Ouch, That Hertl: Canucks Get Blanked by the Sharks

The Canucks entered Tuesday night’s game in San Jose coming off of an impressive victory against the Coyotes the previous night. Despite a few lineup changes – Higgins, Garrison, and Luongo, most notably – they were still icing a more than competent crew, so there was reason to believe that we’d be treated to a good game.

Early on, the Sedins – reunited with Alex Burrows and it feeeeeeels so goooood – generated a handful of quality chances. They were buzzing. There was also a play where Chris Tanev rang iron with a shot from the point as Jannik Hansen caused a ruckus in front of Antti Niemi. 

But then, the direction of the game changed and things sort of went off the rails.. 

Did you notice how I tried to do this whole "be positive" thing at the outset of this post? It was mostly a ploy to get you to click past the jump and stick around, and if you’re reading this, it worked. 

I asked our followers on Twitter for some positive takeaways from the game. There were some decent replies:

All very fair. I’d also add that Bo Horvat, in his biggest test to-date, didn’t look out of place and I’m growing more and more comfortable with the idea of him starting the season as the team’s 3rd line centre by the day. 

It’s definitely a little disconcerting that the Canucks were pounded so soundly while sending out a lineup that at least somewhat resembled one we’ll see when the games start counting. But we should keep in mind that we’ll never see that trainwreck of a 3rd pairing out on the ice together. I would’ve figured that they’d be ineffective together, but man oh man, they were u-g-l-y. They were out for 3 goals against, and for a 4th, Alberts was in the penalty box. 

With the team down by 3 Tom Sestito got into a fight with Matt Pelech. The Sharks scored a goal to make it 4-0 just a few minutes later. I didn’t see a spark, but maybe I wasn’t watching the game the right way. 

Meanwhile, Eddie Lack didn’t exactly look very good in net. I know that the team in front of him certainly didn’t help him out, but his positioning routinely looked very poor, and the Sharks picked him apart. By my count there were 2 or 3 posts mixed in there as well, so things really could have gotten even uglier.

I mostly just put this together so that you guys would have a place to discuss the game. Hopefully there won’t be panic. I have to confess that as the game went on I began to pay attention to it less and less. Was too busy trying to come up with witty comments in 140 characters or less. But mostly, I just can’t wait for October 3rd. Speaking of.. the New York Rangers and Alain Vigneault stroll into town on Thursday night for the team’s final preseason outing. 

Hopefully we won’t have to go 344 posts between now and the next win for the Canucks.