Wednesday November 4 - Pittsburgh Penguins 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2
The Vancouver Canucks suffered their most disheartening loss of the season to date when they dropped a 3-2 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins in their last game at Rogers Arena before embarking on a seven-game road trip.
Here are your highlights:
It wasn't a very pretty game, but it did have its moments. The opening faceoff featuring 15-year-old cancer survivor Will Heine was moving—and I always enjoy it when Jim Byrnes sings the national anthems.
Though the Canucks were outplayed by a well-structured Pittsburgh team that didn't surrender many chances, the only goal of the first 40 minutes was a slump-busting deflection by David Perron—his first of the season.
We have seen a lot of fast-paced hockey from the Canucks so far this season, often featuring long stretches between whistles. Wednesday night's game was the opposite; tons of offsides, icings and minor penalties.
Derek Dorsett was at his foul-mouthed best on Wednesday—taking exception to a cross check from Phil Kessel in the second period and Eric Fehr in the third. Here's the Kessel incident and follow-up.
One could argue that Dorsett could have kept his cool and drawn a power play for the Canucks, but the offsetting penalties turned into one of the more entertaining exchanges of the night. It was only after this incident that the fans in Rogers Arena got in the groove and started booing Kessel every time he touched the puck.
After scoring in five straight games, the Canucks' power play has gone cold this week. The team was 0-for-1 against Philadelphia on Monday—forgivable—but actually minus-1-for-4 last night against the Pens, since they surrendered a shorthanded goal to noted sniper Eric Fehr in the third period.
Also, the typically-excellent penalty kill was burned by none other than Sidney Crosby a few minutes earlier in the third, after Chris Tanev earned a rare minor for hooking down David Perron on a breakaway.
When the Pens pushed the score to 3-0, the game seemed all but over. Credit to the Canucks for staging a late comeback to keep things interesting. Daniel Sedin tipped a Matt Bartkowski shot in front of Marc-Andre Fleury to spoil the shutout bid with 6:01 remaining, then Jannik Hansen was rewarded for a strong game when he pulled the Canucks within one with 1:07 to go, after the Penguins iced the puck four straight times with the Canucks' net empty.
Credit to Brandon Sutter through that sequence—he stepped in between the twins as the extra man, beating Evgeni Malkin cleanly on the first two draws before the Canucks switched lines.
Wednesday night was Chris Higgins' first game back in the lineup since suffering a broken bone in his foot back on September 21. Though he lined up with Hansen and Horvat, he played just 9:58—mostly because he saw no special-teams time in a penalty-filled game.
The same is true for the kids. Jake Virtanen was a minus-one with just one hit in 6:49. He and his linemates Sutter and Burrows might have been guilty of some casual coverage on Perron's opening goal, but he did get regular shifts in the third period.
So did Jared McCann, who played 10:10 and picked up his first assist of the year as a reward for his dish to Hansen on Vancouver's second goal.
Because the Canucks did a poor job of breaking through Pittsburgh's strong possession game on Wednesday, earning just 20 shots in 60 minutes, there was talk after the game of the Canucks looking old and slow. The Pens are not exactly spring chickens themselves.
In the "older than the Sedins" category, Pittsburgh got solid contributions last night from 36-year-olds Pascal Dupuis (15:45 of ice time), Chris Kunitz (14:13, despite having been questionable to play before the game), and Rob Scuderi (16:23 and a plus-1) as well as now 39-year-old Matt Cullen, who was a plus-1 and played 4:07 of his 12:25 on the penalty kill—still an excellent defensive fourth-line centre and great value for $800,000.
According to
this story from
The Hockey News, Cullen is the fifth-oldest active player in the NHL this season, behind Jaromir Jagr, Patrik Elias, Dan Boyle and Shane Doan.
Bottom line from Wednesday: the Canucks got outplayed by a very good Pittsburgh team that is taking big strides to remove itself from a disappointing 2014-15 campaign and has now won five straight games.
Today's a travel day. The Canucks play an early game in Buffalo on Saturday morning—at 10 a.m. Pacific time—so they'll get acclimated today and practice tomorrow before Ryan Miller gets his first chance to play in his old stomping grounds. I can't really say that he's "facing his old team"—the only players remaining from Miller's 2013-14 Sabres group are Tyler Ennis, Matt Moulson, Zemgus Girgensons, Marcus Foligno, Mike Weber, Mark Pysyk, Johan Larsson, Nicolas Deslauriers and Jake McCabe—more than half of the team has turned over in less than two years.
To wrap up today, another beauty from the prospects vault.
Check out this end-to-end rush by Canucks' 2015 third-rounder Guillaume Brisebois.
That's Brisebois' second goal of the year in 17 games so far with Acadie-Bathurst of the QMJHL.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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