Saturday October 14 - Calgary Flames 5 - Vancouver Canucks 2
Can a five-game road trip help the Vancouver Canucks bond as a team and get back on track after fizzling out at the end of their season-opening homestand? Here's hoping.
After kicking off the Travis Green era with an encouraging win over Edmonton, the Canucks have been trending in the wrong direction ever since. On Saturday night, they dropped a 5-2 decision to a Calgary Flames team on the tail end of a back-to-back.
Such as they are, here are your highlights:
This loss was particularly frustrating for a number of reasons.
Let's start with those FIVE Calgary penalties in the first period. The Canucks were handed a golden opportunity to take control against a tired team and show that Newell Brown was making progress with Vancouver's long-disappointing power play unit.
It looked like the beginning of something beautiful when Sam Bennett went to the box for slashing Thomas Vanek at the 6:05 mark after Vanek had separated Jaromir Jagr from the puck with a juicy hit in the defensive zone.
LOL almost did a spit take all over the drinks , pizza and snacks LOL Vanek laid out Jagr with big hit and almost scored seconds later😂
That set off a chain reaction that continued for most of the period—and included a 5-on-3 for 1:11.
The first chance started with Horvat, Baertschi, Gagner, Granlund and Hutton—and generated absolutely nothing.
When Freddie Hamilton went off for a cross-check at 9:25 against the Burmistrov-Gagner-Granlund unit, the Canucks led off with the Sedins, Boeser, Vanek and Del Zotto—and had two shot attempts blocked in 49 seconds before Michael Stone hooked Boeser to set up the 5-on-3.
At that point, the only change was Sam Gagner coming in for Boeser, which led to two more blocked shots—and Mark Giordano's shorthanded goal, 12 seconds after Hamilton returned to the ice.
Fat chance the twins and Vanek were going to be able to get back to defend that 3-on-1 after being on the ice for the last 2:12 of playing time (with two breaks for faceoffs along the way).
When Johnny Gaudreau got whistled for closing his hand on the puck on an attempted fast break with 7:32 to play, Ben Hutton finally got a shot through with 10 seconds remaining in the man advantage—the Canucks' only power-play shot of the period.
The hockey gods further messed with our expectations when Derek Dorsett tied the game with a shot that went into the net off Dougie Hamilton's head—after Dorsett had been tripped up by Sam Bennett and shoved by Curtis Lazar in front of the Calgary bench after he'd given Freddie Hamilton a poke.
It kind of made sense that a Dorsett goal would come after an agitating sequence. It also puts Dorsett ahead of Sven Baertschi, Markus Granlund, Sam Gagner, Jake Virtanen and Henrik Sedin, among others, in the Canucks' early-season scoring race.
After 20 minutes, the Canucks were deadlocked 1-1 and outshot Calgary 12-8, but had generated 11 of those shots at even strength and given up a goal with the man advantage. The power play literally made things worse instead of better.
The Canucks also lost Loui Eriksson to injury on his first shift of the game.
That was a nasty push by Tanner Glass—and I thought Eriksson's skate looked like it got caught in the ice as he crashed into the net. He limped to the bench and it was announced that he has a knee injury.
Eriksson missed that last 17 games of last season with a leg injury that lingered on longer than expected. He hadn't done much in the first three games of this season—one assist and two shots on goal—but Travis Green had been using him a fair amount both on the power play and the penalty kill.
Short term, Eriksson's injury offers a chance for Jake Virtanen to get back into the lineup—and the Canucks could call up a player or two from Utica once the Comets wrap up their weekend in Rochester today. Nikolay Goldobin continues to tear up the AHL—he had another goal in Utica's 3-2 win over Syracuse on Saturday and now has five points in four games this season, while Reid Boucher has already collected six assists.
On a night when not much went right, new acquisition Derrick Pouliot showed pretty well in his first game as a Canuck. Pouliot played a total of 17:42. His 3:03 of power-play time ended up putting him ahead of Chris Tanev (17:20), Troy Stecher (17:00) and Erik Gudbranson (12:08) in ice time, though he was paired primarily with Stecher at 5-on-5.
Pouliot finished the night with three shot attempts, one hit, one block, one penalty and a secondary assist off the lead pass on Brock Boeser's third-period garbage-time goal.
The new guy was just fine. I'm looking forward to seeing how he goes as he settles in more with the team.
Finally—can't finish up without acknowledging that Jacob Markstrom had his roughest game yet. Pucks seemed to be getting through him from terrible angles, which makes it tough for the team in front of him to get anything going.
Markstrom's body language on the ice showed his frustration as the game got out of reach, and he took responsibility after the game.
"Five is way too many. I've got to come up with something. You want to be the difference maker & today I couldn't get a break." - Markstrom
It's time to see what Anders Nilsson can bring. Will that happen in the return matchup with Ottawa that kicks off the road trip on Tuesday, or will we wait till the back-to-backs against Boston-Buffalo on Thursday and Friday?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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