Canucks Army Postgame #30: Dud
6 years ago
There wasn’t a lot of pace to tonight’s game, and that may have been by design. The Canucks will spend the next six weeks without Bo Horvat, which means they’ll have to keep chances at a minimum if they want to win games in his absence. In the past, Travis Green has liked to role three scoring lines; but this was abandoned tonight in favour of a more traditional top-six bottom-six arrangement, with Michael Chaput and Nic Dowd centering the bottom two lines respectively. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work. The Canucks struggled to generate chances and got torched by Sam Bennett with less than a minute to go in regulation. Not a great outcome in a pivotal game against a divisional rival. To make matters worse, Sven Baertschi left the game in the second and did not return.
In short, it was not a good night. Welcome to a world without Bo Horvat. This could get ugly.
Highlights
STATS
Game Notes
- Tonight was Nic Dowd’s debut in a Canucks uniform after being dealt from the Kings for Jordan Subban the other night. Dowd was ostensibly acquired to bring some defensive stability to the bottom six, win faceoffs, and add to the centre depth. He did… none of those things. He played 8 minutes, won zero faceoffs, and finished the night with a 17% shot share.
- Dowd’s line in general got lit up tonight, with linemates Vanek and Granlund finishing the night below 20% in even-strength Corsi. I get the feeling we won’t be seeing that combination again.
- Dowd’s most noticeable moment tonight came in the first period, when he took a penalty. He played another 5-6 minutes after that, but went almost completely unnoticed.
- In contrast to the rest of the team, the Canucks nominal fourth line of Gaunce, Chaput, and Virtanen had themselves a hell of a game, and also provided the game’s first goal. Gaunce and Chaput were a great duo by underlying metrics last year, and Virtanen provides an upgrade on their most common sidekick from last season, Jack Skille. This is a line I could see having some success as the Canucks deal with injuries.
- Brock Boeser scored his 16th tonight. He’s played 28 games and is only four goals away from tying Bo Horvat’s team-leading total from last season.
- I think it bears repeating one more time that Nic Dowd was really bad tonight.
