normally, he's a bit obtuse when he doesn't want to share his decisions or the reasons behind them. But when asked how his team was able to contain Ryan O'Reilly's line effectively on Wednesday after standout performances in the past two games, he flat-out admitted that he was keeping that information to himself.
Green on controlling O'Reilly's line: I don't know for sure, I'm not going to give you my real idea or thoughts. I don't know if that line ever has a bad game, they didn't dominate as much tonight I guess. It's probably more about how we played as a team. #Canucks
As Green juggled his lines through the game, Gaudette ended up seeing just 7:26 of ice time — and Antoine Roussel was also under 10 minutes, at 7:46. Gaudette was a minus one, with three hits, one shot attempt, two blocks, and a win on the only draw he took.
During the game, I was wondering if one of the reasons Green tapped him to play was because he wanted another center in the lineup to take draws. For reasons unknown, J.T. Miller took just four faceoffs in the game — clustered at the end of the second period and to open the third. And he lost them all.
Miller's offensive production hasn't been a problem. He picked up another goal and assist on Wednesday, and with 10 points in nine games, he's tied for fifth in the league in playoff scoring. He had nine shot attempts in the game, six on goal, plus three hits and a block in 20:17 of ice time, second only to Bo Horvat among Vancouver forwards. So it's not like his overall usage was cut back.
But the faceoff thing was so strange. He took 109 draws in the first eight games of the playoffs, an average of 13.6 per game. And he won 56 percent of them. Against the Blues, he took 54 draws and won 57.4 percent of them through the first four games. So I can't help but wonder if something's up, physically, and he's finding ways to power through an injury.
I thought maybe something was wrong with his hand or wrist. But he's using both hands casually and nothing seems to be wrong during the postgame Zoom availability. Watch for yourself, starting at about the 9:00 mark:
LIVE: Listen in as #Canucks players and Head Coach Travis Green meet the media following their Game 5 victory over the Blues, presented by @TheProvince. https://t.co/qRPJgBNxkv
Elias Pettersson was called for some faceoff duty, but went 0-for-5. Not surprisingly, Bo Horvat picked up most of the slack. He took 24 of the 53 draws on the night — nearly half! — and won 13 of them, for a 54 percent success rate.
On the other side of the dot, Ryan O'Reilly was right there with him, winning 12 of 23.
All told, Bo's now at 219 draws over nine games — tops in the playoffs. O'Reilly's fifth at 186, with one fewer game played. But among players who have taken more than 100 draws, O'Reilly's 62.7 percent success rate leads all players by a wide margin. Bo is sixth at a still-very-good 57.7 percent. The other four players in the high 50s are usual suspects Giroux and Couturier with Philadelphia as well as Calgary's Sean Monahan and Jean-Gabriel Pageau of the Islanders.
I haven't talked much about how well O'Reilly has played in this series, because I've been talking about how good he is for awhile. I got to watch him play for Canada at four straight World Championships, and saw him get better every year. Even though Canada failed to earn a medal in Denmark in 2018, he was the heart and soul of that roster — which also included Connor McDavid and Bo Horvat down the middle.
After O'Reilly led the Blues in both regular-season and playoff scoring last season, and won the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Selke, I felt like his reputation was established. He's a beast, as well as one of the most cerebral players in the game.
But apparently that doesn't guarantee that the Blues are going to win this series. What a game by Tyler Motte — who got a ton of attention when he logged 24:17 of ice time in the penalty-filled third game of the series, then followed up with the first two playoff goals of his career on Wednesday. He's another member of the Canucks who's playing in his first-ever NHL postseason.
When you think of how many wingers the Canucks have had floating around over the last two seasons, it's a huge testament to Motte's work ethic and tenacity that he has been able to quietly stick around. He's starting to look like one of Jim Benning's best-ever trade deadline acquisitions, acquired along with Jussi Jokinen in exchange for impending free agent Thomas Vanek on Feb. 26, 2018.
I wasn't sure if he'd stick at the beginning of the 2018-19 season, but the team elected to put Sam Gagner on waivers and keep Motte around. Since then, he's kept his roster spot while we've said goodbye to Nikolay Goldobin, Sven Baertschi, Markus Granlund, Brendan Leipsic, Tim Schaller, Ryan Spooner, Brendan Gaunce, Darren Archibald, Reid Boucher — all of whom played games on the wing during 2018-19.
Motte has made his reputation as a tenacious fourth-liner and effective penalty killer who's not afraid to use his body. But as he showed on his breakaway goals on Wednesday, his hands are pretty decent, too. I was also first introduced to him at World Championships. In Russia in 2016, he played for Team USA on a line that was directly imported from the University of Michigan — the so-called CCM line, with Kyle Connor and J.T. Compher.
Zach Werenski was also on that Michigan roster, on the blue line. The Wolverines won the Big East tournament championship that year, but were defeated by Brock Boeser and Troy Stecher's Notre Dame Fighting Hawks in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Connor finished the season with 71 points in 38 games, Compher had 63 and Motte had 56, including 32 goals. He was also a top-ten finalist for the Hobey Baker Award.
In Russia, Motte had three points in 10 games for that stacked U.S. team. That group was led by soon-to-be-drafted Auston Matthews but went home without a medal after losing to Canada in the semifinal, then to Russia in the bronze-medal game.
I've supported keeping a spot on the Canucks for Motte over the last two years. It was awesome to see him have such a big game at such a crucial time on Wednesday.
Also great — seeing Jake Virtanen respond with two points when Green shuffled his lines and put Jake up with Miller and Pettersson with the Canucks down 3-1 in the second period. By separating his talent and throwing some new looks at the Blues, Green was able to generate an element of surprise that put the Blues back on their heels and shook their confidence a bit.
Finally — I'm happy to hear that the prognosis is good for Alex Edler, who left the game late in the second period after being cut by a skate in his facial area.
Jordie Benn on Alex Edler: “He’s fine and ready to rock.”
Kudos to the other five defensemen for picking up the slack and to the whole team for executing a fast-moving third period that kept the clock ticking and the Blues' chances to tie the game to a minimum. Things got a little dicey on that last second video review, but we clearly saw zeros before the puck crossed the goal line.
So here we are. Instead of fretting, we can spend the next two days thinking how the Canucks have never trailed, game-wise, in this series, and how they now have a chance to close out the Blues.
#Canucks lead a best-of-seven playoff series 3-2 for the 9th time in franchise history. They went 6-2 in the previous 8 series. pic.twitter.com/lGhpIqUuaE
The top two seeds in the West, Vegas and Colorado, are now through. No. 3 Dallas will try to close out Calgary on Thursday. With Chicago now eliminated, the Canucks must have the Sutton Place Hotel all to themselves.
Game 6 between Vancouver and St. Louis goes Friday night at a slightly-earlier start time of 6:45 p.m. PT, from Edmonton.
And one last thing — I just did a rundown of my 17 days at Rogers Place. Please give it a read, if you're so inclined:
Over 17 days in Edmonton, I watched 23 live NHL games. I saw all 12 teams in the Western Conference hub play at least twice.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»