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With Elias Pettersson injured, Canucks drop a 2-1 decision to the Lightning |
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Sunday March 13 - Tampa Bay Lightning 2 - Vancouver Canucks 1
Tuesday March 15 - New Jersey Devils at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m. PT
Can't win 'em all. Even when that might be what's needed...
The Vancouver Canucks got one lucky break on their lone goal, but were largely stymied by Andrei Vasilevskiy as the Tampa Bay Lightning snapped their three-game losing streak on Sunday night at Rogers Arena.
The Lightning got first-period goals from Victor Hedman and Ross Colton — and had a Steven Stamkos snipe late in the first called back on an offside Coach's Challenge.
J.T. Miller recorded Vancouver's only goal early in the third, beating a surprised Vasilevskiy from alone in the slot after Conor Garland was ruled to have beaten out an icing call — a play that probably should have been whistled down.
So — that's a 1-1-1 record for the Canucks so far on this homestand, with four more games to try to seize some points before the trade deadline.
• They'll get a crack at revenge against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. Nico Daws has continued to play well in net, with 11 goals allowed in his last five starts, so the Devils won't be pushovers despite their position in the Metro Division standings.
• The Detroit Red Wings come to town on Thursday. They'll have their Calder Trophy candidates Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond in tow — and it'll be the return to Vancouver for Troy Stecher and Sam Gagner. But Detroit will be without 24-goal-man Tyler Bertuzzi, whose unvaccinated status still prohibits him from crossing the border into Canada without quarantining. And the Red Wings' goaltending has been awful, with 53 goals against in 10 games over the last month.
• Next Saturday, it'll be a revenge game for the Calgary Flames after that 7-1 streak-ending drubbing at the hands of the Canucks back on Feb. 24. The Flames are 6-2-1 since then, but were shut out 3-0 by the undermanned Colorado Avalanche on Sunday.
• Next Sunday, the new-look Buffalo Sabres come to town. And while they're also in the lower ranks of the Eastern Conference standings, they've looked pretty good in recent games. They took down Toronto for the second time in less than two weeks at the Heritage Classic on Sunday, and also earned an emotional 2-1 win over the Vegas Golden Knights last Thursday, in Jack Eichel's return to Buffalo. They're getting solid goaltending and leadership from 40-year-old Craig Anderson, who seems to have built his entire career around defying odds, so the Sabres won't be pushovers.
And it'll be fascinating to see what the Canucks do about their goaltending when that back-to-back set comes up. Thatcher Demko is an impressive 9-2-1 since the All-Star Break. But somewhat ironically, his 29-save performance in the loss against the Lightning on Sunday is the first time in five games that he has finished with a save percentage of over .900 in an individual game.
Demko's averages since All Star aren't much different from his full-season numbers — a .916 save percentage and 2.66 goals-against average. But he has played the third-most minutes since All-Star weekend — behind only Winnipeg's Connor Hellebuyck and Ilya Sorokin of the Islanders, and four minutes ahead of Jacob Markstrom.
But as the schedule gets heavier, and with lots of crucial in-conference matchups ahead, how heavily can Bruce Boudreau afford to lean on his starter?
It'll be impressive if the Canucks' new management group is able to convince a reluctant Jaroslav Halak to waive his no-movement clause over the next seven days, giving Vancouver the opportunity to call up Spencer Martin as Demko's backup.
Martin has continued to shine with Abbotsford since his impressive three-game showing with Vancouver back in January. He's 13-3-2, with a 2.38 goals-against average and .918 save percentage — and got some attention last week when he shut out the Toronto Marlies 3-0 in Toronto.
As far as other trade speculation goes, I was reluctant to get behind the idea that Canucks management was in talks with Pittsburgh because that through-line seemed a bit too obvious. But Elliotte Friedman mentioned on the '32 Thoughts' segment on Saturday night that the Canucks had interest in defenseman John Marino — and that made sense to me.
I wonder about Marino's willingness to come to Canada. He's a Massachusetts boy who was originally drafted by Edmonton, then had his rights traded to the Penguins after he finished his junior year of college.
But he's a Harvard guy who was teammates with Jack Rathbone for one season. And he's a 24-year-old righty. That puts him right in the wheelhouse of what the Canucks are looking for — and makes him too young to have trade protection. But not surprisingly, the Penguins also believe he's valuable, and it sounds like they're not interested in dealing him.
Marcus Pettersson, a 25-year-old lefty, was healthy scratched by Pittsburgh on Sunday. That made me wonder if he was being held out of the lineup pending a possible trade. But a quick glance at his stats page also shows that Mike Sullivan has been using him less and less over the past couple of seasons. He averaged 19:24 per game in the 2019-20 season. That dropped to 16:29 last year and has gone down further this season, to 15:54.
So I'm not sure if there's any smoke there, or not.
Trade deadline time is high pressure for any general manager, but especially so for a rookie. Patrik Allvin has the advantage of having been in the inner circle in Pittsburgh. And I would think that having Jim Rutherford onside now should be a useful buffer for anyone who's trying to swoop in and take advantage — particularly when Rutherford has made it clear that his mindset here in Vancouver is very different from his days in Pittsburgh, when he was an aggressive trader trying to make immediate improvements to a team that was chasing the Stanley Cup.
And speaking of Petterssons, I wish I'd been more surprised when Elias was scratched for Sunday's game. The Canucks haven't given any details on his injury, just saying that he's day-to-day so far. But I was worried after he seemed to be favouring his wrist in Friday's game against Washington — and especially worried when his issue last year seemed so innocuous in the beginning, and then turned into a big deal.
The Canucks' offense has been a huge part of their success since the All-Star break, and Pettersson has been a big part of that: second in scoring behind J.T. Miller with 18 points in 13 games. Could a healthy Petey have been the game-breaker that the Canucks needed against Vasilevskiy on Sunday?
Monday is a day off for the team, so we'll have to wait till Tuesday's morning skate to see if he reappears.
In his absence, Sheldon Rempal got into his first game with the big club, after a torrid year in Abbotsford. In his 11th career NHL game, Rempal played 9:19 on Sunday, and logged two shot attempts.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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