Tuesday January 10 - Nashville Predators 2 - Vancouver Canucks 1 (OT)
The Vancouver Canucks reverted to their old ways on Tuesday in Nashville, never leading and playing from behind for 38:36. A last-minute goal by Brandon Sutter salvaged a point, but the power play failed to deliver in overtime as Calle Jarnkrok and Roman Josi combined on a 2-on-0 for the Predators' first overtime win of the year.
Here are your highlights:
Coming into the game, Nashville hadn't won at home since back on December 13. Since that time their record had been 0-3-3 as they alternated regulation and overtime losses.
The Canucks failed to generate any meaningful scoring chances in the first period, outshot 8-4. They were fortunate to avoid going down 2-0 just 3:08 into the game when it was ruled that Filip Forsberg had batted the puck past Ryan Miller with a high stick.
Early in the second period, the Preds took a 1-0 lead when Austin Watson played a fortuitous bounce off the back boards past Ryan Miller. The rest of the frame played out pretty evenly, with the shots ending up 11-10 for Vancouver, but the Canucks weren't able to muster any offense on their abbreviated power-play opportunity—where Alex Edler returned to his spot on the point in place of Troy Stecher.
I heard mention that Edler has changed his stick since he came back from his injury. Seems likely—we haven't seen any of those all-too-familiar stick explosions from Edler since his return. He has assists in three straight games after helping out on Vancouver's only goal on Tuesday, and has picked up five of his eight points for the season in the eight games since returning from his hand injury.
So—I don't mind seeing him taking over for Troy Stecher with the man advantage. Stecher has all the try in the world, and gets enough space back on the blue line to set up on the power play, but it was frustrating to see him get three shots blocked last night during the 4-on-3 power play in overtime—with the last block ultimately leading to Nashville's winning goal. He leads all defensemen with an average of 3:12 of power-play ice time per game, but Vancouver's power play continues to languish—27th overall with just a 13.7 percent efficiency rate.
Daniel and Henrik lead the team with eight power-play points each. Stecher has four—while Ben Hutton leads the defensemen with six.
By contrast, Columbus leads the league with a power play that clicks 25.8 percent of the time and Cam Atkinson's the top power-play producer in the league right now, with 19 points.
The Canucks will get a first-hand look at one of the NHL's top power-play snipers in their next game, against Philadelphia on Thursday. The Flyers have the ninth-best power play in the league, at 21.9 percent, but Claude Giroux is tied for second in the league with 18 power-play points. Shayne Gostisbehere is the embodiment of what we hope Stecher will become—an undersized point man who came up through the college system and generates offense. "Ghost" has just one power-play goal this season but also has 11 assists, so he continues to make things happen for Philadelphia with the man advantage.
That being said, the Canucks did have the extra attacker on the ice when Brandon Sutter scored Vancouver's only goal of the game, blasting the puck past Pekka Rinne with 49 seconds left to play in the third period. Vancouver outshot Nashville 13-7 in the third and definitely picked up the attack level once Ryan Miller went to the bench with 1:55 left on the clock.
If the clock had been ticking down just a little more quickly, the Canucks might have had a chance to go for a second point in the shootout. Jarnkrok's game-winner was Nashville's first in overtime this season and the first shorthanded 3-on-4 goal in the Preds' franchise history.
But—for a team with a road record as poor as Vancouver's, Tuesday's game wasn't all bad. The team gave a solid effort, played well defensively, outshot the opposition and salvaged a point after failing to score for more than 59 minutes. The point is enough to tie them with Los Angeles, in the second wild-card spot, but the Kings have two games in hand and hold the tiebreaker with 19 regulation and overtime wins, compared to 16 for Vancouver.
The Canucks have now moved on to Philadelphia, where they're practicing today.
To wrap up today, Elliotte Friedman leads this week's "30 Thoughts" with a conversation with Willie Desjardins' daughter Sheehan, now a 21-year-old journalism student at Ryerson University in Toronto.
The conversation was about Willie's experiences at World Juniors—first as an assistant to Pat Quinn when Team Canada won gold in 2009, then as head coach when Canada's five-year streak was snapped by John Carlson's overtime goal in the gold-medal game the following year.
By the time last week's gold-medal game got to the shootout, I wasn't too concerned about who would win. It was a great game where both teams played well but also made a few crucial errors, as junior teams usually do. I was proud of the Canadian players for getting as far as they did, but I know there is a strong feeling of "Gold or nothing" in this country, especially for this tournament.
Sheehan talks about how that feels—for the players and the coaching staff—and also talks about how she handles her dad's day job with the Canucks:
Does she watch his games? “I do for the first period because I buy him ties, so I see if he wears them,” she laughs. “But after that? No. My boyfriend has to watch on his phone in the bathroom because I can’t look.”
We spoke for approximately 20 minutes. She's undoubtedly among the more passionate family members I’ve spoken to, and there’ve been a few.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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