Vancouver Canucks at Edmonton Oilers Post-Game Recap: Boxing Week Blowout

With Canada versus Switzerland at 5:00PM PST and the Oilers and Canucks starting an hour later, would-be viewers of hockey were faced with a decision on Thursday night. In the end, however, the draw of watching the two best players in hockey play against one another was much stronger than that of a Mike DiPietro-less Team Canada, and it’s safe to say that most British Columbians made the right choice in turning off the World Juniors when the clock hit 6:00PM.

This would be only the second game between Vancouver and Edmonton thus far in the season, but the first came just 11 days before. That time around, Bo Horvat effectively shut down Connor McDavid, the Canucks came away with a 4-2 win, and Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock whined to the media about non-existent infractions—so, it’s fair to say that the Oilers were out for revenge.

As always, the lineups were provided by Jeff Paterson on Twitter:

 

The Canucks made no changes to their lineup, but the lines themselves had a new look—including, of note, a brand new Connor McDavid-proof shutdown line of Loui Eriksson, Bo Horvat, and Jake Virtanen, who once did this:

 

With Vancouver on the road, the line-matching game would be much more difficult for coach Travis Green than it was the last time these teams met. As early evidence of that, Ken Hitchcock countered Horvat’s line on the opening faceoff with his grind line.

The early action was fast-paced but inconsequential, with the game’s first whistle not occurring until nearly four minutes into the period. Fortunately for the Canucks, that whistle was accompanied by a red light.

The goal was all Tyler Motte, as he forced a Milan Lucic turnover at the blueline and then got into shooting position in the high slot. Antoine Roussel immediately hit him with a well-placed backhand pass, and Motte made no mistake in snapping it past Mikko Koskinen a couple of strides later. It was the Canucks’ first shot of the game.

 

The Canucks made it two-for-two less than three minutes later, as Nikolay Goldobin made a great zone entry and chipped it to Elias Pettersson, who made a great pass to Brock Boeser, who made a great shot and beat Koskinen. The game was seven minutes old, the Canucks were up 2-0, and Koskinen had yet to make a save.

For the record, Koskinen did record his first save of the game about two minutes later after another round of offensive dazzle from Motte.

Ken Hitchcock was mildly vindicated when Loui Eriksson hooked Connor McDavid behind the net and the ref noticed, resulting in the Oilers’ first powerplay opportunity just past the halfway mark of the first period. To that point, the Canucks had killed 22 straight penalties, but they would not be able to extend the streak to 23.

After some strong play along the boards, Leon Draisaitl fed the puck to McDavid in the corner—but the puck was only on McDavid’s stick for a moment before he fired a perfect pass to an Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the slot. Jacob Markstrom didn’t have much of a chance on the lightning-quick cross-ice play, and the Oilers were on the board just fifteen seconds into the powerplay.

 

After a few minutes of back-and-forth play, Zack Kassian almost tied it with a low shot from the slot—courtesy of an unforced Derrick Pouliot turnover—but Jacob Markstrom denied him with a crisp kick save.

Pouliot earned some immediate redemption on his next shift, however, by feeding Goldobin a slick two-line pass, allowing Goldobin to make yet another zone entry with speed. Just like on the first goal, Goldobin hit Pettersson with a short pass, but this time around Pettersson changed things up by faking the pass to Boeser—and then deftly converting the fake into a snipe, sneaking it through Koskinen for his 18^th goal of the season and a 3-1 lead with 1:12 remaining in the period.

 

And the Canucks weren’t finished quite yet.

With less than 11 seconds remaining, some dominant forechecking by Horvat and Jay Beagle resulted in the puck on Roussel’s stick in close, and he whacked it into the back of the net for the 4-1 lead. It was the fourth goal Koskinen had allowed on just six shots, and the merciful end of his night.

 

As always, Roussel cellied hard.

Catching up on the Canada/Switzerland game and not having to listen to Doug MacLean thanks to the magic of PVR!

Cam Talbot was in net for the Oilers as the second period opened—and Alex Chiasson wasn’t on the bench, meaning Edmonton was down a forward and down by three goals.

Bo Horvat got right back to work on the forecheck, but unfortunately Jake Virtanen was a little overzealous in joining him—resulting in an interference penalty and the Oilers’ second powerplay opportunity of the game. This time around, the PKers were equal to the task—and the Canucks started up another penalty-killing streak at square one.

Connor McDavid put the Oilers on his back once again and made a one-man zone entry/cross-ice play/attempt on net a minute later, but the puck went off the post and out.

McDavid was back at it again shortly thereafter, as Ben Hutton took a tripping penalty and put Edmonton on its third powerplay of the game. It took the Oilers just 18 seconds to score, with McDavid making a beautiful cross-zone pass through three PKers to setup Leon Draisaitl, who had miles to work with and made no mistake—cutting the Canucks’ lead to 4-2 and shutting down their penalty-killing streak once again.

