Monday November 2 - Vancouver Canucks 4 - Philadelphia Flyers 1
The Vancouver Canucks got a good game from the kids as they handily beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 on Monday night at Rogers Arena. Here are your highlights:
The team got off to a strong start and built on the lead as the game went on with some beautiful goals from players who needed to get going offensively.
It's worth noting that the Flyers are still a bit of a mess. Bogged down by big, unmovable contracts, they have limited options as far as making roster changes—Sam Gagner's the most high-profile addition compared to last season's group, and he was acquired by trading the injured Chris Pronger's contract to Arizona.
First-liners Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek certainly had their moments—especially on the Flyers lone goal, which was a beauty—and Steve Mason was solid in goal. So far, it doesn't look like Dave Hakstol's going to be able to get much more out of this group than Craig Berube could last year.
Vancouver ran over Philadelphia in the early going, opening the scoring with a nice goal by Jannik Hansen just 1:08 into the game.
Another EDM track—but the energy of the song is pretty good.
His linemates Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi drew the assists and kept buzzing all night long.
The Canucks jumped out to a 9-1 lead in shots in the first period, making it look like the game would be a rout, but Philadelphia had taken an 11-10 by the end of the frame and the Canucks still had just a one-goal lead, with Ryan Miller taking care of business when the Flyers got greasy in front of the Vancouver net.
Giroux tied the game at the 2:54 mark of the second, shrugging off Matt Bartkowski before deking Miller out of his jock, but that was the only goal of the night for the Flyers.
After a strange sequence that saw Daniel Sedin and Giroux take offsetting minors midway through the second, Bo Horvat scored a bullish goal, shaking off Mark Streit with a power move around the net for his first in 10 games—and what proved to be the winning goal.
The Canucks took over the game again in the back half of the second, then kept the pressure on in the third, ultimately leading to the feel-good moment of the night when Jake Virtanen finally lit the lamp.
Virtanen had been getting his chances, going to the net aggressively throughout the game, so it was nice to see him finally rewarded for his efforts. And he won't have to embellish his story when he tells it to his grandkids—it really was a fantastic end-to-end individual effort. The second assist went to Ryan Miller!
The hugs from Jake's teammates are almost as special as the goal itself.
One of the officials was shown on the Jumbotron chatting with Virtanen coming out of the TV timeout after the goal. It really looked like even he was offering up his congratulations.
The Flyers pulled Mason with over two minutes to go but weren't able to muster a single shot on goal. Jared McCann hit the post on his empty-net chance before Matt Bartkowski potted his second of the year to seal up the game with 54 seconds left on the clock.
The win makes the Canucks 3-0-2 in their last five, giving them sole possession of first place in the Pacific Division. Their plus-10 goal differential is the best in the Western Conference—tied for third in the league with AV's New York Rangers.
And what's this? Some kind words from
Pierre LeBrun at ESPN this morning!
Here's LeBrun's quote from an unnamed Western Conference general manager:
They're the team this year that's going to surprise everyone. I really didn't know what to think of them this season, but look at what they've done already. I think they're going to stick around.
Joe McDonald and Craig Custance chime in with their fair share of praise as well, touching on Jim Benning's reputation as a "great evaluator of young talent" and how the Canucks are doing a good job of bringing along their youth in a winning environment.
Custance mentions that Ryan Miller has faced more shots than any other NHL goaltender so far this year, which is an interesting stat. Miller and Ben Bishop are the only two goalies in the league to have played 11 games so far this season and both have done it for the same reason—health issues involving their backup.
Jacob Markstrom is very close to being ready to get back into action, but may tune up in Utica for a couple of games before he steps in for the Canucks, said Jim Benning during a between-periods interview on TV last night.
Miller earned third-star honours last night for his 27-save effort. I expect he'll be back in net when the Canucks face Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
The Penguins are already in town, which meant a bit of advance scouting at last night's game:
After the game, Willie congratulated himself for keep the ice time of all his forwards below 16 minutes, according to Jason Botchford's
Provies:
“I don’t know if I’ve ever coached a team where no forwards got 16 minutes.
“You could trust everyone tonight.”
Sutter, Daniel, Henrik, Hansen and Horvat all played between 15:40 and 15:53. That's keeping things even!
As for the kids:
Ben Kuzma has Willie's thoughts on Sven Baertschi in his
postgame story:
“I thought his line was pretty determined tonight,” Desjardins said of working with Bo Horvat and Jannik Hansen. “He has a high-end skill and I believe if he gets comfortable and just feels good, it’s going to come. Right now, he’s just not in the groove, but he’s not hurting us defensively. And that was the thing we were worried about. Hopefully, the other side will break through for him.”
That's not a slam.
Baertschi has been getting a good deal of credit from the advanced-stats crowd for his strong Corsi numbers, even though he's not scoring. We may need to show some patience before Baertschi finds his groove but with so many others playing well, the team has time to wait for him to realize his potential.
To close today—if you missed it, the Canucks did post the video of the grill-session that Jared McCann and Jake Virtanen received on Sunday before being told that they'd made the Canucks for the year. It's worth a watch:
My favourite part of this video is getting an inside look into how Willie talks to his players, compared to how he is with the media. I know he's playing it up here, but he has the tone of a confident man who's in complete control of his situation. I'm impressed.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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