Canucks Player Power Rankings – November 7th, 2016
7 years ago
The Vancouver Canucks scored a whopping 3 goals this week! As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s hard to rank a team of players that generate so little. This week is full of moral victories, like guys having their teammates’ backs and Daniel Sedin not being out long term with a concussion.
1. Ryan Miller (feat. Noureen DeWulf):
In all honesty, I’ve always felt relatively neutral towards Ryan Miller. He seems like a good dude and he’s a good goalie, but I don’t know much about the guy’s personality other than his ongoing goalie-equipment feud with Ray Ferraro (The Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift of the Vancouver hockey scene). But this week, Ryan Miller jumped into top spot by jumping on top of the Maple Leafs’ Matt Martin. In his short time with the team, Canucks fans have come to view Troy Stecher as something like a son. So when Martin went after young Troy in Saturday night’s fiasco of a hockey game, Ryan Miller did what everyone wanted to do. Good guy Ryan Miller.
Plus, Noureen DeWulf is the best.
2. Derek Dorsett:
Saturday night’s game ended with Dorsett yelling at the Leafs bench and trying to pull himself away from a linesman, but before all of that unfolded, he scored a goal! This was the first goal scored by a Canuck since last Saturday night, so it’s a pretty big deal. For this, Derek Dorsett gets to sit at number two on the power rankings this week.
3. Nikita Tryamkin:
No one really knew what to expect from Nikita Tryamkin when he drew into the line-up this week, but it turned out just fine! Nikita hit a few bumps (and doorframes, probably) but overall, his game looked good. He’s even teaching Luca Sbisa some new tricks.
4. Daniel Sedin:
A year ago, Daniel Sedin scored a weird but cool goal in Montreal and I suggested that he was just messing around at this point. He proved my point this weekend when he scored a goal at the exact moment that Nazem Kadri delivered a blindside hit to his head. Or his shoulder, if you so desperately want to justify hits like that. It was a nice goal, though.
5. Henrik Sedin:
In weeks like this, any Canucks goal could be considered nice. But Henrik Sedin did score a very nice goal this week.
6. Jannik Hansen:
Jannik Hansen is a gem and was one of the few Canucks who looked like he might score during their most recent goal scoring drought. He was also the first guy to rush to Daniel’s defence when Kadri did that. Unfortunately, it sounds like Hansen is now hurt. Because why should anything go well this season?
7. Troy Stecher:
This week, Troy Stecher played his fourth NHL game, was inadvertently almost involved in his first NHL fight, and notched his first NHL point! Most importantly, his dog was featured on the Twitter account devoted to NHL players’ dogs.
8. Bo Horvat:
Horvat continues to be a bright spot for this team, even when he isn’t scoring goals. This week, he and Erik Karlsson dropped the gloves, igniting what will hopefully become one of the strangest conflicts in hockey.
9. Jacob Markstrom:
Poor Jacob Markstrom made one mistake this week and it was enough to land him with the L in a 1-0 game.
10. Brandon Sutter:
We’ve reached the part of these rankings where it’s basically impossible to distinguish between underperforming forwards, so here’s Brandon Sutter’s mustache.
11. Sven Baertschi:
This is just how it’s going for Sven right now. Like a young Loui Eriksson.
12. Brendan Gaunce:
While real victories are hard to come by, moral victories such as “Brendan Gaunce is a good kid” will have to do.
13. Markus Granlund:
Markus Granlund was very 2015/16 Markus Granlund this week, in that I did not notice him at all.
14. Alex Burrows:
Alex Burrows played a large part in extending Saturday night’s antics by spearing Morgan Reilly, giving Leafs fans something to be mad about. The drama of it all.
15. Philip Larsen:
Is there anything of note to be said about Philip Larsen?
16. Luca Sbisa:
William Nylander made Luca Sbisa look like a fool this weekend.
17. Jake Virtanen:
Jake Virtanen was drafted two spots before the aforementioned William Nylander.
18. Loui Eriksson:
Loui Eriksson is probably cursed.
19. Ben Hutton:
Poor Ben Hutton has not looked great this week. Here he is trying to convince Auston Matthews to forget about the draft lottery and come play for Vancouver. Auston does not seem keen.
20. Erik Gudbranson:
Saturday night was a rough affair all around, but Erik Gudbranson’s night was possibly the roughest of all. He was on the ice for five goals against and looked totally lost on most of these plays. Then, after the game, he did something that no one ever wants a Canuck that wears #44 to do:
21. Chris Tanev and Alex Edler(’s teammates):
Boy, does this team miss this duo. The Canucks’ blueline is not great when healthy. The Canucks’ blueline without defensive dreamboat Chris Tanev and minute-eating elder statesman Alex Edler is, in a word, yikes!
22. Alex Biega:
Alex Biega has had the toughest week because he cannot crack this line-up.
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