Canucks 5-1 Flames | Scoring chances and recap

Matt Stajan Doesn’t Drop the Gloves Very Often. It shows.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Jonathan Hayward

After outplaying but coming up short to the Nashville Predators on Thursday, the Vancouver Canucks played a Calgary Flames team on a quick turnaround.from the night before. Were they fatigued? Perhaps, but after getting the first goal, you could tell that this was a game that Calgary was outclassed in. The Canucks slowly took over the game about midway through the second and couple of lucky goals past backup Henrik Karlsson.

For full scoring chance data and post-game analysis, click past the jump…

-The Canucks powerplay looked real bad at first, missing a prime opportunity in the first period with two men down and failing to register a good shot on goal. Henrik Sedin and Alex Burrows both missed the net on the two-man. Later though, the powerplay clicked twice, the first Canucks goal coming on a point shot from Kevin Bieksa. I commented on Twitter that that goal was “less Fulton Reed and more Russ Tyler”.

-Mason Raymond’s return was the big story in this one. He played okay but didn’t impress me in any major ways. He had an assist and a shot on goal, but that and one more miss came from the outside. He was in on a single scoring chance (with 6:47 to go in the game) although did finish as a plus player, it was really Jannik Hansen and Cody Hodgson, who had a particularly strong game, controlling that line.

-The Sedins had some difficulty at even strength in the scoring chance department. Alain Vigneault gave the second line the sheltered minutes tonight, which of course, us at Canucks Army love. Henrik had four offensive zone starts to Ryan Kesler’s eight, and the Sedins, as usual, did most of their damage on the powerplay, while Kesler, David Booth and Chris Higgins did a lot of damage at even strength. This was another one of Booth’s good games, with a goal, an assist, running Miikka Kiprusoff (payback for the 2004 playoffs?)

-Olli Jokinen looked like the strongest Flame in this one, at least early. Him, Jarome Iginla and Curtis Glencross saw time against the Canucks’ second line, which of course makes their game look all that much better. Kesler finished +6 in Corsi and Iginla a -6.

-Kevin Bieksa and Dan Hamhuis also saw some time up there. While the pairing lost the chance battle, they won the possession battle by a long shot, and can’t really be blamed for the offense failing to generate much of it while they were on the ice. Bieksa played a much more defensively responsible game tonight than he usually does, logging 22:43 of ice time, second to Hamhuis’ 23:44.

-Roberto Luongo was also rather good, although he wasn’t called upon much. He saw nine Calgary scoring chances that hit the net and stopped the all, the only blemish on his record a bank shot from behind the net that had a lot of people who think that only Roberto Luongo allows those kinds of goals momentarily upset at Roberto Luongo. He stopped 95.5% of the shots he faced, picked up the quality start, his fourth in five.

STATISTICAL THREE STARS:

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