 

Edmonton’s Captain Everything continued to be the center of attention after he elbowed and then mixed it up with Antoine Roussel in front of the benches as the period hit its halfway mark. Roussel was likely happy to take the tradeoff in coincidental penalties, but McDavid was the only player penalized and the Canucks went to their first powerplay of the game.

Despite the first unit taking up about 1:40 of the two-minute penalty, the Canucks were unable to generate any chances on the powerplay and the score remained 4-2. Vancouver was still stuck at just two shots with seven minutes left in the second period.

Jacob Markstrom received another stroke of good luck when Jesse Puljujarvi tipped a hard point shot off the post, but otherwise stood tall as the Oilers continued to pile on the shots. He stymied McDavid on a breakaway chance after a Pettersson turnover with three-and-a-half minutes remaining, he slammed the door on several other late chances, and he finished the period with 20 saves on 22 shots—and just 11 shots of support at the other end!

 

Noticing that—for the first time in recent memory—the Canucks might just have a more potent offense than the Canadian World Junior team.

The Canucks began the third period under what were once rare circumstances, but are quickly becoming more and more familiar—guarding a multi-goal lead against a frustrated opponent. Vancouver came out looking like a team that had a two-goal advantage, but the Oilers didn’t really come out like a team in desperate need of a goal—it took them more than six-and-a-half minutes to record their first shot on goal.

Bo Horvat put on his best impression of Connor McDavid just past the five minute mark as he turned Matt Benning inside-out, but he was unable to regain control of the puck in time to put it past Cam Talbot.

Shortly thereafter, Jake Virtanen shotgunned McDavid into the Canucks’ bench with a solid check at the blueline, and McDavid—perhaps with bad memories of Penticton all those years ago—did not appear to be pleased. He and coach Ken Hitchcock were even less pleased when, on the next play, Ben Hutton got away with some borderline interference against McDavid in the neutral zone.

Then, Jacob Markstrom was the beneficiary of a puck off the crossbar, his third lucky post of the night, and the Edmonton frustrations continued to mount.

Virtanen forced a turnover at the blueline just ahead of the period’s halfway mark, but he was unable to convert on the subsequent two-on-one with Loui Eriksson. Seconds later, Eriksson went on another odd-man rush with Tyler Motte, but Talbot was equal to the task once again.

On the next shift, Adam Larsson accidentally-on-purpose punched Tyler Motte’s head into the ice, and Motte appeared to be injured but stayed on the bench. The chagrin of the impotent Oilers continued to show, with Leon Draisaitl taking a couple of shots at a bemused Elias Pettersson after a whistle.

Fortunately for the head injury-prone Canucks, there were no further shenanigans and the game ended without incident—except for one more solid pad save from Markstrom on McDavid with the net empty. Vancouver finished the game up 4-2 against Edmonton—the exact same score as their last matchup. The Oilers’ mission of revenge would have to wait until next year.

Statistically, the Vancouver Canucks did not have a great game. The Oilers put up 32 shots to their 20, and the possession numbers were even more heavily slanted in favour of Edmonton. Jacob Markstrom put together yet another excellent performance in a December that has been full of them, but the play of the defense in front of him made his excellence a necessity.

 

Once again, however, the Vancouver offense was there to support and compensate for the team’s defensive woes. The win returns the Canucks to .500 hockey with a record of 18-18-4 and—while the team’s current level of success doesn’t exactly read as sustainable—this continues to feel like a squad that can beat any opponent on any given night.

Gameflow from Canucks at Edmonton December 27, 2018 (Courtesy of naturalstattrick.com)

Heatmap from Canucks at Edmonton December 27, 2018 (Courtesy of naturalstattrick.com)

 

Edler’s name wasn’t mentioned once in this Post-Game Recap, yet he still earned the title of Top Performer after a quiet, efficient, and tough game that was primarily played against the Oilers’ best players. Edler played a ridiculous 25:51—most of which came against Connor McDavid—and finished with 11 hits, six blocked shots, and no penalties. This was Alex Edler at his absolute best.

Elias Pettersson was his usual sparkling self tonight, but the offense seemed to flow primarily through Goldobin whenever the top line was on the ice. Goldobin made a number of fantastic zone entries that allowed Pettersson and Boeser to approach the net with speed, and he once again looked like the missing ingredient on the Canucks’ top line. Here’s hoping this two-assist performance keeps Goldobin stapled to Pettersson’s wing for the foreseeable future.

Markstrom has arguably been the Canucks’ best player in December, and his clinical performance on Thursday was just one more piece of evidence in his favour. Markstrom was under siege against the Oilers yet still managed to put up a .938 save percentage—and that included a number of magnificent saves on surefire scoring chances.

The Canucks complete a two-stop tour of Alberta with a visit to Calgary on Saturday, December 29, with a start-time of 7:00PM PST on Hockey Night in Canada.