Canucks Defeat the Visiting Oilers 3-2

Tonight was the final audition. If you had something to prove, tonight was the night to prove it.
Canucks head coach Travis Green iced a close to NHL calibre lineup, and while they didn’t reward him with a Picasso, it’s hard to turn down the end result, a 3-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in front of the home crowd.
Jake Virtanen, who’s been among the Canucks’ best players this pre-season, started things off on the right foot, finishing a passing play started in the Canucks zone and finished in front of Edmonton Oilers netminder Cam Talbot. That was Jake’s fourth goal in six preseason games. Call it the exclamation mark on a pre-season that screamed “NHL ready!”.
Leon Draisaitl responded with a pair of goals for the Oilers, and at times looked poised to finish the hat-trick. The Canucks, with a little luck, kept Draisaitl, and consequently the Oilers, at a pair right to the final horn. Markus Granlund scored shorthanded on a breakaway, and Loui Eriksson picked up the garbage in front to score with the man advantage.
Jacob Markstrom got the start for the Canucks and stopped 25 of 27 shots. Talbot stopped 14 of the Canucks’ 17 shots.

Stats

Quick Hits

  • Let’s start with an omission from tonight’s game, and a notable one at that. Andrey Pedan. Despite practicing with Michael Del Zotto, and there being every indication that he would play in tonight’s lineup prior to the morning skate, Green scratched the lanky Lithuanian. I would think this is a good sign for Pedan’s chances. If Green were on the fence, wouldn’t he want another look? I’d suppose that, conversely, the opposite could be true, and Green isn’t on the fence with a demotion in mind. That just seems hard to believe after the game that Pedan had on Thursday. Speaking of, if you haven’t read Ryan Biech’s article on Pedan from earlier today, go ahead and do yourself the favour of reading that. It’s great.
  • For reasons that escape me, Virtanen didn’t get a tonne of ice-time. I say that because he had the best two-way results and scored the opening goal. You think that’s the sort of thing most coaches would try to reward. Instead, Virtanen played a sparse 8:39 in tonight’s game, with his minutes decreasing with each period. Based on Green’s lukewarm assessment of Virtanen after Thursday’s game, I’m starting to wonder, is he a lock? Is Green trying to prepare us for the massively unpopular decision to send him down to Utica? You know, it might be possible. Jayson Megna played 14:45 tonight, by the way.
  • I’m starting to think Green is going to take a serious liking to Granlund. He’s playing every position, in each phase of special teams, and providing results. Tonight, Granlund played close to 20 minutes. That’s about first line production. With a shorthanded goal and an assist on Eriksson’s power play marker, it’s hard to argue he didn’t earn it.
  • Patrick Wiercioch had a mostly rough game. I like how active he is in transition, and that he communicates so loudly and clearly that I could make out his every word from the press box. I thought that communication was key in getting Biega to transition the puck effectively and with urgency, and that led to the Virtanen goal. Mostly, though, Wiercioch was just plain bad. Was caught pinching on one goal and took a bad penalty after getting caught woefully out of position. I like Wiercioch’s game. He brings dimensions to this blue line that are definitely needed. Tonight wasn’t his night, though.
  • I hope no one is expecting the power play to improve. At one point, there was Sam Gagner, Henrik Sedin and Alexander Edler playing the role of trigger men on a mostly stale and static 1-3-1. Actually, at several points, that was the case. It was ugly. None of those players should be the finisher on an NHL power play.
  • Brock Boeser didn’t have a great night. I’m starting to cool on the notion of him as a surefire NHL’er. It’s somewhat concerning that he lit up the preseason when he was playing against teams that in no way resemble NHL rosters, then went completely silent as soon as the quality of competition picked up. Maybe starting in Utica wouldn’t be the worst thing ever for Boeser.