Canucks 6-0 Avalanche | Scoring chances and recap

As his percentages continue to normalize, Bieksa’s dental PDO took a hit tonight.

A shaky start to a Tuesday night game, but the Vancouver Canucks took advantage of a porous Russian goaltender and pulled away with this game late. The Canucks beat their division (and soon to be Conference) rival Colorado Avalanche 6-0, giving them their second shutout win. This shutout, however, was split, as Roberto Luongo after a strong start, took a puck off the throat and had to leave the game. In came Schneider in a 1-0 game, and he was strong in mop-up duty.

For a full chance recap, click past the jump…

-The Canucks were exceptional in the third period. You probably don’t need chance data to tell you that, but they got the first seven chances of the period, and also looked dangerous on a couple of perimeter plays that could have been chances.

-David Booth left the game in this one with a knee-on-knee collision with Kevin Porter. We will have to wait on the prognosis, but he leaves the lineup just as he seemed to be catching fire, which isn’t good for the Canucks at all. With Chris Higgins already out, it appears that the American Express line has hit a bad credit rating.

-The Canucks could have also lost Kevin Bieksa, after taking an elbow in the face late in the second period. Somehow they got out of that unscathed, but Juice isn’t as pretty as he used to be.

-The Canucks were +1 at even strength on the night, and carrying the team were Henrik Sedin and Jannik Hansen up front. This is one of those games where every shot that went off the Canucks net seemed to find the net. The first five also certainly found the highlight reel. The Canucks were passing the puck extremely well tonight, with Kevin Bieksa leading the way in three chance assists. It was Dan Hamhuis’ +3 that led Canucks defense, however.

-The second Canucks goal—Hansen’s first—was unbelievably pretty. Even stat geeks have feelings, too.

-Not only did Canuck goalies split the shutout, but they also combined for 12 saves off of Colorado chances. Semyon Varlamov was not so good, stopping just 15 of 21 shots for a .714 save percentage. He also only stopped 5 of the 11 chances that the Canucks directed on net.

-As Thom noted in the headshots, I wrote today about Jannik Hansen’s unsustainable shooting percentage. Of course Hansen would respond with two goals tonight, however he did have three shots on net, which is also good, since one of my criticisms was that he didn’t take enough shots on net. He now has 11 in his last four games.

-Cody Hodgson had another strong game. This has become pretty standard. He never really impresses to the fullest extent, particularly on the traditional scoreboard, but he does the right things that push the play north, and he is the only Canucks player in the bottom six who consistently creates his own scoring chances.

-Gabriel Landeskog is incredible. He was a +4 in chances tonight and a +8 Fenwick. Unfortunately, Varlamov stopped just half the shots he was on the ice for, so ends up with a minus-2.

Corsi/Fenwick
Zone Starts
Head 2 Head Ice Time