A pair of quick-strike goals from Nils Hoglander and Vasily Podkolzin helped the Vancouver Canucks pick up two points on Long Island on Thursday, as they skated out with a 4-3 win over the New York Islanders.
Brad Hunt also scored his first goal as a Canuck, becoming the fifth-ever defenseman from the Lower Mainland to do so:
J.T. Miller also scored, his team-leading 21st of the season, deftly tipping a Brock Boeser shot past Semyon Varlamov to give the Canucks a brief 2-1 lead midway through the second period.
It's an impressive win for a few reasons.
First, it erases the nasty taste of that no-show in New Jersey on Monday. Second, it came after Vancouver surrendered the first goal of the game to Noah Dobson, early in the second. And finally, it came after the Islanders re-took the lead early in the third period, following goals from Kyle Palmieri and Anthony Beauvillier.
It's also the Canucks' first regulation road win against the Islanders in six tries. So long, Barclays Center — Hello, UBS Arena! And it's the first time in 12 games that the Islanders hadn't collected at least a point off the Canucks. They had a 7-0-4 record against Vancouver heading into Thursday's contest.
And it's great to see the kids chipping in at such a key moment.
As I mentioned in the last blog, Nils Hoglander is one of the players whose circumstances have worsened most significantly since Bruce Boudreau's arrival.
In 25 games under Travis Green this season, Hoglander was averaging 14:27 of ice time, was a plus-one, and had 10 points, including two on the power play.
In 30 games under Boudreau, he's down to 12:28 a game and has just seven points, with only one on the power play. And he's tied with Jason Dickinson as a team-worst minus-7 under Boudreau, quite a feat when Vancouver has become so good defensively since the new coach took over.
He was minus-3 in Jersey on Monday, which certainly doesn't help.
Lately, I feel like we haven't really seen that same gritty tenacity in Hoglander's game that was his trademark earlier on, either. But I appreciate how Boudreau roots for his players, even when they've been in the doghouse:
And for this night, the penalty kill was a non-issue, as the Islanders didn't receive a single power play. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Of course, the Canucks' penalty-killing stat doesn't improve when it doesn't get any reps. But I noticed that they have now cracked the 70% threshold for the season, at 70.4%. And Montreal and Arizona are also under 75% — although also both on the upswing. Big wins for them on Thursday over Calgary and Colorado, respectively!
While I was shuffling through league-wide stats, I also noticed that Vancouver is now tied with Los Angeles for 11th place overall in goals against per game, at 2.82. Can't remember the last time they were in the top half of the league in that category!
Goals for is still a bit of a work in progress: 23rd at 2.77. But that brings the differential between the two stats down to -0.05. Quite a difference from when they were at 2.36 vs. 3.16 for -0.8 during Green's tenure.
A mid-season coaching change, with no significant personnel changes, certainly offers a fascinating opportunity to study two separate data sets. To me, looking at these numbers really underscores the fact that we have to exercise caution when we start talking about 'good players' and 'bad players' and even trying to assign roles based on past statistics. On top of the randomness that's inherent in hockey, the stark contrast in Vancouver's outcomes drives home that yes, there are plenty of intangibles at play that can't necessarily be captured by analytics.
The Canucks made a little bit of headway in the standings on Thursday, too. Most relevant: Vegas lost in regulation and the Oilers lost in overtime. The single point bumps Edmonton up into third place in the Pacific and puts Vegas in the second wild card, sort of. They're just one point up on Dallas, with two more games played, so if you go by points percentage, they're on the outside of the playoff picture. That is causing some trepidation in Sin City — they've never been in this situation before!
The Canucks still sit 11th, by real points and percentage — four points out of the wild card and five out of second place in the Pacific. That's the Kings, right now, who are on the road in Columbus on Friday night.
Dallas also plays Winnipeg on Friday, and Anaheim hosts Vegas. So more points will be poured into the logjam before the Canucks get back on the ice to close out their road trip against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.
Playoff-wise, the Leafs are still pretty secure — although they're currently third in the Atlantic, and now sit just four points ahead of Boston. Even scarier than the prospect of not getting home-ice advantage in their attempt to finally win a first-round series is the fact that their goaltending has fallen into the dumpster. Since New Year's, they're 23rd in goals against, averaging 3.38 goals against per game.
And while they can often score their way to victory, that's not always the case. They came out with the two points in that 10-7 debacle against Detroit last Saturday. But since they lost to the Canucks at Rogers Arena three weeks ago, they've also lost 6-3 to St. Louis, 5-2 to Montreal, 4-3 in overtime to Columbus and, most recently, 5-1 to Buffalo on Wednesday.
Points-wise, they're still on the positive side of the ledger — 5-3-1 since they saw the Canucks. But they're not the unstoppable juggernaut that they were earlier in the season, which should make for a fun game on Saturday night!
And speaking of unstoppable juggernauts, a belated shout-out to Sheldon Dries of the Abbotsford Canucks, who was named the AHL's player of the month for February.
This year, the NHL and AHL seasons will both finish at the end of April, so it's time to start keeping an eye on the Baby Canucks' playoff prospects as well.
With an 8-2-0-0 record in heir past 10 games, Abbotsford currently sits fifth in the AHL's nine-team Pacific Division. And that's totally OK.
Click here for the lowdown on the AHL's incredibly complex playoff format.
In the Pacific, the top seed will receive a bye into the best-of-five division semifinals, while teams two through seven will play a best-of-three qualification round. As things stand right now, that would put Abbotsford against the No. 4 Colorado Eagles, but there's plenty of room for things to change — the Eagles have played more games than any other team in the Division, and five more than Abbotsford.
We'll have to keep an eye on potential matchups as we go forward. But if Abbotsford can stay hot, I wouldn't even rule out the possibility of home-ice advantage for that best-of-three series.
**EDIT** Thanks to CanucksAbbyFan2 for a DM on Twitter to let me know that I had originally posted the wrong schedule for Abbotsford this weekend. They're actually out East this weekend as well, with a pair of games against the Laval Rocket on Friday and Saturday and then one more against the Toronto Marlies on Wednesday before they head home for four, starting with two games against the Colorado Eagles.
Enjoy the games!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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