It's Hockey Night in San Jose tonight, as Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final goes down at the Shark Tank.
What's your prediction?
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The Sharks, especially Martin Jones, are lucky to have had an extra day off after being outplayed so badly in their Game 5 win, but I think Pittsburgh will prevail tonight.
On Saturday night, I caught the second half of the AHL's Calder Cup Final, where the Lake Erie Monsters swept the Hershey Bears thanks to an overtime goal by Oliver Bjorkstrand.
A few interesting items to note from that game:
• The only real Canucks content of the series is former Vancouver defenceman Ryan Stanton, who signed as a free agent with the Washington Capitals organization in the offseason. He was called up by the Capitals for seven games in January but was a healthy scratch for six of them, spending most of his season with the Bears. In 21 playoff games, he was 3-2-5.
• Defenceman Steve McCarthy of Trail, B.C. also had a cup of coffee with the Canucks in 2005-06. He played 17 regular-season games for the Monsters this year and was among the first players to receive the Calder Cup, but the 35-year-old doesn't appear to have suited up for any games in the playoffs.
• Attendance for the game was second-highest in Calder Cup history—19,665—which actually set a record for hockey in the state of Ohio, drawing more fans than the Blue Jackets ever have in their smaller Nationwide Arena in Columbus. The Monsters play in the massive Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, also home to LeBron James and the NBA Cavaliers, which makes the Aud in Utica look pretty bush-league by comparison.
Considering the Monsters made the playoffs this year for the first time in five seasons and only the second time in the nine-year history of their franchise, their attendance has grown impressively.
According to HockeyDB, the Monsters averaged a solid 8,596 fans during 2015-16.
• The Calder Cup Final was a study in contrasts this year. The Bears are the farm team of the NHL's best regular-season club, the Capitals, while the Monsters are affiliated with one of the worst, the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Two of Lake Erie's top three scorers are AHL rookies. Zach Werenski is the 18-year-old University of Michigan product who's able to play in the AHL because he didn't go the Major Junior route. He was chosen eighth overall by the Blue Jackets in 2015. Calder Cup MVP Oliver Bjorkstrand is a 21-year-old from Denmark who was selected in the third round of the 2013 draft. He played three years with the Portland Winter Hawks before joining the Monsters this year and lit it up with six game-winning goals in the playoffs, including last night's winner from an impossible angle with two seconds left to play in the first overtime.
Lake Erie's other key player was goaltender Anton Forsberg. He took over from starter Joonas Korpisalo midway through the playoffs and went an incredible 9-0 after that, with a 1.34 goals-against average and .949 save percentage. Oh yeah—he also got a shutout last night—the final score was 1-0.
I wonder how this unprecedented success on the farm and the emergence of so many bright prospects will impact Columbus' use of their No. 3 pick in the draft? Does the plan change, or does it stay the same?
Today's Slapshot has the transcript
here of Bob McKenzie's Thursday appearance on TSN1040, where he suggests that the Blue Jackets might be willing to trade down in order to select a centre like Logan Brown or Clayton Keller, rather than taking winger Jesse Puljujarvi in the three spot.
About Vancouver, McKenzie simply says "As for the Canucks, I’m not sure. I think it’s more along the lines of, ‘Hey, we’ll listen to anything anybody is talking about,’ as opposed to a definitive plan saying, ‘We don’t want this pick and we want to try to parlay it into an NHL player.'"
Also on the Canucks front, Elliotte Friedman has a couple of notes in his
30 Thoughts column, which came out Saturday.
On the league's coaching vacancies, which he expects will be filled soon, he says "For the Ducks, my guess is that list includes Randy Carlyle, Travis Green and Rick Bowness. Word is they are getting close to a decision. For the Flames, it includes Glen Gulutzan and Mike Yeo."
Both Canucks candidates are still in the running. I'd expect the new coaches will be named before the draft. Just after the Stanley Cup is awarded, perhaps?
Elliotte also mentions that he has heard that the Canucks are interested in Logan Brown at the draft.
At this time of year, I refer to the Isiah Thomas rule. As a young reporter, he said to me, “Around the draft, everyone lies.”
There is a connection, however, that would provide Vancouver good intel on Brown. Logan’s father, Jeff, coached the USHL Indiana Ice when director of amateur scouting Judd Brackett was the Ice’s head scout two years ago.
Finally, he mentions Loui Eriksson's name when talking about the Canucks' search for a UFA winger. Says the word out of the combine is that Boston would take one more run at trying to re-sign Eriksson, but there's a little bit of buzz that a deal won't happen.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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