Canucks Army Postgame: /Giphy Nichushkin

If you’re looking to measure team speed, there’s no better stick with which to do it than the Dallas Stars. Having placed as much emphasis on improving that wrinkle to their game as the Canucks this off-season, it’s a storyline worth following.

Much is made of the Flames ability to squash the Canucks breakout with their speed last post-season, but the trail of breadcrumbs leads with their contest against the Stars weeks prior. Honestly, you’d have a hard time convincing a newcomer to the sport they were playing the same game.

Results aside, the Canucks look to be gaining ground – figuratively and literally. Their breakout has legs and with a little luck, this game could have definitely gone the way of Vancouver. Unfortunately it didn’t, but I find some small solace in the Canucks escaping 3-on-3 overtime in one piece.

Catch up on the other side of the jump, as we break down the Canucks 3-2 SO loss in Dallas.

The game started in horrifying fashion, with a Canucks power play no less than two minutes in. Antoine Roussel was decked for a tacky interference call on Luca Sbisa – Roussel, by the way, was once Canucks property and played for their AHL club.

As one might expect, Vancouver struggled to enter the zone and failed to maintain anything in the way of a sustained attack. Given the impunity with which one can offend this club, it only makes sense that Stars captain, Jamie Benn, went ahead and put Dallas shorthanded for another four minutes, on a high-sticking double-major. Again, to little or no consequence.

After exacting their timeshare on the penalty box, Dallas amped up the attack in short order. The opening salvo was met in kind by Ryan Miller, but the ensuing pressure was enough to draw a Daniel Sedin tripping penalty. As the Stars are wont to do, they capitalized on their power play opportunity, scoring on a rather pungent goal due to some serious net-front traffic. It was originally thought of as Patrick Sharp’s goal, before being rightfully awarded to the equally handsome Benn.

Whether it was a reigned in Vancouver squad or a complacent Stars one, the second lacked the breakneck pace of the first. The two teams combined for less than shots than the Canucks had by themselves in the first.

Fortunately for the Canucks, superstar defender, John Klingberg, did his part to make these fewer shots go farther. Under the pressure of a Jannik Hansen forecheck, Klingberg passed the puck, tape-to-tape, on Hansen’s stick. A tic-tac-toe passing play later and Daniel is putting the puck well past an outstretched Antti Niemi. 

Chuckles himself, Jason Spezza, regained the Stars lead not longer after, though, with a picture perfect shot off the half-wall past Miller. This was the topic of much debate, given the location of the shot. Miller himself was none too happy with giving this one up, admitting as much in the post-game. I don’t know, I mean… sometimes the shot is just really good and a goal happens? What a world.

The pace picked up in the third, as the Canucks looked to notch the all important equalizer. They did their part and Miller his, as they pressed often to little or no result. The game came full circle towards the end though, as a Jamie Benn penalty put the Canucks on their seventh power play of the night with just over five minutes to play.

I’m more of a process than results guy, but in this particular instance I can gladly change my stripes. The power play looked objectively terrible, before coming to life in an instant for a cross-ice feat of Sedinery to tie this game and send it to 3-on-3 overtime (!!!).

Some would argue that overtime wasn’t the greatest look on the Canucks tonight – based on a bench minor which put them shorthanded for much of the frame – but I thought they acquitted themselves relatively well on the whole. I’d like it if McCann got the odd shift or two, but how does one gripe about the young guns deployment in a game where Bo Horvat is one the ice with less than a minute left in a tied game? I mean, really…

Overtime didn’t cut it, so the two teams took it to a shootout. Some things that resembled hockey happened and the Canucks were less good at these things that resembled hockey. The Stars won on a Tyler Seguin goal, scored on the first attempt.