Postgame: Miller shines in 5-2 loss to Sens

The Vancouver Canucks were in Ottawa for the second game of their Eastern road trip, and were looking to build off Tuesday night’s thrilling overtime victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

The Canucks slow start has been alive and well for the past two games. In Montreal, they gave up two goals early in the first which led to head coach Travis Green using his timeout early on.

Green had some stern words for his team and from that point on, the Canucks looked much better. They would go on to win that game in overtime.

Tonight, however, it was up to the players to turn the ship around.

Similar to Tuesday’s game, the Canucks allowed two goals in the first ten minutes, and just like Tuesday’s game, they did it against a team that ran a liquidation project at the trade deadline.

The highlight reel of this game consists mainly of saves by Senators’ goaltender Marcus Hogberg. That, and Chris Tanev’s first career fight:

Tanev has played every game this season, and fans were certainly concerned for Tanev after he went down after taking a puck off of his ear. Bleeding out of his ear, Tanev went to the dressing room but was thankfully back out for the third period.

Both of the comeback efforts were jump started by J.T. Miller late in the second period when he capitalized on the power play to make it 2-1 Ottawa.

 

Just 14 seconds into the third, however, the Senators scored to once again pull ahead by a pair. With a little over ten minutes left in the final frame, Miller let go of a shot from the blueline that was deflected by Tyler Toffoli to once again bring the Canucks within one.

From that point on, the Canucks were buzzing and controlling the majority of the play. They looked like they could tie the game up, but were unable to beat Hogberg.

The Senators sealed the deal when Bobby Ryan scored his second goal of the game before capping off the hat trick to extend the Senators’ lead to three.

J.T. Miller was once again the best Canuck on the ice. Aside from his play directly resulting in two goals, he had yet another fantastic game, proving that the Canucks know they’re going to get a 100% effort from every night. That was on full display tonight, as Miller was tenacious on the forecheck and simply looked like he wanted the puck more than any other player on the ice. Think Tyler Motte, but with more skill.

Speaking of Motte, it was another strong game for him, and he was awarded with some shifts on Bo Horvat’s wing with Loui Eriksson sliding down to the fourth line.

Once again, Eriksson started on Horvat’s wing and turned in a rather lacklustre performance.

I hear there’s a guy the Canucks have access to who can play physical, skates well, and can put the puck in the back of the net.

The only problem is that he’s sitting in the press box.

How long will it be until Zack MacEwen, (who GM Jim Benning stated the club thinks is NHL ready) gets another shot? How much longer can the Canucks justify putting Eriksson in their top six? Until Boeser gets back?

The Canucks will be in Toronto on Saturday night to take on the Maple Leafs. Puck drop is at 4 PM.