CanucksArmy Post-Game: 7 Up
6 years ago
Brock Boeser is okay! If you’re a fan of the Canucks, your Christmas wish came early this year.
Coming into the game, the Canucks were 29th in the league averaging 2.58 GPG, and the Habs were sitting in 28th at 2.61, so of course, these two teams would combine for 12 goals as Montreal won 7-5.
1st Period
The sloppy play started off right away in the defensive zone with two failed zone exit attempts just inside the blueline. The first by Jake Virtanen and the next by Alexander Edler, leading to Anders Nilsson having to make a miraculous save on Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty just over a minute into the game.
From there, Reid Boucher, in his return to the Canucks lineup drew a penalty getting high-sticked by Canadiens defenceman Joe Morrow while entering the zone. On the ensuing powerplay, Sam Gagner fed Derrick Pouliot at the point who walked to the middle to unleash a hard slapshot which appeared to hit Thomas Vanek right where it hurts the most. Vanek quickly recovered to shovel the loose puck into the net for the first of three on the night.
A few minutes after scoring, Vanek took a penalty at the 14:35 mark when he kicked the feet out from under Canadiens forward Nicolas Deslauriers in the neutral zone. During that power play, the Habs scored making in 1-1 getting a bit of a lucky one off a bounce from David Carr’s foot.
The first period was actually a fairly solid effort from the Canucks. The five-on-five shot attempts finished 18-10 in favour of Vancouver, and the power play was clicking as well. Nilsson bailed the team out early, and Vanek took a bad penalty, but other than that, the team looked good. It’s worth noting that the improving Nic Dowd had four primary shot attempt assists in the first alone.
2nd Period
Good lord was this one ever ugly. Jeff Petry was allowed to walk right into the offensive zone and dish the pass to Byron Froese who then slid it through the seam to Deslauriers who completed the tic-tac-toe for the finish to make it 2-1 Habs. The gap was too big for Erik Gudbranson, but he also didn’t receive much help from the Sedins; I place the blame on all three of them equally for the poor coverage.
The next goal was a thing of beauty. Loui Eriksson did some incredible work along the boards just inside the blueline with a little help from Alexander Burmistrov to fight this puck free. Loui proceeded to feed Alex Biega right at the top of circles who momentarily froze Habs netminder Carey Price with a head fake and then fed Vanek on the doorstep for his second tap-in of the night.
The 3-2 goal for Montreal was due to a rare misread of the play from Troy Stecher. Stecher is usually on top of things in this regard, so there’s no need to be too hard on him for this goal. You can actually see Troy read the play. However, he hesitated for a split second which created enough time for the pass to be executed. Worth mentioning that Nilsson likely wouldn’t mind having this one back. It’s a nice shot, but stoppable, no doubt.
34 seconds after the Canucks got a lucky one off a broken play. Vanek threw a puck towards the middle, and it bounces off Plekanec and right to Daniel Sedin who backhanded it in to tie it at three.
Soon after tying it, Alex Biega took a cross-checking penalty. The Habs powerplay took three seconds to execute, face-off win, Petry wound up and fired one from the point with Shaw in front, no chance for Nilson. 4-3 Habs.
Was it the prettiest period of hockey for the Canucks? No. However, they did erase two leads in the second while increasing their lead in shot attempts from 8 to 10. Shot attempts after two were 41-31 for Vancouver.
Third Period
Early in the third, the Canadiens made it 5-3 with an absolute disaster of a goal from the Canucks perspective. No help for Gudbranson on the Jonathan Drouin entry. His gap could have been tighter, but Drouin is among the best in the league when it comes to entering the zone with control, so I’m willing to cut the rusty Guddy some slack here. Drouin nearly came to a complete stop post entry which seemingly fooled all five Canucks skaters on the ice, Drouin then fires a nice pass through coverage to Byron who was going against the grain, misfired, but an uncovered Pacioretty is right there to tap the puck back to him for the easy finish.
Luckily for the Canucks, the Habs clearly have some issues they’re sorting out as well. I know it’s the PK, but leaving Boeser unattended inexcusable. This is automatic goal territory for the flow! 5-4 Canadiens.
Galchenyuk would score on a breakaway to make it 6-4 with 2:33 left in the third period to put the game out of reach.
Vanek would add another goal to complete the tenth hat-trick of his career and notch another point for Brock Boeser. This made it a one-goal game again but this one just truly wasn’t meant to be as Montreal would add an empty netter to make it 7-5.
The Numbers
Quick Hits
- It was ugly, but don’t forget this team is minus Bo Horvat, Sven Baertschi, Chris Tanev and willingly sat Ben Hutton, who has been one of their better d-men in the neutral zone this season. The team also erased multiple leads, and the powerplay stayed hot. For a rebuilding team, entertaining loses aren’t the worst thing.
- Nic Dowd quietly had his best game as a Canuck finishing with a 61.54 CF% and 5 Primary shot contributions (1+4) in 14:35 of TOI, he’s beginning to settle in and show signs of life, this is good news for Canucks fans.
- Biega was noticeably good again, but he did have some glaring turnovers in the neutral zone which resulted in scoring chances against, but if the opposing team doesn’t score, did they really happen?
- Gudbranson had his moments protecting the blueline, but all things considered, it was a decent return. The puck didn’t look like a grenade on his stick — a step in the right direction for sure. I’d like to see him with Pouliot again whenever he draws back into the lineup.
- Catastrophic technical difficulties on my end tonight, I’ll do my best to sort those out. My apologies for the very late recap!
- Things are going to get interesting from here regarding deployment on the blueline. At the moment, I feel like Edler is the only one who is safe from being scratched. You can’t keep Hutton in the pressbox after a 7-5 loss, can you? Especially when defensive neutral zone play was clearly an issue. Green shuffling six d-men into five spots is not ideal. I correctly put together the pairings Green used Vs. Montreal, but after that performance, all things considered, I’m not sure where you go from here. This team needs a trade, and they need it badly. Rotating young blue-liners, you’re attempting to develop is not the way to go.
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