Minnesota Wild vs Vancouver Canucks Post Game Recap: Getting Wild In Vancouver

5 years ago

The Rundown

The Vancouver Canucks came into tonight’s contest on the heels of getting blown out of their own building on Saturday night. Their opponent this evening was a tough Minnesota Wild team who had won 5 straight before facing a Canucks team that had lost 4 of its last 6 games. The Canucks were having a hard time scoring goals and still missing both Alex Edler and Chris Tanev, along with other important players in Sven Baertschi and Jay Beagle. If the Canucks had any chance, they’d need some of their secondary scorers to lend a hand, guys like Jake Virtanen, Nikolay Goldobin, Adam Gaudette and Markus Granlund would need to help shoulder some of the offense.

1st Period

A quiet start, it’d take two and a half minutes for some action. Abbotsford born Jake Virtanen would strip Ryan Suter of the puck, come in and fire a shot off the blocker of Devan Dubnyk for the first shot of the game. Few minutes after, the newly formed line of Tim Schaller, Bo Horvat, and Granlund would create a ruckus in front of the Wild’s goal. After a shot, Schaller tried to dig the puck out of Dubnyk’s pads causing a scene and drew the ire of the Wild defenders.

A few minutes later, the Canucks would score first for just the 3rd time this season! Right off a faceoff, Schaller would go to the corner and battle the Wild defenseman for the puck. It would squirt out behind the goal to Horvat, who fed a wide open Granlund in the slot for a golden scoring chance. Granlund made no mistake putting his shot home and gave the Canucks the lead.

It’d only take 35 seconds for the Wild to respond. Jordan Greenway, who had just recorded a hat-trick in the AHL a few nights ago, would get his first NHL goal after beating Michael Del Zotto and Elias Pettersson to a rebound right in front of Jakob Markstrom and banged it home to tie the game at 1.

Near the 11 minute mark of the first period, fans and media alike would witness one of the more bizarre moments so far this season. Gaudette was struck by a high-stick by Zach Parise, and Parise was given a 2-minute minor. The officials then went to video review and found that Erik Gudbranson had struck Parise with a high-stick of his own, and after the review was sent to the box for 2 minutes. Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman gave his take on what transpired.

After all the confusion, the game would resume with both teams short a man. Pettersson and Brock Boeser had a wonderful shift together late in the 4 on 4, which helped the Canucks carry momentum for the next minute and a half. That sequence of play would end with Granlund being slashed on the hands by Eric Fehr. The Canucks would head to their 1st power-play of the evening looking to retake the lead.

The best chance of the power-play would come in the dying seconds, with Virtanen tipping a shot in front only to be denied by the pad of Dubnyk. With the best chance stopped, the Canucks would fail to capitalize with the man advantage. Before the end of the period, Eric Stall found an opening and came down on Markstrom with a few seconds left. He was taken down by Gudbranson and it seemed like Gudbranson would draw a penalty on the play. The teams headed to the 2nd period tied at 1, and the Canucks would look to be short-handed to start the second.

2nd Period

Jokes on all of you reading this, as after the officials talked it over at the end of the first it was determined that Gudbranson didn’t take down Stall, so the Canucks would start the period 5 on 5. This would only last for a little over a minute until Granlund struck Nino Niederreiter with a high-stick. Niederreiter’s face would be cut, so Granlund was called for a double minor, sending the Wild to a 4-minute power-play opportunity. In a way I guess the Canucks really did start the second period shorthanded… During the penalty kill, Brandon Sutter was hit hard by Matt Dumba and would leave the bench. Sutter would not return, which left the Canucks without their two best shutdown centers for the rest of the game. (Jay Beagle wasn’t dressed)

After some solid penalty killing from the Canucks killed off the first of the 2 minor penalties, Stall would slash Troy Stecher’s stick out of his hands to eliminate the Wild’s power-play. This would give the Canucks their second opportunity of the game on the power-play in a few short moments.

It didn’t take long for the Canucks power-play to strike, and it’s Virtanen who cut through the neutral zone, used Suter as a screen and unleashed a wicked wrister past the glove of Dubnyk to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead. 3rd goal of the season for #shotgunjake.

Now 7 minutes into the period, the Canucks would extend the lead. After Goldobin grabs a turnover in the offensive zone, he’d make a nifty pass to Del Zotto who had jumped in on the rush. Del Zotto made a quick pass over to Pettersson who unleashed a cannon of a one-timer past a sprawling Dubnyk to notch his 6th goal in his 7th career NHL game.

Now, the Wild didn’t win 5 straight games coming into this one for nothing and would turn up the pressure on this young Canucks team for the next couple minutes after the Pettersson tally. A good stretch of play would turn into a power-play chance as Loui Eriksson was sent to the box for tripping. A minute and a half into the power-play, Suter would take a seeing-eye wrister that finds its way through traffic and over the shoulder of Jakob Markstrom to give the Wild some life and make it 3-2.

