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Vancouver Canucks: Looking Back at 2015 Highlights, Hansen Fined for Diving |
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Uh oh.
Gustav Forsling scored a first period power-play goal and added an assist in the second. Sweden now leads Team Canada 3-1 in the last game of the round-robin at World Juniors.
That's the ex-Canuck prospect's second goal of the tournament, in his third game.
Forsling was named to the All-Star team at the 2015 World Juniors before he was traded to Chicago last January 29 in exchange for the now-departed Adam Clendening. That's a move that may come back to haunt Jim Benning in future years. Or, maybe Forsling is one of those players who is going to play the best hockey of his career in a World Juniors setting.
No matter what happens against Sweden, Canada is locked into third place in Group A. They'll cross over and play the second-place team from Group B in the quarterfinal on Saturday. That's the host team from Finland, who are 3-1 in preliminary-round play and have scored a tournament-leading 23 goals in those four games.
Brock Boeser and Team USA will meet the Czechs on Saturday.
The Canucks are holding their last practice of the year today at Rogers Arena ahead of their date with the Anaheim Ducks tomorrow night. The strange news of the day is that Jannik Hansen is now on the NHL's hit list as a "designated diver," if you will:
It's pretty incredible to think that, after they were assessed 10 minor penalties in that game against Tampa Bay, the league has found a way to dish out even *more* punishment. And this, on the heels of Brayden McNabb escaping scot-free after his elbow to the head of Henrik Sedin last Monday night.
Conspiracy theorists, start your engines...
Since today's the last day of 2015, I thought it would be nice to set aside the Tank Nation discussion for one day and focus on some of the more positive moments the Canucks have enjoyed over the past 12 months.
The highlight I'm picking from last January is Ryan Miller's back-to-back road shutouts against the Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes on back-to-back nights. The Canucks were outshot in both those games, with Miller stopping 30 shots against the Flyers and 28 against the Hurricanes.
In February, take your pick between Daniel Sedin's overtime-winner at the United Center that gave the Canucks a 5-4 road win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Feb. 11, or Shawn Matthias' hat trick two nights later at Rogers Arena that fueled a 5-2 win over the Boston Bruins.
March was the month of comebacks, when Eddie Lack took over for an injured Ryan Miller and the Canucks found ways to pick up points despite falling behind early in a slew of games. The team's overall record in March was 10-5-2 and the Canucks scored four goals or more in seven of those games—all wins.
April: the best of times, the worst of times. The Canucks finished the season on a three-game winning streak with a record of 48-29-5, the Sedins both finished in the top 12 in NHL scoring and Bo Horvat gave Vancouver an early 1-0 lead in its first playoff game against the Calgary Flames. But it was all downhill from there.
Calgary took control of the series with a last-minute win in Game 1 and never looked back, erasing a 3-0 Vancouver lead in Game 6 for the 7-4 beatdown that would win them the series and end what had been a successful season for the Canucks on a very sour note.
In May, Dan Hamhuis would win a gold medal with Team Canada at the World Championships in Prague, while Jacob Markstrom would shine as the Utica Comets continued their march towards the Calder Cup Final.
The Comets would lose to the Manchester Monarchs in June, but Jim Benning would draft Brock Boeser 23rd overall and trade Eddie Lack and Kevin Bieksa.
July would become a month of turmoil. The Canucks signed Yannick Weber and Matt Bartkowski as unrestricted free agents but lost Shawn Matthias and Brad Richardson. Zack Kassian was traded to Montreal on July 1, Brandon Sutter was acquired on July 28, and in between, Jim Benning had a lot of questions to answer about his decision-making, particularly the rich contract extensions handed out to Luca Sbisa and Derek Dorsett and the decision to part ways with Lack.
In July, the Canucks also started rebuilding their front office, dismissing Laurence Gilman, Lorne Henning and Eric Crawford.
August was resonably quiet. The new management team started to come into focus, featuring John Weisbrod as assistant general manager and Chris Gear as the director of amateur scouting, and Adam Cracknell was signed as an unrestricted free agent.
September was fun, with the Young Stars tournament in Penticton and the continued strong play of those young stars during preseason.
Is this still the highlight of the year?
I also enjoyed seeing hometown boy Adam Cracknell score the overtime winner at the Kraft Hockeyville game over on Vancouver Island.
The Canucks finished off preseason with an overtime win over the Edmonton Oilers on a Daniel Sedin goal on October 3 before going into the slump that would define the early part of their season.
The best moment of October? I'd say that 3-0 shutout of the Los Angeles Kings on the road on October 13, which pushed the team's record to 3-0-1.
In November, there was less to cheer about, but beating John Tortorella 5-3 in Columbus on November 10 was pretty good, and Daniel's hat-less hat trick that keyed the 6-3 home win over Chicago was sweet.
Finally—the high point of December, for me, was that gritty 2-1 win over Tampa Bay before the Christmas break—the one where the Canucks went 9-for-10 on the penalty kill to claim two points against almost insurmountable odds.
The first three months of the 2015-16 season have been defined by a brutal schedule, a laundry list of injuries and some otherworldly play by the 35-year-old Sedins. Going into tonight's games, Daniel remains 10th in NHL scoring and even with all his injury issues, Henrik is hanging in at No. 19 with 33 points.
Here's quick peek at how things look at practice today:
Happy New Year! Here's to more goals and less injuries in 2016!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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