After four days off to recover from their Californian road trip, the Canucks were back in Rogers Arena on Thursday night to face the Arizona Coyotes. As of puckdrop, the Canucks and Coyotes were tied for fourth in the Pacific Division with 59 points apiece—though both of them sat three points out of a wildcard spot.

The lineups were provided in graphical form by the Canucks PR account, and the changes were legion for Vancouver. Zack MacEwen and Nikolay Goldobin—and the demoted Guillaume Brisebois—were out, and Tim Schaller, Ashton Sautner, and the recently-acquired Ryan Spooner were in. Spooner went straight to the top line with Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser, while Tyler Motte also found himself in the top-six on a line with Bo Horvat and Josh Leivo.

Jacob Markstrom stared down a short breakaway in the first minute from Mario Kempe after Ashton Sautner and Erik Gudbranson both went for the hit in quick succession, but the Canucks’ starting goaltender proved equal to the task and thus avoided an unfortunate beginning to Sautner’s NHL season. Twitter had fun with John Shorthouse’s call on the play.

The makings of a long night for Gudbranson were continued to appear a few minutes later when he took a holding penalty against Alex Galchenyuk to give Arizona the first powerplay of the game. Pulling double-duty in the top-six and the penalty killing corps, Tyler Motte was high-sticked directly in front of the official on a play that drew blood—but the call was somehow missed. The other members of the PK unit managed to kill the rest of Gudbranson’s minor without further incident.

By the seven-minute mark of the period, Vancouver’s inability to get pucks on the net continued to be an issue.

However, shortly thereafter Markus Granlund and Jay Beagle combined for a couple of chances in close that Darcy Kuemper sharply denied. With momentum finally tilted in the Canucks’ favour, Bo Horvat and Antoine Roussel hit the ice with Granlund still out there. Granlund made a clever between-the-legs pass off the boards to Roussel—who cut toward the net and drew a hooking penalty. Before the Coyotes could gain possession and grant the Canucks’ their first powerplay, Roussel muscled through to get off a backhand pass that Horvat directed into the net.

It was Horvat’s third goal in six games, coming on the heels of a stretch in which he had one goal in 17. It was also his 21^st of the season, putting him one goal away from tying his career high with 21 games remaining on the year.

The Canucks continued to maintain control the flow  of the game, taking over the shots lead with a 12-0 run but failing to earn any legitimate chances on net—save for an Alex Biega wrister from the point that nearly beat a mildly-interfered-with Kuemper.

With a minute remaining in the period, the forechecking of Horvat pressured Alex Goligoski to backhand the puck out of play, giving the Canucks their first man advantage of the game. The top unit couldn’t get much going and resolved to try things again with a fresh sheet of ice in the second.

After Arizona started the game with a 8-1 advantage in shots, the period ended with a count of 17-11 in favour of Vancouver.

Watching the Sportsnet try to fill an entire segment about what Jim Benning is going to do at the deadline when the answer is clearly “not much at all.”

And, of course, the debut(?) of Nikolay Goldobin’s own Audi commercial.

The second half of the Canucks’ powerplay opened up the period, and it was equally as uneventful as the first. Fortunately for Vancouver, Nick Cousins took a tripping penalty immediately after Arizona completed the kill—putting the Canucks right back on the man advantage.

This time around, the second unit came out to start the powerplay—and they looked a lot better than the first. The backup squad wasted no time setting up in the offensive zone and Adam Gaudette made a nice cross-ice pass to Ryan Spooner—who had a good crack at his first goal as a Canuck that Darcy Kuemper absorbed. The first unit came out for the second minute of the powerplay, but with 15 seconds remaining the second set was sent back out there—having clearly been the more effective of the units. Then again, that’s not really saying much at this point.

After Cousins left the box, the Canucks continued to test Kuemper with moderate to mediocre attempts on net. Brock Boeser got off a clear shot and Spooner had another solid opportunity, but Kuemper had little difficulty stopping either chance.

Given his integral role in the only goal of the game, it should have come as no surprise that Markus Granlund started the period as a permanent fixture on the second line—usurping Tyler Motte’s short-lived reign. Along with Bo Horvat and Antoine Roussel, Granlund gave the Canucks their best stint of sustained pressure near the eight-minute mark of the middle frame, though the line was unable to capitalize on multiple opportunities. Beyond that, the game remained rather slow and uneventful.

In the midst of an uncharacteristically quiet game, Elias Pettersson was left alone in the slot but missed high and wide—dropping to his knees in frustration. Moments later, however, Pettersson drew a tripping call against Niklas Hjalmarsson in the corner, sending the Canucks to their third consecutive powerplay.

Unfortunately, the only highlight of the Canucks’ time with the man advantage was Pettersson tossing the much larger Lawson Crouse to the ice.

Apparently, a frustrated Elias Pettersson is not someone you want to get in the way of.

Other than that, Vancouver’s woeful powerplay percentage slipped another notch lower—not that in-house celebrity Jason Momoa seemed to care.

