Thursday April 23 - Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames - 7:00 p.m. - CBC, TSN1040
Calgary Flames lead best-of-seven series 3-1
If you missed
this article by Thomas Drance at Canucks.com, it offers up some food for thought as we nervously pass the hours until game time at Rogers Arena tonight.
Drance reports that, historically, lower-ranked teams that build 3-1 leads in the first round have only a 32.4 percent chance of winning Game 5 on the road—the situation for Calgary tonight. The Canucks have just a 25 percent chance of coming back to win the series but their mathematical odds of winning tonight are actually pretty good.
I'm not expecting an unconditional lovefest at Rogers Arena tonight like we saw in Winnipeg as the Jets were eliminated by the Ducks lat night. That city is still grateful just to *have* hockey—Vancouver fans want so much more.
But the Canucks have been a resilient bunch during the regular season when we have expected to write them off. Hopefully a couple of days to breathe and get organized will result in a more effective game tonight and give the fans something to cheer about.
Things we know:
Ryan Miller will get the nod tonight.
He's not completely healthy, but looked steady and fresh during his 40 minutes of action in Game 4:
Tonight's lines remain a question mark, as Brad Richardson has put himself back into the mix:
Here's the group at this morning's optional skate:
These were the lines at Wednesday's practice:
Based on this, it looks like we'll see Jannik Hansen with the Sedins again, which feels frustrating, although I'm cautiously hopeful about this Baertschi/Bonino/Vrbata combination on the second line. That group made things happen against Edmonton during the last game of the season.
If Richardson can play, I'd expect him to slot into the third-line center spot, where Brandon McMillan skated yesterday.
Such as it is, we also had a Zack Kassian sighting on Wednesday:
One number that I'm surprised we haven't seen bandied about more often is the relative playoff experience of Calgary's Bob Hartley vs. Vancouver's Willie Desjardins.
We know that Willie has decades of coaching experience, won the 2014 Calder Cup with the Texas Stars and the 2004 WHL championship in Medicine Hat. He was also an assistant coach for Canada's 2009 gold-medal-winning World Junior Championship team. He knows what it takes to win.
But Bob Hartley coached his first NHL game in 1998, won a Stanley Cup with a talent-laden Colorado Avalanche team in 2001 and came into this series with 84 games of NHL playoff experience. Say what you will about some of Hartley's more unscrupulous decisions—the man has a well to draw from when it comes to making decisions about how to deploy his team, and he has done it well.
The Flames have not just stymied the Canucks in the first four games of the series—they've also sent the advanced stats community into a frenzy with their great results despite terrible possession numbers. Hartley is getting committed defensive play from his group that's defying the numbers.
Hartley's other big achievement during his tenure in Calgary—he's coaxing unexpectedly good play from different types of players throughout his lineup.
Think of how many times we've said "I didn't expect (this player) to be playing this well," when talking about the Flames. I'd start the list with Sean Monahan, who stepped in straight off his draft year and put up 22 goals, then quickly added a defensive component to his game this season. Other skilled rookies who have excelled this year have been undersized Johnny Gaudreau and, yes, 18-year-old Sam Bennett.
Then you've got the veterans who are suddenly playing the best hockey of their lives. That list starts with Mark Giordano, who suddenly became a near-Olympian last season and was headed for a Norris Trophy nomination this year before his season-ending biceps injury. But the list goes on—Lance Bouma was also having a breakout season before his injury, and veterans from Jiri Hudler to Dennis Wideman to Jonas Hiller are all excelling within Hartley's program.
I hope Willie's adjustments will work tonight and we can see if this Canucks group has the mettle to fight back, but if Calgary wins this series, I think we might find, like the Los Angeles Kings in 2012, that this is a bottom seed that can keep winning even with the odds stacked against them.
That being said, I do believe that tonight's game is winnable.
Do you believe?
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