Canucks Army Postgame: A “real victory”

Heading into Saturday night’s game against the Kings  I mocked the notion of “moral victories”, citing the unmitigated collapse by the Canucks since that term became a thing around these parts in January. That whole ordeal tied right into Mike Gillis’ sentiments about “chasing moving goal posts”; winning hockey games appeared to become a secondary objective as the team tried to change the way it was perceived, and in doing so they lost both themselves and a lot of games, as well.

This particular meeting between the two teams wound up being a much, much tamer contest. There were 93 fewer penalty minutes handed out, and instead of a bunch of fisticuffs and shenanigans we had to settle for a legitimate hockey game. As it turns out that’s not such a bad alternative.

We’ll run through how the Canucks managed to beat a Pacific Divison adversary from California for just the 2nd time all season. Apologies on the later-than-usual recap, but some things came up last night that prevented me from posting immediately following the game like I usually do. Hopefully you managed to find some other avenue of entertaining seeing as it was a Saturday night and all..

In terms of noteworthy events, there really isn’t all that much to report on from the first 40 minutes or so. The opening period, in particular, featured a seemingly uninspired, nondescript brand of hockey. 

Things picked up in the 2nd period with a couple of power plays for both sides, and the Kings finally scored the first goal of the game in the final minute of the frame. It came as a result of a 2nd straight penalty taken by Frankie Corrado, which marked the first infractions of his NHL career (he had played 18 games, including the playoffs, without being sent to the box heading into this one). 

But the 3rd period really redeemed all of the lackluster action that had preceded it, and then some. After drawing a penalty against Dustin Brown (*) the Canucks PP went to work in a way which was reminiscent of the glory days, and has been something that we’ve seen way too infrequently this year.

There was a bunch of movement, crisp passing, and a whole lot of Henrik and Daniel Sedin looking like Henrik and Daniel Sedin. In under 8 minutes of 5v4 time, the Canucks managed 13 shot attempts and 7 shots on goal as a team. One of those was this one by Edler, which ironically enough careened off of him and past Quick rather than actually being a controlled attempt. 

Given the sequence that led up to it, and all of the power play misfortunate they’ve endured as a unit all year, I don’t think anyone is complaining (though let the record show that Alex Edler didn’t get a plus in the +/- column for this!!!):

Now, earlier in the game, Zack Kassian made a fantastic little play to set up Brad Richardson for a glorious scoring opportunity, which the latter wound up flubbing. 

Following this play I went on Twitter and said some stuff about Richardson, was appeared to be taken the wrong way by some undying fans of the team. And that’s why I wanted to take this moment to explain where I’m coming from with regards to things I’ve been saying about him for a while now.

We – and by that I mean the people that write here at Canucks Army – have long been harping on the fact that Richardson is a large reason for the suppressed point totals for both Zack Kassian and David Booth, his two most common linemates. It’s not because I think Richardson “sucks”. Ideally he’s a valuable asset because of his ability to kill penalties, and play somewhere between 6-8 relatively trustworthy 5v5 minutes as a 4th line pivot. Because of injuries and a lack of depth, he has been asked to fill a role which is, quite simply, way over his abilities as a hockey player.

I think the play from above is a perfect example of why I refer to him as a “black hole”; he’s where Kassian’s playmaking ability goes to die. As I went on to tweet, I think I’ll devote a good day or two this summer to looking over a bunch of game film, and compiling a reel of every time he squandered a glorious opportunity that was spoon-fed to him. 

Even then, no matter how many times we see Kassian do his job while Richardson doesn’t, there will be people out there that will continue to blindly lay blame on only one of those guys because of perception and expectations that are negatively influencing their judgement. After all, one is a former 1st round pick that was traded for Cody Hodgson, and the other is a gritty guy that was acquired on the cheap and “plays the right way”.

With all of that being said, of corsi went ahead and buried one of Kassian’s exquisitely executed set-ups in the final 90 seconds of the game, which proved to be the game winning tally. That was Kassian’s 14th assist of the season, and I imagine that number would be in the 20-something range had he spent the majority of his season playing with a player more suited for finishing plays off. In the long run, though, Richardson’s most valuable contribution to the 2013-14 Vancouver Canucks may be his role in helping the team save a few bucks on his linemates RFA deal this summer.

Overall, I’d classify this as a very impressive 5v5 performance by the Canucks. By attempting 4 more unblocked shot than the Kings in 5v5 score close situations, they became the first team since February 27th to come out in the black v. LA (a streak of 17 games).

Based on the head-to-head numbers, there wasn’t very much line-matching going on in this one. The Bieksa/Edler pairing predominantly asked to bite the bullet against Anze Kopitar’s line, which makes Alex Edler’s outing all that more impressive. He led the team in ice-time, drew two penalties, fired four shots on goal, factored in on both tallies, and despite seeing a bunch of Gaborik-Kopitar-Williams, managed to come out even in the possession game. Now that’s a heckuva performance.

In his return to action, Henrik Sedin was on the ice for 16 shot attempts for v. 13 against, which is hardly anything to scoff at considering he went toe-to-toe with the insanely effective unit that is LA’s top line for a good chunk of that time. Despite initially being split up from his brother, he ultimately wound up being reunited with him as we originally anticipated.

With the win, the Canucks squandered a chance to allow both the Winnipeg Jets and Nashville Predators, both of whom came through with big wins on the road, to leapfrog them in the standings. They also managed to put off being mathematically eliminated for another day, though that might come soon. 

The Anaheim Ducks come back to town yet again as part of a weird scheduling quirk on Monday evening, and considering how their past couple of meetings have gone, the Greatest Tank Battles may once again be back in effect.