The 4th Hangover of 2013-14

In case you missed it last night, the Canucks won their third game in a row (and second consecutive game in overtime) when they beat the New Jersey Devils by a score of 3-2. While large chunks of the game were fairly evenly played, it was a dominant 2nd period showing, and some fortunate breaks, that propelled the Canucks to victory on Tuesday night.

Read on past the jump for the scoring chance totals, and a few other numbers-based thoughts.

I touched on this in The Hangover from Sunday night’s game against the Flames, but Chris Higgins is having a fantastic start to what’s looking like a potential bounceback season. Him and Ryan Kesler (along with either David Booth or Jannik Hansen, for the most part) are only starting somewhere around 35% of their shifts in the offensive zone, playing against tough competition, but still managing to drive play for the Canucks. On this platform, we’ve made a lot of David Booth’s unfortunate shooting % luck since coming to Vancouver. At least Booth has a goal to his name this year (even if it did come off of a tipped shot)..

Through 4 games, Higgins has registered 16 shots on goal, and at least 8 scoring chances of his own (we didn’t record chances for last Saturday’s game against Edmonton, so I’m not really sure what he managed in that regard), yet still hasn’t managed to find the back of the net. It’s obviously not for a lack of trying, though, as I can specifically remember a handful of glorious chances. If he keeps playing this well, it’ll happen eventually. For whatever it’s worth he’s a 10.4% shooter for his career in 527 regular season games.

His linemate Ryan Kesler has also only managed 1 goal on 14 shots, which’ll improve, but I’m feeling really good about my opinion on him being a 23-26 goal guy (rather than in the 30’s like a lot of people who were drinking the preseason ‘Ryan Kesler is healthy and motivated!11!!1’ kool aid thought). He has only really had 1 good game so far, but even when he starts playing better, there’s no way he scores as many goals as some people expected from him given the two-way role he has to fill on this team as its currently constructed. Sorry. 

Keeping in mind that 2 of the 4 games have gone into overtime thus far, it’s still cool to see that Daniel Sedin is averaging 21:36 of ice-time per game, while Henrik is at 20:56. Daniel’s career high was 19:08 in ’09-’10, and Henrik’s was 19:41 the following season. I’m a big fan of letting your best players play, and they’ve rewarded John Tortorella with 12 combined points. Those ice-time totals will surely come down a bit as the season progresses, but for now, the Canucks need every single bit of it from them. 

One final thing related to the Sedins: do you think that Mike Santorelli leaves love notes in their lockers?