Tuesday October 27 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Montreal Canadiens 1
The Vancouver Canucks received a standing ovation from the fans at Rogers Arena as they wrapped up their first home-ice win of the season against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night.
Jared McCann led the way with two goals and Ryan Miller was excellent as the Canucks handed the Canadiens their first loss of the season. Here are your highlights:
The Canadiens had been riding high, unbeaten in their first nine games, with all the bounces breaking their way.
Those situations can't last forever, though. The Canucks had been unfortunate to open their season with an 0-2-3 record at home, so their positive reversal of fortune happened to coincide with the Habs coming back down to earth.
On a night when all-world goaltender Carey Price gave up five goals for Montreal, he couldn't really be faulted all that much.
Even Price's cat-like reflexes weren't quick enough for him to respond to this crazy deflection off defenseman Nathan Beaulieu for the Canucks' second goal—the eventual game-winner.
The goal was eventually correctly credited to Luca Sbisa, but not before we heard Bo Horvat's goal song—he was also in front of the net when the puck changed direction, but it turned out that he didn't touch it.
Though it didn't play, Sbisa's song has been added to the
master list at Canucks.com. It's "Gold on the Ceiling" by the Black Keys—another one that I believe the Canucks have used in the past, as with Henrik's and Daniel's choices.
The always-intense Derek Dorsett chipped in the Canucks' final goal on Tuesday but was not pleased with his track, "Whoomp There It Is." He's lobbying for a change.
More important than Dorsett's song, in the big picture, is the fact that his goal was set up by Jake Virtanen—his first NHL point.
The kids all had good nights working in the new line configurations.
Jared McCann's two goals now give him four in seven games, making him the Canucks' leading scorer so far, and Virtanen was a bull—throwing seven of Vancouver's 17 hits.
Even Sven Baertschi looked pretty solid. He had moments where he was strong along the boards, including on the delayed penalty that led to the Sbisa goal, when he won the puck battle on the left side before feeding Sbisa back at the blue line.
One could say that it's easier to balance ice time with the lead, but the Canucks were in the driver's seat against Detroit last Saturday, too—until they weren't.
For a few minutes in the third period, it looked like Tuesday's game was headed in the same direction. Trailing 3-0, Montreal came out in control and Torrey Mitchell finally solved Ryan Miller with a deflection from the slot at 2:54.
Just 2:12 later, the Canadiens got a chance to draw within one when they went on the power play after a hooking call on Jake Virtanen.
You could say "See, this is why you can't play rookies in the third period!" But hey—at least Virtanen was out there. And I thought the penalty was pretty nebulous—wily P.K. Subban may have tucked the youngster's stick under his arm in an effort to get the call.
Bottom line—no harm done. The Habs took themselves off the power play with a Too Many Men penalty, Radim Vrbata scored the first goal of the year for the first unit on the subsequent power play and it was game, set, match for the Canucks.
Overall, ice time was much more balanced this time out, as Jim Benning had indicated it would be earlier in the day:
Daniel Sedin played 15:43 and Henrik was at 16:15, while Bo Horvat got 15:30, Virtanen got 15:10, Baertschi got 14:10 and McCann got 12:13.
Willie Desjardins was forced to juggle his lines during the second half of the game after Brandon Prust went down with an ankle injury.
It looked terrible when it happened, so I won't embed the video. After watching Prust writhe in pain, I was amazed to see him skate off the ice under his own power. Proving once again that he's one tough hombre, Prust took questions from the media after the game—very unusual for an injured player who doesn't return—and provided his own medical update:
Prust says he doesn't expect to join his teammates for their upcoming two-game road trip. They'll know more about the condition of the ankle after an MRI today.
Information is not flowing quite so quickly on Dan Hamhuis, who was a late scratch from Tuesday's game.
After the game, Willie was non-committal about whether or not Hamhuis would be well enough to make the road trip, so that's a wait-and-see situation.
His absence led to a shift in defense pairings and—a bit surprisingly—they worked.
Ben Hutton proved once again that he can bring out the best in his partners during a successful outing with Yannick Weber on his right side after Luca Sbisa moved over to join Matt Bartkowski.
Sbisa didn't even get credited for the giveaway that set up this Montreal scoring chance—perhaps because he made amends by saving the sure goal?
For the moment, all is well in Canuck-land, and the hockey world is noticing thanks to their dragon-slayer role in ending Montreal's streak.
Hopefully that positive momentum can carry over to Dallas tomorrow night. The Canucks had a tough time with the Stars last season, going 0-2-1, and Dallas is off to a hot start this year. They're 7-2-0 and Art Ross Trophy winner Jamie Benn is once again leading the league in scoring, with 15 points in his first nine games.
I'll set the stage for that game tomorrow. For now, let's savour a big win!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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