Things remained tight on the defensive end, at least. Despite the realities of the current roster, the Canucks held the Coyotes to just six shots in the second period while earning nine of their own. Ashton Sautner in particular drew praise for his solid play—though Troy Stecher and Ben Hutton deserved the bulk of the credit. The impromptu top pairing clocked in at 18:45 and 15:56 through two periods.

Finding out that Derrick Pouliot’s Twitter handle is @lordricky51. That’s almost as bad as @Hockey_Gaud.

Despite the best efforts of the arena DJ, the crowd came out flat in the third period after a less-than-scintillating middle frame—and both teams seemed to follow suit. Some nifty stickhandling by Alex Galchenyuk produced some early excitement and a key Jacob Markstrom save, but otherwise the battle for fourth place in the Pacific Division remained surprisingly passive.

Looking for a spark, coach Travis Green threw his lines in a blender, but nothing seemed to work and the Canucks seemed unable to even attempt a shot on net. Tyler Motte also looked to spark the team by throwing a clean yet devastating hit on Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the neutral zone that went surprisingly unchallenged.

By the halfway mark of the period, even John Shorthouse sounded bored and John Garrett was going silent for minutes at a time—and almost certainly taking micro-naps.

As the momentum began to shift in Arizona’s favour, Derrick Pouliot spiced things up with a panicky hooking penalty—induced by his own giveaway—giving the Coyotes their second man advantage of the game. The Arizona powerplay immediately looked more dangerous than that of the Canucks, with Oliver Ekman-Larsson ringing one off the post within a couple seconds of the Coyotes gaining possession.

Shortly after that, Jakob Chychrun blasted a shot from the point that ramped off Jay Beagle’s stick high in the slot and beat Markstrom on the glove side—tying the game at 1-1 with less than ten minutes remaining. It was Arizona’s 15^th shot of the period, and the tragic saga of the Canucks’ special teams raged on.

In what seemed like an inevitability, the Coyotes went ahead 2-1 at the 16:45 mark of the third as Josh Archibald made a brilliant pass to Lawson Crouse in the slot—and Crouse made no mistake in beating Markstrom up high.

When Adam Gaudette picked up an Antoine Roussel pass and wired it at Darcy Kuemper on the next shift, it was the Canucks’ fourth shot on goal in the third period. Fortunately, Gaudette made it count—absolutely ripping it off the bar and in to give Vancouver a tie game that they probably didn’t deserve. It was Gaudette’s third point in four games since being recalled from Utica.

Gunning for the win in the final minutes of the third, Green put the trinity of Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Bo Horvat together for a shift—but the trio was unable to earn a genuine chance on Kuemper.

After a final frame in which the shots were 20-4 in favour of Arizona, the Canucks found themselves somewhat improbably headed to overtime. Each team moved to within two points of a Western Conference wildcard spot.

After some dominant three-on-three play by Troy Stecher failed to produce the winning goal, Brock Boeser and Bo Horvat got stuck on the ice as the Coyotes took over. Arizona completed a change while in the offensive zone, allowing Alex Galchenyuk to pick up the puck and fake a wraparound before deftly turning around and tucking the puck past Jacob Markstrom.

It was a suitably frustrating end to a frustrating game for the Vancouver Canucks.

The Canucks did not deserve to win this game—and, lo and behold, they didn’t. Aside from brief flurries and a couple sustained sequences of pressure, the Vancouver offense was effectively shut down by the Coyotes all night.

Right when the Canucks needed to turn up the heat on the Coyotes, they went cold. This matchup was an important one and a winnable one—but that unfortunately didn’t translate to an exceptional effort on the ice.

It’s now decidedly gut-check time for the Vancouver Canucks. Look for them to come out hard against New York on Saturday as they try to keep their playoff hopes alive—and make up for this dismal performance.

 

The heatmap isn’t always evocative of how a game went, but tonight it speaks volumes. 

Stecher played a superhuman 30:24 against Arizona—and he didn’t look dissimilar to a number one defenseman while doing so. Stecher led the team in shots on goal in addition to ice time, and he briefly took over the game in overtime through his stellar skating and vision. What Stecher is accomplishing in the absence of Alex Edler and Chris Tanev is nothing short of remarkable—and bodes well for him taking on an increased role next season.

Roussel paced the Canucks’ offense tonight with two assists—both of which were primary and of an impressive quality, to boot. He also accomplished this in just 13:45 of ice time, only 15 seconds of which came on the powerplay. It’s plain to see that Roussel elevates Bo Horvat’s game when he plays on his wing—and if there’s one Canuck currently deserving of more ice time, it’s probably Roussel.

Sautner played the least amount of any blueliner at just 12:05, but it was a solid 12:05. Sautner brings something that has been lacking in the Canucks’ defense corps this season—steadiness. He’s physical, disciplined positionally, and not afraid to jump into the play when he sees an opportunity. It’s a short sample size, but Sautner continues to look like he has a future as an NHL defenseman.

The Canucks will have a day off at home before they face the New York Islanders on Saturday, February 23—with a start-time of 7:00PM PST on Sportsnet Pacific.