Canucks strike Oil – Recap and scoring chances

Watching this game was, in the end, one of the biggest wastes of time. At its outset, the Vancouver Canucks were getting turned away at every opportunity by Devan Dubnyk, and it looked like it may become one of “those” games, but, lo, late in the second period, Henrik Sedin scored a powerplay (!) goal after having out-shot and out-chanced Edmonton all game. In the third period, the Canucks’ got insurance goals from Samuel Pahlsson and David Booth, and, really, to win the Presidents’ Trophy, a game against the Edmonton Oilers shouldn’t have been in doubt.

For full analysis, a scoring chance breakdown, and the Statistical Three Stars and Goats, click past the jump…

-The numbers in this game weren’t even close. The Canucks out-chanced Edmonton 26-10, 17-9 at even strength, although, just 10-7 with the score tied at even strength. Once Henrik Sedin put the first puck past Dubnyk, Edmonton fell completely apart, registering their first chance of the third period with 4:33 remaining off a turnover.

-David Booth isn’t the Statistical First Star tonight, and that’s a crying shame, because the man had as dominant a stat-line as ever. He had 11 shots on net and six of those were recorded as scoring chances. One of those was a goal. He was an absolute wild man out there, and it was good to see him rewarded. We *said* he was a 25-goal scorer when he came over in the trade, and he had 16 goals in 55 games this year in a Canuck jersey, which puts him on a 23 goals per 82 pace.

-Okay, maybe we overshot his value by a pair of goals, but he was awarded the “most exciting player” prior to this game.

-Quick: who did you see as being on the Canucks second line for Game 82 at the start of this season? If your guess was David Booth-Ryan Kesler-Maxim Lapierre, congratulations, I don’t believe you.

-Ryan Kesler surpassed Booth for the First Statistical Star by virtue of three chances created to Booth’s one, which was apparently more important than Booth’s awesome shooting night according to these spreadsheets of mine.

-Roberto Luongo had a shutout, but it was Marc-André Fleuryesque. He made use of a lot of posts, the fact that he only had to see 17 shots, and got above league-average goal support in front of him.

-Luongo stopped five scoring chances on net tonight. Granted, he didn’t let any in, but it’s not like he was called upon to be Mike Smith tonight.

-As I’m writing this, I see that the Vancouver Canucks will face Jonathan Quick in the first round. Well, snap. Playing a goaltender who is putting up wild save percentage numbers in the postseason. What could go wrong?

-Remember when the Edmonton Oilers traded Tom Gilbert for Nick Schultz because they thought that Jeff Petry was going to fill in that #1 defenceman spot? Jeff Petry was awful tonight, getting burned badly for a few scoring chances and on the David Booth goal.

-Ales Hemsky is fun to watch. He had that one play in the second period where he moved in, stopped in front of Luongo and, with a few head fakes, had every Canuck going his way and none covering Sam Gagner who was coming on the backdoor. Gagner couldn’t finish, because Alex Edler happened to be in the way.

-At this point, the Statistical Three Stars and Goats sheet does not include stupid penalties, but this may have to be modified. We shall call this the ‘Darcy Hordichuk Index’. Edmonton spent 11:06 on the penalty-kill tonight, the Canucks 2:10.

-Vancouver held Edmonton not only to without a scoring chance, but also to without a shot, on their modest powerplay attempts, while the Canucks were all over the goal-mouth when Edmonton was a man down.

-In fairness to the Oilers’ specialty teams schemes, they have a really bad hockey team.

-Chris Tanev hits the post. It broke my heart. He also played with Dan Hamhuis against the Oilers’ top line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle and held them off the scoreboard.

-One of the reasons we look at scoring chances and not +/- to evaluate players is that stop by Dubnyk off of Chris Higgins in the third period. It was a total desparation fluke, the Canucks played well enough to get a goal, the Oilers played poorly enough to allow a goal, but there was no goal. It doesn’t seem fair if you’re only counting goals.

-The Canucks were 8-1 in the absence of Daniel Sedin going into the playoffs. Geez, guys.