The Canucks would attempt to bounce back, as Virtanen continued to have himself a game. He’d throw a huge hit onto Greg Pateryn in an attempt to spark the team. Late in the period, Pettersson would show his determination and would see the Canucks would get a late power-play when Suter had to interfere him in order to prevent a scoring chance. The Canucks would head to the 3rd period with their 3rd man advantage of the evening and a 3-2 lead.

3rd Period

The man advantage opportunity the Canucks had would be pretty poor till the final 30 seconds, but Horvat would be clipped from a Pateryn high stick which led to another Canucks power-play chance. The boys in blue would fail to register a shot on goal, and the power-play would drop to 1-4 on the night.

After the consecutive power-plays, the next 3 minutes of play would favour the Wild. Minnesota blitzed the Canucks, only to be shut down by a red-hot Markstrom, who had quietly been having a great game for Vancouver.

Then, 6 and a half minutes in Pettersson does everything head coach Travis Green could ask for. Pettersson would block a point shot, head up the ice and be fed by Boeser, and put the puck past Dubnyk on the breakaway. A bar-down beauty for his 7th of the year gave the Canucks a 4-2 lead.

The Canucks would have to attempt to kill off another Wild power-play 9 minutes into the 3rd after Biega clipped Joel Eriksson Ek with his stick up high. The Wild’s 4th power-play would be unable to beat Markstrom, who made a couple of fantastic saves to keep the Canucks up by 2. Right as the penalty expired, Schaller would get a breakaway opportunity of his own. He was unable to pot a goal past Dubnyk, and on the next rush down the ice, the Canucks would see Granlund slash Charlie Coyle to put the Wild back on the power-play. Just like the 4th power-play for the Wild, they were unable to solve Markstrom and the Canucks would kill off the penalty kill opportunity.

One last burst from the Wild would be turned aside with some great team defense by the Canucks. After playing a strong game and logging a ton of minutes, Ben Hutton would be rewarded with an empty net goal for his second of the year to seal the game late for Vancouver. The Canucks would come away victorious tonight, beating the Wild 5-2.

Advanced Stats

Both stats photos courtesy of naturalstattrick.com

Wrap Up

After the Pittsburgh Penguins shut out the Canucks on Saturday, the Canucks came ready to play and played a terrific 60-minute game. Another gutsy effort by the Canucks forward group after they lost Sutter, and the offensive firepower this team has was shown in full force. A lot of players had strong games, and we’re going to bring them up down below.

Elias Pettersson: Everyone knows this kid is amazing. No point in going on and on about what he does, how he does it, and when he does it. Another spectacular performance from the best player on the team. Yes, Pettersson is the best player on the team and there’s not much else to it. The thought he could be even better should scare the rest of the league.

Jake Virtanen: Right from the start of the game, it was obvious Virtanen was ready to play. I don’t know what it is about the Wild, but he always seems to play well against Boeser’s hometown team. A couple big hits, and showcased some great offensive instincts to use Suter as a screen on his goal. Jake also could’ve had another one on the power-play with his deflection. Just an all-around great game for Virtanen, and one of those games that torments Canucks fans with how good he could be if he was able to do this night in and night out.

Markus Granlund: Best game I’ve seen Granlund play in a good 2 years since he scored 19 in 2016-2017. Great scoring chances throughout the game, and was rewarded with a nice goal in the first. He was bumped up into a scoring role after the injury to Baertschi and the inconsistency of the rest of the roster (looking at you little things Loui) and played well. The line of Schaller – Horvat – Granlund was excellent in all situations, and Granlund was a key component in their success as a line. Would like to see this every night from Granlund, but once in a while is good enough.

Ben Hutton: A ton of minutes for Ben Hutton again tonight, as he’s been the main man for this Canucks blueline with Edler and Tanev out of the lineup. He was patient with the puck and didn’t make many mistakes, and none that led to goals. I’m happy he was able to pot the empty-netter, but more so with the fact that it really looks like Ben Hutton improved his game after a rough year in 2017-2018. With Derrick Pouliot and Del Zotto struggling a bit, and Edler looking like a prime trade deadline candidate if he can show teams he still has it after his latest injury, it’s not out of the question to suggest Hutton might be the lone left-shot defenseman who helps usher in Olli Juolevi and Quinn Hughes in the coming years.

Jakob Markstrom: Fantastic tonight. Was an interesting game in the sense I didn’t really notice how good he was playing until the 3rd, and then had to go over and see how well he really was. He tracked pucks well, his movements were crisp, only the one bad rebound that led to the Greenway goal, but other than that was solid throughout. He helped the Canucks kill off 4 of the Wild’s 5 power-plays, and had no chance on the Suter point shot. Goaltending hasn’t been an issue for this team, and with Anders Nilsson out expect Markstrom to carry the load for the next few weeks.

Those are the 5 I’ll make mention of tonight, but it was great to see the whole team step up. Pettersson with 2 beautiful goals, Virtanen with a goal, Granlund netting a goal, Goldobin got a point, Boeser got a point, Horvat got on the scoresheet and the Canuck’s defense corps played a strong game in front of a confident goaltender. A phenomenal game to watch, and hopefully the team can keep up the effort they gave tonight.

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