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With Jim Rutherford watching, Canucks hope to end road trip with 1st win |
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Tuesday October 18 - Columbus Blue Jackets 4, Vancouver Canucks 3 (OT)
Thursday October 20 - Vancouver Canucks at Minnesota Wild - 5 p.m. PT, Sportsnet Pacific
Well, the Canucks picked up their first point of the season on Tuesday in Columbus. And they did, at least, establish a multi-goal lead for the fourth time in their first four games.
But yes, they lost again. So the club is teetering into crisis mode already, as the road trip wraps in Minnesota on Thursday.
At first glance, it seems worrisome that Jim Rutherford flew out to join the team for the last two games of this road trip. But judging from the tweets that Rick Dhaliwal posted about his conversation with the team president, it actually sounds like Rutherford's main objective is to calm the waters and get everybody — including Bruce Boudreau — feeling a little more stable.
If everyone can take a breath, that should help with the mental aspect of the defensive game.
So let's take any talk of Boudreau being on the hot seat out of the conversation for now. But I will admit, I had some fun on Wednesday with the idea that perhaps this situation has arisen because the hockey gods are determined, at last, to bequeath a first-overall draft pick on the Canucks right when the most promising B.C.-born prospect is at the top of all the rankings?
Despite all the declarations that it's playoffs-or-bust this year, Bedard's a heckuva prize for whichever team wins the draft lottery. Wouldn't it be something if the Canucks ended up with home-ice advantage??
A couple of other items I noted in that article:
• With Tyler Myers and Ilya Mikheyev in the lineup for the first time this season in Columbus, the Canucks went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill against the Blue Jackets — the first game this year that they didn't give up a goal while shorthanded.
• That being said, while Vancouver was posting solid 5-on-5 possession numbers through its first two games, the expected goals have gotten shakier. The Canucks slipped below 50% in Washington, controlling just 44.69% of expected goals, and that number fell to 35.29% in Columbus.
There was some consternation about Conor Garland being scratched to make room for Mikheyev, but it looks like that was just a one-game thing. Against the Wild, it's Nils Hoglander's turn to 'take a seat on the sit-out bench,' as they say on Survivor.
After returning to the lineup against Columbus, Tucker Poolman did not take Thursday's morning skate. Per Harman Dayal, Bruce Boudreau says he'll be a game-time decision. So we'll have to wait to see whether Jack Rathbone finally draws in for his first game of the year.
At the other end of the ice, the Wild are going through an early-season crisis of their own. Just like Tuesday, the Canucks will be facing a hungry team that's 0-3-0. And while Marc-Andre Fleury has given up 11 goals in four periods of hockey so far this season, he has been a Canuck-killer. All time, he's 13-3-2 in his career against Vancouver, with a 2.55 goals-against average and .915 save percentage. Last season, he made 40 saves when the Blackhawks shut out the Canucks 1-0 at Rogers Arena on Nov. 21, 2021, then gave up two goals in the Canucks' 3-1 road win at United Center on Jan. 31, 2022.
Fleury will get the nod in net on Thursday night. And not surprisingly for a struggling team, the Wild are making a bunch of lineup adjustments. As defenseman Alex Goligoski celebrates his 1,000th-career NHL game, Jordan Greenway will play his first game of the year after recovering from offseason surgery. Rookie Marco Rossi also draws back in after being healthy-scratched in Minnesota's 6-3 loss to Colorado on Monday, and moves up the lineup into a better offensive role, after showing well in preseason.
And for Boudreau, of course, that 600th-career win has proven elusive so far this season. I'm sure he'd like nothing better than to hit that milestone in Minnesota, where he earned 158 of those wins over 303 games — and to get the first win of the year into the books before Vancouver's home opener on Saturday against the Buffalo Sabres.
Finally — if you missed it, the Canucks and the NHL's other 31 teams all dropped their 2022 Reverse Retro designs on Thursday.
Johnny Canuck takes centre stage for Vancouver. I like the texturizing of the stripes that make the jersey look vintage.
I have a broad-scope story about the Reverse Retro program here:
Teams will wear the jerseys between two and eight times this season, with a schedule of Reverse Retro matchup dates set to kick off on Nov. 2. Would be great to see Vancouver square off against another team in its special threads at Rogers Arena this season.
That should set you up for today. And yes, I say this with some hesitation...
Enjoy the game ?!?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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