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Vancouver Canucks Game Review: A Humbling Defeat, Suspensions Not Likely |
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Sunday April 19 - Calgary Flames 4 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Flames lead best-of-seven series 2-1
It wasn't too hard for me to feel optimistic after Game 1, when the Canucks played a solid two and a half periods of hockey and were foiled by a bad-luck buzzer beater. Plenty of room there to imagine a different outcome, which we saw in Game 2.
I'm not feeling nearly as calm after Sunday's 4-2 loss in Calgary, where I saw a Canucks team that simply wasn't able to turn up its determination to the same level as the opposition. The "never quit" Flames lived up to their reputation and fully deserved the Game 3 win.
Here are your highlights:
For the second straight game, the third period ended with a parade of penalties and questions surrounding a possible suspension for an instigator penalty in the last five minutes. This time, it was Alex Burrows who was tagged for going after Kris Russell after throwing a hit along the boards on Johnny Gaudreau.
I figure when Burrows realized he was getting a penalty, he decided to try to take somebody with him. The incident killed any possible comeback hopes for Vancouver with 1:25 remaining after the team had just narrowed the score to 4-2 a minute before. Sounds like the league has decided, as it did with Deryk Engelland in Game 2, that was punishment enough.
Kevin Bieksa was probably just as culpable for jumping Michael Ferland and setting off another round of drama just 21 seconds later. He also doesn't sound very truthful when we get a full-scale appearance from the now rarely-seen Angry Bieksa despite the fact that he insists Ferland is a non-issue.
After a lesser scrap between Luca Sbisa and Deryl Engelland at the final buzzer, the penalty minutes topped out at 39-30 in favour of Vancouver for Game 3—a far cry from the 166 minutes dished out in Game 2, but still a pretty significant number.
I think it's a sign that Calgary and Vancouver haven't made noise in the playoffs for awhile that they're playing an old-school series that's very much at odds with today's style. They're certainly ruining the narrative that "Fighting's on its way out because no one fights in the playoffs."
Against the grain as it might be, the drama that comes along with these incidents certainly stokes the fire for Game 4. I think the most important thing for the Canucks to do today is put the truculence aside and figure out how they're going to win some puck battles on Tuesday.
I know Henrik's touchstone is his ability to step up to the microphone after losses and keep a calm outlook, but I get so frustrated by quotes like this:
Eddie Lack, who kept his team in the game while staring down odd-man rushes, saw things a little differently:
So did Derek Dorsett:
So did Kevin Bieksa:
Even Willie did not think this was a "real good" game:
Two big stats stand out in Sunday's box score—and neither is surprising.
The Flames outhit Vancouver 33-18 over the course of the game. And the Canucks' puck possession was terrible. Vancouver was dinged for 16 giveaways, compared to 8 for Calgary, while the Flames earned 23 takeaways compared to Vancouver's 16. That means Calgary players got the puck off Canucks players 15 more times than they surrendered it last night—a huge differential.
The giveaways were spread throughout the team, too. Chris Tanev's gaffe that led to David Jones' breakaway early in the second period was especially egregious. So was Radim Vrbata's terrible shift that started with him getting upended at the blue line and ended with him coughing up the puck to set up Calgary's second goal by T.J. Brodie late in the first period.
Despite giving up four goals on 28 shots, Eddie Lack did pretty well under tough circumstances on Sunday. The entire team in front of him needs to be better in Game 4 if the Canucks hope to come back to Vancouver with control of the series.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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