Tuesday September 29: San Jose Sharks 2 - Vancouver Canucks 1
A cobbled-together Vancouver Canucks lineup put up a strong road effort against the San Jose Sharks, but ultimately fell by a score of 2-1 on Tuesday night.
Here are your highlights:
Willie Desjardins didn't make the trip to San Jose, but
Jason Botchford reported after the game that Willie addressed the veterans in Vancouver before they got on the plane, asking them to pick up their performances.
Did it happen? Not so much.
For the second straight night, Jared McCann scored Vancouver's only goal. And Ben Hutton's now starting to make like Bobby Orr with the end-to-end rushes on top of all the other good things he does.
Hutton lured Brent Burns, who was one of San Jose's best players on the night, into taking a penalty on that play.
Burns also got sent to the box later in the third after throwing a frustrated cross-check on Brendan Gaunce. The kids were getting under his skin!
Gaunce showed some gritty determination early in the first period, when he stayed on the ice and continued to kill a penalty after getting hit in the face by the puck on a Ben Hutton clearing attempt.
Gaunce returned to action before the end of the period and played a regular shift for the rest of the game.
The news wasn't quite so good for Jake Virtanen, who saw his ice-time dramatically reduced for the second straight night as the game wore on. Playing on what should have been an offensive line with Linden Vey and Sven Baertschi, Virtanen generated just one shot on goal and two hits in the game, and didn't see any action in the last nine minutes of the third period.
At this point, I'd rank Virtanen fourth among the kids in terms of his chances of sticking with the Canucks for the season—behind Gaunce, McCann and Hutton.
Botchford thinks Virtanen will get at least some NHL games, but offers this less-than-glowing review of his performance from Tuesday night:
He did not played well with the puck and a stacked Sharks team was more than eager to exploit it.
“He’s still leaning,” Gulutzan said. “In the junior game you can get away with some things. Here, it’s about teaching them when you can try things and when you can’t.
“When Big Joe and Little Joe — Thornton and Pavelski — are out there, you got to be a little more careful out there.
“They’ll learn that as they go.”
When NHL coaches say junior players are playing a junior game, it is never good.
As for the non-rookies?
"I thought Jannik Hansen came in and played hard," said Gulutzan.
The other veteran who played a strong game? Ryan Miller. Though Martin Jones was fantastic (again) at the other end of he ice, Miller played by far his best game of preseason.
I'm excited by what Jacob Markstrom will bring to the table this year, but I'm crossing my fingers that Miller is working out some details in his game and will be ready to go against Calgary on opening night next Wednesday.
Not sure I can say the same for Linden Vey and Ronalds Kenins, who haven't don't much to guarantee their roster spots.
Vey was gifted with 15:02 of quality ice time on Tuesday, including 3:42 on the power play, but finished the night with just a single shot on goal—and was a bleak 2-8 in the faceoff circle.
Once again, the whole team got killed on faceoffs—and the Sharks used nine different players on draws. That's practically their entire forward ranks! Bo Horvat, who had a pretty quiet night overall, fared best at 13-14, but was just 1-6 against Joe Thornton.
Faceoffs are one place where Jared McCann's youth seems to show through. He was just 2-4 on the night, and didn't take any defensive-zone draws.
Still—McCann hasn't been worse than Vey, who hasn't shown us that the conditioning work he put in over the summer has translated into an on-ice presence that makes him any tougher to play against.
As for Ronnie Kenins: one shot, two giveaways, a minus one—and ZERO hits on the night. Safe to say he was the weak link on the line with Hansen and McCann?
Kenins has a one-way contract but we believe he's still waiver-eligible. He's an easy guy to stash in Utica if Jim Benning does want to free up roster spots.
Dan Murphy conducted a fairly hard-hitting interview with Benning on Sportsnet during Tuesday's first intermission, where Benning sang the praises of his youngsters and said, once again, that if players earn jobs, he'll make room for them.
Murph asked flat out whether Benning would consider putting Frankie Corrado on waivers to create a space for Ben Hutton—and Benning didn't say no. He just said that he and the coaching staff wold get together and make those decisions when the time comes.
I'm not convinced, at this point in his career, that Corrado would get snapped up if he was exposed. As a former fifth-round draft pick, he's not a high-profile prospect. At 6'0" and 190 pounds, he's not especially big and doesn't play a particularly physical game. He dealt with some injury issues last season, and he didn't show especially well during his time up with the Canucks—just one goal in 10 games and a minus-seven.
I had hoped that Corrado would come into camp this year owning the puck and playing with the poise to show that he could be an NHL regular—especially with some opportunity available on the right side after Kevin Bieksa was traded.
I don't want to give up on him. And the opportunity still exists for the Canucks to carry eight defensemen to start the season, which would leave room for both Corrado and Ben Hutton. But right now in my mind, Corrado's behind both Hutton and Matt Bartkowski on the depth chart. Maybe more playing time in Utica is what he needs.
What do you think?
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