Thursday October 22: Washington Capitals 3 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Alexander Ovechkin continued his hot start to the 2015-16 season when he scored the game-winning goal to give his Washington Capitals a 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night at Rogers Arena.
Here are your highlights:
The good news for the Canucks: Radim Vrbata's reunion with the Sedin twins was a success.
The group was responsible for both Vancouver goals—Vrbata's first of the year at even strength, then Henrik's second on the power play while Karl Alzner sat in the penalty box for a hold on Daniel.
We knew Vrbata's goal song would be "How You Like Me Now?" It did have a nice sense of sass to it as it blasted through the Rogers Arena speakers. Like his brother, Henrik elected to go back to an old Canucks classic, unconcerned about the current lack-of-cool factor surrounding Green Day as he pulled "Holiday" out of the vault. In the moment, it totally worked, especially as the Canucks took a 2-1 lead.
But—the third period did not go well.
As the Caps shortened their bench in search of a comeback, Willie responded in kind—once again promoting Brandon Prust and Derek Dorsett to Bo Horvat's line while leaving the kids on the bench.
Jake Virtanen, Sven Baertschi and Jared McCann all finished the night with eight minutes of ice time or less. Virtanen played 2:02 over five shifts in the third period, Baertshi had two shifts for 17 seconds and McCann played one 35-second shift.
Jay Beagle tied the game for Washington at the 5:42 mark of the third on a messy play that resulted from a Vrbata giveaway behind the net, then the Prust-Horvat-Dorsett combo got burned by a Dmitry Orlov long bomb from behind the Caps net that broke Ovechkin free for the game-winner.
That's how you execute the long breakout!
Last season, the Canucks were a very solid 30-1-3 when leading after two periods of play. On Thursday, their record for this season dropped to 2-1-1—they also blew a 2-1 third-period against Calgary in their overtime loss in the season opener.
This is a trend that can't continue if Vancouver hopes to return to the playoffs this season. As we learned during the Torts era, blown leads can cause a snowball effect, where the team sets itself up for failure when it no longer executes with confidence during the waning minutes of a game.
Despite the once-a-year visit from one of the game's great stars in Ovechkin, attendance continues to trend steadily downward at Rogers Arena as the Canucks search for their first win on home ice. At 18,188, about 80 less fans were in the building on Thursday than the group that watched the Canucks lose to the Oilers last Sunday.
Vancouver's record also falls to 0-2-2 in games where Brandon Prust doesn't fight. He has yet to drop the gloves on home ice.
Even with the loss, the Canucks remain in second place in the Pacific Division, but the top five teams are now within two points of each other. If Vancouver doesn't get back on the winning track soon, they'll quickly be falling out of the playoff picture.
Bright spots?
When he was on the ice, I thought Jared McCann looked good. He had a nice dipsy-doodle move in the second period that nearly amounted to something special.
McCann keeps doing things to get noticed. Sick toe-drag move on Schmidt in slot, nearly picks far side. #Canucks
McCann finished the night with one shot, one attempt that was blocked and one block of his own.
Virtanen picked up three hits in the first period but became less visible as the game went on. Baertschi managed just one shot attempt, which was blocked, even though he got 1:45 of power-play time.
As for Ben Hutton, he's being treated as a seasoned veteran seven games into his rookie season. Hutton played 19:53 last night, about a minute above his season average, and saw 1:49 of power-play time. For the first time since the season-opener against Calgary, Hutton failed to record a shot on goal on Thursday.
Even the national media is giving Hutton props for his strong start in a season that's filled with promising performances by rookies. At NHL.com, Dan Rosen has paired Hutton with St. Louis' hulking Colton Parayko on the first pairing of his all-rookie lineup, ahead of higher-profile players like Griffin Reinhart and Noah Hanifin.
Though the Canucks finally scored their second power-play goal of the season last night to climb to 8.7 percent efficiency, that still ranks them 27th in the league. It sounds like Yannick Weber's going to get his chance to try to replicate this hot stretch from last spring against Detroit on Saturday night:
#Canucks PP1 practice Edler & Weber with Sedins and Vrbata
The Canucks have collected just one point so far, three games into this homestand. They'll need wins against the Detroit Red Wings and the unbeaten Montreal Canadiens just to get to .500 before spending most of the next six weeks on the road.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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