Thursday December 20 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - St. Louis Blues 1
Defense and goaltending held the team together during a flat start, then five different scorers lit the lamp as the Vancouver Canucks handily dispatched the St. Louis Blues for the second time in less than two weeks.
Here are your highlights:
NHL.com is constantly adding new sortable stats options to its pages, but I don't know of a way to find the last time the Canucks came back to win a game by four goals after having been outshot by a 10-shot margin in the first period. If someone can track that down or tell me how to find it, I'm all ears.
I suspect it's been awhile, but that's what happened on Thursday. The Blues outshot the Canucks 15-5 in the first period as well as outhitting them and drawing two penalties, but Jacob Markstrom calmly held the fort and Alex Edler was a shot-blocking machine, helping Vancouver get to the dressing room in a scoreless tie.
I wasn't surprised to see the Canucks come out flat after their emotional game against Tampa Bay on Tuesday. I was a little surprised to see the noticeable spike in their energy level as soon as the second period began. Did that come from Travis Green or other members of the coaching staff, or was it a player who said "C'mon boys—let's go get this!"
Wherever the boost came from, it paid almost immediate dividends. The Canucks generated the first three shot attempts in the middle frame, then Antoine Roussel drew the first St. Louis penalty of the night when Vince Dunn was sent off for holding at the 2:02 mark. Vancouver didn't score but kept applying pressure and earned a second power play at 5:34. Seventeen seconds after that, Elias Pettersson threaded a pinpoint pass through the slot to a wide-open Bo Horvat to open the scoring.
Watch Goldy in the slot on this play, too. He perfectly times a flick of the wrist that knocks Dunn's stick out of the passing lane, helping to clear a path for the puck. Sneaky!
On the shift after the goal, Adam Gaudette came out like a house on fire. He won the draw at centre ice against Robert Thomas, then got away two shot attempts—both blocked—before following the puck to the crease and carefully avoiding making contact with Jake Allen before tapping home his second career NHL goal and first on home ice at Rogers Arena.
Hustle plays like that translate to a well-deserved place in the lineup. Just like that, the Canucks are seriously deep down the middle. If the team stays healthy, it'll be tough to send Gaudette back to Utica when Brandon Sutter is ready to return to the lineup. There's no definite timeline on that, but the team has talked about expecting him back after Christmas, and Sutter did pop up in the Canucks' family-Christmas-skate videos that ran on the Jumbotron at Rogers Arena on Thursday.
I'm not a Sutter hater by any means, but the progression of Vancouver's young forwards could give Jim Benning some trade options sooner rather than later.
The second period turned out to be the difference in the game. The Canucks went to the dressing room with a two-goal lead after outshooting the Blues 14-3 in a dominant middle frame.
In the third, the Blues got interested again, but Josh Leivo quelled any positive momentum St. Louis might generate with a sneaky squeaker past Jake Allen at the 2:08 mark to extend the Vancouver lead.
Is something happening here with this year's smaller arm protectors, creating a hole between the goalie and his post that wasn't there before?
With his crafty moves, Leivo has been a nice addition to the Canucks—and his arrival coincides with the upward turn in Vancouver's fortunes. Is it him, or is it Jay Beagle? Both got into the lineup on the same day, December 4 against Minnesota. Since then, the Canucks are 6-2-1, with 35 goals for, 22 goals against, a 6-for-29 power play and a 20-for-23 penalty kill—with all three of those power-play goals allowed coming against the Wild. The PK has now been perfect for eight straight games.
That's a lot to like.
Much like in St. Louis on December 9, the lone goal that spoiled Markstrom's shutout came in the third period, once the game was already out of reach. The Canucks capped off their night with #ShotgunJake's career-high 11th of the year and an empty-netter from Loui Eriksson to send the fans at Rogers Arena home happy.
Markstrom continues to struggle to get shutouts—he has just the two from last season on his entire NHL resume, which is now up to 195 career games. But Thursday's game was Markstrom's sixth straight win, the most successful stretch of his NHL career. His
Quality Start Percentage on Hockey Reference is up to .577, where .530 is considered average and .600 is considered good. Based on their criteria, they give Markstrom 15 quality starts this season which puts him in the top 10 league wide—tied with Semyon Varlamov, Pekka Rinner, Marc-Andre Fleury and Casey DeSmith from Pittsburgh.
Leading the way: Freddy Andersen in Toronto, with 21, followed by John Gibson of Anaheim, with 19, then Devan Dubnyk, Jimmy Howard and Henrik Lundqvist, each with 16.
Rememeber how well Markstrom finished out last season? It's time to start believing that maybe he is for real.
I'd love to see the Canucks make a real push to move on from Anders Nilsson and call up Thatcher Demko—but not immediately. The schedule eases up dramatically next month, with just nine games. There's a four-day break from January 6-9, then the Canucks' official five-day R&R break is linked up against the All-Star Break, giving the team nine straight days off from January 24-February 1.
For most of that time, league rules prohibit players from practicing as well as playing. Rather than bring Demko up just to let him get rusty, I say he should play out next month in Utica, then come up to Vancouver for the rest of the year sometime in early February.
Demko has been solid in just under a month back with the Comets since recovering from his concussion. Since November 21, he's 6-3-1 with a .915 save percentage. His 2.41 goals-against average ranks fifth in the AHL.
The Comets finish out their pre-Christmas schedule on Friday night in Springfield and at home on Saturday against Binghamton.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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