|
Reid Boucher draws in as Vancouver Canucks continue road trip in Columbus |
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday February 9 - Vancouver Canucks at Columbus Blue Jackets - 4 p.m. - Sportsnet Pacific
Vancouver Canucks: 53 GP, 23-24-6, 52 pts, sixth in Pacific Division
Columbus Blue Jackets: 52 GP, 34-13-5, 73 pts, second in Metropolitan Division
The Vancouver Canucks continue their fight for their playoff lives as they make their annual visit to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets on Thursday night.
Columbus has come back down to earth since that 16-game winning streak that they were building when they beat the Canucks 4-3 on Seth Jones' overtime game winner back on December 18—when the snow first came into our lives here in Vancouver.
Since the Washington Capitals snapped the Jackets' streak on January 5, Columbus has gone a middling 7-8-1. Their last game was an echo of their earlier win over the Canucks—another overtime win with Seth Jones playing hero, this time by a score of 3-2 at Joe Louis Arena against the Detroit Red Wings.
Since playing Columbus in December, Vancouver is 10-8-3, but their current four-game losing streak now makes them the coldest team in the league. Just one game was played on Wednesday, so the Canucks' position in the Western Conference standings is unchanged for now. Vancouver is one of the first teams to hit the ice today, in a rare 4 p.m. start.
The three relevant games to scoreboard-watch tonight all get underway half an hour later, at 4:30 PT.
• St. Louis at Toronto
• Dallas at Ottawa
• Los Angeles at Florida
Winnipeg's off until Friday, and Calgary's on their bye week—the Flames don't play again until next Monday.
Sven Baertschi is still travelling with the team after suffering that concussion on Tuesday in Nashville.
Just an optional skate for the group this morning after a full practice yesterday.
Baertschi's injury means we will get to see more of waiver-pickup Reid Boucher. He slotted onto the fourth line at practice on Wednesday, as Jayson Megna moved up the depth chart, and also grabbed a spot on the second power-play unit.
Boucher has decent hands—best illustrated by his 62 goals in 68 games with the Sarnia Sting in 2012-13, but also backed up by eight goals in 39 games with the always goal-starved New Jersey Devils last season and 19 in 34 AHL games in Albany. It's a bit atypical to see a fourth-liner also get work on the power play, but there's actually a very effective example of this deployment happening in Columbus this season.
Gagner has 14 goals and 34 points in 51 games this season, so he could easily beat his old career highs from Edmonton—he topped out at 18 goals in 2011-12 and 49 points in his rookie year, 2007-08. Considering he spent time in the AHL last season and looked like he had just about played himself out of the league, Gagner's rebirth is one of the NHL's feel-good stories of the year. Surprising to realize, after all he has been through, that he's still just 27 years old.
As for Boucher, this will be just his second game in a Vancouver uniform since he was acquired off the waiver wire on January 4. Word is that the Canucks' training staff has been working with him on his conditioning, so we'll see if the well-travelled winger is able to make the most of his opportunity tonight.
The Canucks are a very respectable 2-for-5 on the power play in their last two games. The bigger concern at this point is their inability to draw penalties. The Canucks average 8:24 of penalty time themselves this season, seventh-lowest in the NHL, but they've also generated the seventh-lowest number of power-play opportunities this year. Combined with their third-worst power-play percentage (currently 14.7 percent), the Canucks' 23 power-play goals so far this year put them in a tie for second-least, with the Islanders and Avalanche.
Columbus has the league's best power-play efficiency rate, at 24.0 percent, but they're actually 29th in the number of power plays they've generated, so their 35 power-play goals ranks them 10th overall in the league. For all their woes, Tampa Bay has generated the most power-play chances and has the most goals with the man advantage, 42.
Another one of the Canucks' reclamation projects, Michael Chaput, played all his NHL hockey in Columbus before signing with Vancouver as a free agent over the summer. He relays a pretty funny embarrassing moment from his days with the Blue Jackets to Alex Burrows in this interview.
Sergei Bobrovsky will make his 43rd start of the year tonight. He's tied for the NHL lead with Devan Dubnyk with 29 wins, to go along with his 2.18 goals-against average and .925 save percentage.
After his recent rough patch, Ryan Miller now sits at 14-14-3 with a .915 save percentage and 2.64 GAA. He'll need to play well tonight if the Canucks hope to tally just their third road win of the year against an Eastern Conference team. The first was the 5-3 win over the New York Rangers on November 8 that snapped the nine-game losing streak, then the second was the 5-1 win over Tampa Bay on December 8.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»