Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin – USA TODAY Sports
Playing their first game in four-plus days, the Canucks hosted the visiting Los Angeles Kings for a weeknight affair at Rogers Arena.
The Kings always offer a handful, even when the results don’t reflect their merit among the league’s premier teams. They’re mean, fast and tenacious on the forecheck. Perhaps most importantly, they’ve had a near monopoly by shot share metrics since Darryl Sutter took over those many years ago.
A few confounding factors were working in the Canucks favour, though. They’re getting healthier. Other than Erik Gudbranson and Jannik Hansen, this roster is about as healthy as it’s been all season. Opposite them, the Kings played without Jonathan Quick, Tyler Toffoli and Brayden McNabb.
As far as level playing fields go, the Canucks aren’t going to find one much better than tonight. And to their credit, they took full advantage. Vancouver built an early lead and battened down the hatches. Loui Eriksson put the Canucks up on the power play in the first; then Henrik Sedin deflected a Troy Stecher shot on a Kings turnover early in the second. Were it not for a poor offside call, Sven Baertschi’s deflection in the second would’ve held up and given the Canucks a 3-1 lead, even.
The Kings pressed, and the Canucks bent but never broke. With some inspired play from Ryan Miller, Vancouver was able to hold the lead and take home the 2-1 victory.
Miller stopped 36 of 37 Kings shots. Peter Budaj stopped 18 of 20 Canucks shots.

Stats


Quick Hits

  • I know it’s only December 28th, but if the Canucks lost this game, they lost whatever small shred of belief in a playoff chase they might’ve left the Christmas break with. Tonight’s game puts the Canucks five points back of the Kings, who hold down the final playoff spot in the West. Had they lost tonight, they’d be nine down. Their odds aren’t great as is, but that’s just about the final nail in the coffin. You just can’t understate how important this game was for the Canucks. 
  • Edler takes a lot of grief in this market, almost all of it undeserved. I wrote today about the possibility of Troy Stecher as the Canucks best defenceman. The only player that gave me moment for pause was Edler. He was at his best tonight. Edler was physical, contributed offensively and held his own in the defensive end. He was also the only Canuck to leave tonight in the black by shot attempt share. Not bad for his first game back from a broken finger, right?
  • Luca Sbisa’s been playing well this season. Right now he’s on the Canucks second pair alongside Chris Tanev, which makes a tonne of sense. I’m not sure if he’s playing well enough to warrant a team-leading 22:36 in ice-time, though. He didn’t necessarily look bad at any point, but it’s hard to succeed as a team when Sbisa is your lead horse. That’s something the Canucks would be wise to monitor, and maybe adjust going into their next game.
  • The Canucks second unit power play looked great tonight. Loui Eriksson was its featured member, scoring the opening goal and almost potting another shortly thereafter. That unit is fairly shooter heavy, so it makes sense that they’d be relatively successful in the Canucks current power play configuration. Hopefully that’s a developing trend and not a flash in the pan.
  • Miller was the star of the game. The Canucks had a ten-minute span in the first period without a single shot attempt. They followed that up in the third with a 15-minute span without an even strength shot attempt. Their forwards didn’t win this game. If you want proof, look at the HockeyStats shot plot posted under the stats tab.