Canucks Win Second Half of Back-to-Back 5-3 Over the Flames

The Canucks are nothing if not pesky under new head coach Travis Green this season, and efforts like tonight’s go a long way towards helping build that reputation.
Down some of their more accomplished forwards and defencemen, on the second half of back-to-backs, this game didn’t have the makings of a Canucks victory. And the Flames, smelling blood in the water, were ready to pounce. They jumped on the Canucks early, but a coach’s challenge from Green erased a would-be 1-0 goal for Calgary. Sam Gagner opened the scoring, legitimately, with a power play marker shortly after, but Flames defenceman Dougie Hamilton would do the same to knot things up at one at the end of the first frame.
In the second frame, it was a little more frantic. The Canucks and Flames went shot-for-shot, trading a pair of goals apiece. Micheal Ferland and Johnny Gaudreau scored for the Flames. Thomas Vanek, playing in his 900th career NHL game, sent a cannon of a shot past Flames netminder Mike Smith. And on the 3-3 goal, Brandon Sutter beat out T.J. Brodie on a loose puck in the Flames zone shorthanded and bounced it off of Derek Dorsett for the goal.
The Canucks pulled away in the third frame. On something of a fluky passing play, Brock Boeser finds Bo Horvat through a couple of Flames defenders, and he puts the puck into the yawning cage to give the Canucks the 4-3 lead on the power play. Then, to seal the deal, Daniel and Henrik Sedin went in on a two-on-one, with Daniel finding Henrik who put the puck past Smith for his first goal of the season.
Markstrom, in one of his better games of the season, stopped 30 of 33 Flames shots. Smith stopped 16 of the 21 Canucks shots.

Stats

Quick Hits

  • Brendan Gaunce made his return to the Canucks lineup tonight in place of the injured Markus Granlund who’s day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Did Green ease him into the lineup? No, not really. Gaunce played almost 17 minutes tonight, more than all but five of the Canucks forwards — seems like a bit much for someone playing their first NHL game in months after shoulder surgery. By that same token, hard to argue with the results. Gaunce played a decent game. He was strong defensively right from his first shift when he broke up a Flames scoring chance in the slot and cleared the zone not long after. Gaunce was a minus-two in shot attempt differential at evens, which isn’t great, but it was also the second-best mark among Canucks’ forwards. Overall, it was a strong debut effort by Gaunce.
  • It’s not often that the goalie is the star in a victory after giving up three goals on a night, but that’s the case with Markstrom. It was one of if not Markstrom’s best performances of the year. He kept the Canucks in the game through the first two periods when they probably shouldn’t have been, and then slammed the door shut on Calgary in the third period. There was even a save of the year candidate mixed in there. And this, in the second half of a back-to-back in which Markstrom played both games.
  • Sam Gagner had probably his best night as a member of the Canucks. The power play goal was nice, and surprise, surprise, it happened in the home plate area of the offensive zone and not on the point — take note of that Canucks assistant coach Newell Brown. That was one of five shots by Gagner on the night. In the second period, Green noticed, moving Gagner up the lineup for a shift with Sven Baertschi and Horvat as a reward for his strong play. So too was the 17:30, a season-high with the Canucks, a reward from Green, I am sure. The Canucks need more of this from Gagner. Here’s hoping it’s a trend.
  • A hearty round of applause for Vanek, who played in his 900th career NHL game tonight. Vanek had a goal and an assist, and he drew two penalties, too. In typical Vanek fashion, during an intermission interview Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy, he was decidedly “meh” on the achievement, joking that he hopes he has another few games left in him. If he keeps taking slap shots like the one that he scored in the second period of tonight’s game, he just might have more than a few games left in his NHL career.
  • The Canucks changed up their defensive pairings tonight, with Alex Biega taking Erik Gudbranson’s place on the second pair with Michael Del Zotto and Biega skating with Derrick Pouliot. Maybe it’s just the short-term struggles associated with getting used to new partners, but neither pair seemed to work for the Canucks. It’s an interesting decision on Green’s part regardless. I think Gudbranson is more suited for the role he played tonight — that of a third-pairing defenceman. His underlying metrics from tonight’s game suggest that I might be onto something, too — although, he was on the ice for two penalty kill goals and on one of them his positioning was, ahem, spotty. I also think Biega’s earned a shot to play ahead of Gudbranson on this team when everyone is healthy. Green’s been a fan of the bulldog this season, so I wonder if tonight was an attempt to explore what that might look like for when Troy Stecher is healthy. Biega didn’t look great, either. Interesting times on the Canucks blue line. They’re going to have some interesting decisions to make in the coming days/weeks as Alexander Edler and Troy Stecher return to the lineup. An interesting note to add: Green had Gudbranson back with Del Zotto to finish off the game and seal the victory.
  • Boeser didn’t play a tonne tonight. He still managed to get on the scoresheet with an assist on Horvat’s power play goal in the third period. Only the Sedins and Virtanen played less than Boeser at even strength. Green admitted after the game that he thought Boeser looked tired. I wonder what this means for back-to-back games when the Canucks have a full complement of forwards.