Thursday October 18 - Winnipeg Jets 4 - Vancouver Canucks 1
To the surprise of almost no one, the Vancouver Canucks ran out of gas in the last period of the last game of their mammoth six-game road trip.
After playing the Winnipeg Jets to a tie through 40 minutes, three goals in the final frame gave the Canucks a 4-1 defeat on Thursday at Bell MTS Place. Here are your highlights:
It's never easy to contain Big Buff when he's in top form. The mammoth Jets' defenseman certainly was feeling it on Thursday after missing two games with an upper-body injury. Byfuglien posted a goal, two power-play assists and a team-leading three hits.
The Jets went a perfect 2-for-2 with the man advantage as Alex Edler started a one-man parade to the penalty box with two tripping minors and an offsetting penalty with Tyler Myers.
That's just the second game this season where Vancouver's penalty kill has been exploited. The Canucks went 3-for-6 while shorthanded in Calgary on the first game of the road trip but in their other five games, they were perfect. Overall, the Canucks have been shorthanded 28 times in seven games—tied with Detroit for third-most in the league. Only Colorado and San Jose have taken more penalties. After Thursday's game, their kill rate has fallen to 82.1 percent—also tied with Detroit for sixth-best overall.
The Fortnite war was basically a wash. Patrik Laine opened the scoring with his third of the year in the first period, then Bo Horvat responded with his fourth on this tremendous rush.
Derrick Pouliot, you got my full attention with that pass—made with Blake Wheeler staring him down, no less.
The Canucks have now gone two games without a power-play goal: the same two games that they've been without Elias Pettersson. Coincidence? I think not.
With the road trip complete, the team is taking Friday off after returning to Vancouver. They'll be facing a tired Boston team playing its third road game in four nights on Saturday; the Bruins lost 5-2 to Calgary on Wednesday, then dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to Edmonton on Thursday.
While watching that game last night, I got to thinking about how Pettersson's physical development could end up quite closely mirroring that of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Remember what a beanpole he was when he came into the NHL as an 18-year-old?
There's so much talk now about younger, slighter players finding a place to fit into today's NHL. At 25, Nugent-Hopkins may be the granddaddy of them all.
Looking back at the 2011
Central Scouting rankings, Nuge was listed at 6'0" and 164 pounds. He's a little shorter than Pettersson, who
was listed at 6'2" and 165 pounds in his year.
Nugent-Hopkins will never be mistaken for the player selected right after him in 2011. Gabriel Landeskog was drafted at 207 pounds and now tips the scales at 215. And Nuge has suffered his share of injuries over the years—particularly to his shoulders. But he has bulked up to 184 pounds, according to the Oilers' website; The Hockey News has him listed at 191!
Meanwhile, The Hockey News still has Pettersson at 161 pounds, even though his weight on the Canucks' website is 176. Discrepancies like these are part of the reason why there has been so much discussion about whether Pettersson's injury on the Mike Matheson throwdown was made worse because of his slight frame.
Long term, I think Pettersson has the chance to eclipse what Nugent-Hopkins has been able to do offensively, but I wouldn't be surprised if his body turns out to show similar vulnerability over the wear and tear of multiple NHL seasons. And Nuge has done all right for himself: out of his draft class, his 462 games played rank him third (behind Landeskog and Sean Couturier). He's also third in total points (behind Landeskog and Nikita Kucherov).
It is encouraging that Pettersson seems to be continuing to make good progress.
Assuming no future setbacks, the next step for Pettersson will be to skate on his own, symptom-free, then practice with the team. With that timeline, it seems unlikely that he'll play on this short homestand—on Saturday against Boston or Monday against Washington.
The Utica Comets are back in action on Friday in a record-setting game.
Now in their sixth season in Utica, the Canucks' agreement with the city expires at the end of this season. That means the organization has some decisions to make about the future of the franchise. As this record would indicate, the City of Utica has been a tremendous supporter of the team and it would be easy to keep a good thing going. But when owner Francesco Aquilini made his appearance on Sportsnet 650 last week, he admitted that the organization is considering the pros and cons of moving the farm team closer to the home base.
That's a story to watch as the season continues.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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