Canucks Army Post-Game: Just win, Baby

Highlights

Stats

Quick Hits

• Well, I guess it’s that time of the year where everything is about the playoffs. Tonight’s game resulted in 0.9 percentile swing in the Canucks favour per www.SportClubStats.com. They now have about a 4% chance of making the show, for whatever that’s worth. A 4% chance and the Canucks are three games away from decision time regarding the deadline. Even if they win out, The Hockey News’ Dom Lucszyszyn told me his model gives the Canucks a 9% chance of making the show. Crazy to think that, at best, a five percentile swing in the Canucks favour can impact decisions that can last a season or two into the future.

• Matt Bartkowski is back! Yes, that Matt Bartkowski — the one not good enough to stick with this Canucks roster. The Flames signed Bartkowski to a two-year, two-way contract, with obvious expansion draft implications therein. That, and I tend to think former Canucks assistant coach and current Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan values Bartkowski’s specific skill set. Gulutzan, from what I can gather, pays attention to analytics and is especially fond of transitional data like entries and exits. Bartkowski excels in one area of the game, and that’s carrying the puck. I’m interested in how this works out. I don’t think Bartkowski is necessarily good, but I don’t believe he’s as bad as he looked last season. Maybe if Gulutzan reigns him in and forces him to play a more conservative game, Bartkowski can play well enough in a sheltered role on the bottom pair. Can’t be that much worse than Jyrki Jokipaka, can it?
• The Canucks had one player leave tonight in the black for Corsi For. That player is Brendan Gaunce. I’d tend to think this is a player the Canucks would be well-served by keeping in the lineup. 

• Jack Skille left tonight’s game with a groin injury suffered in the second period. He didn’t come out for the third, and the Canucks announced he wouldn’t return to the crowd at Rogers Arena. Admittedly, I haven’t been to many games, but that seemed new to me. I’d expect Reid Boucher joins the club for their game tomorrow against the Philadelphia Flyers.
• I thought Edler played one of his best games of the season. He was physical, engaged and didn’t suffer many lapses defensively as he upped the intensity. It was almost suiting that Elliott gifted him that goal in the first. I have moments where I wonder about Edler and how stark his declines been, and whether the Canucks would be wise to cut bait sooner than later. The answer is still probably yes, but I think an effort like tonight explains why the Canucks — a team that wants to compete throughout their rebuild — values what he brings

• Interesting to think that the Canucks season is seen as plucky and defiant, yet they’re in essentially the same place they were last season. Basically, the Western Conference is as accommodating as it’s ever been and I think the Canucks are a chief beneficiary.

• The Sedin twins sported the fifth and fourth worst Corsi For marks on the Canucks tonight. Their primary linemate, Markus Granlund, fared almost twice as well through this lens, with a -4 to the Sedins -8. This decline is real, and it might be one of the main reasons the Canucks aren’t making the playoffs.
• Tanev’s overtime winner was his first goal of the season. Talk about the unlikeliest of heroes. I don’t have a tonne to add on the play, but I’d like to show this fascinating graph that shows how Tanev is a negligible negative by offensive impact but so freakishly good defensively that he’s still an elite defenceman by XPM (expected plus/minus, which is a chief input into WAR)