Vancouver Canucks vs Carolina Hurricanes Post Game Recap: Entering The Storm

5 years ago

The Rundown

Tonight, the Vancouver Canucks would play the 2nd game of their first road trip during the 2018/2019 season. After a loss on Saturday, the Canucks were looking at bouncing back and picking up a win down in Raleigh. Tonight’s game had 2 super rookies featured on each team. Andrei Svechnikov on the ice for Carolina, while our golden boy Elias Pettersson tried to get a point in his 3rd straight NHL game to start his career.

After the beat down in Calgary, the Canucks change things up with their lineup before tonight’s tilt. Michael Del Zotto was scratched for the first time in a Canucks uniform, while Ben Hutton slotted in for his first game of the year. Another debut for the team was Tim Schaller drawing into the lineup while Tyler Motte was scratched.

1st Period

Right off the bat in this hockey game, an early goal would come to bite the Canucks early. Jordan Stall picked up a puck at the blue line and fired a shot on goal that deflected and handcuffed Jakob Markstrom and gave Carolina an early 1 goal lead. Not the start the Canucks were looking for on the road after a poor performance a few nights prior.

The Canucks would wake up and start getting some quality chances of their own, with Tim Schaller nearly stuffing a chance on the backhand a minute later. Then, Erik Gudbranson of all people would draw a tripping penalty in his own end, and give the Canucks their first power-play of the hockey game. It would be the Hurricanes with the best chance of the man-advantage, with Markstrom forced to stop Stall on a 2 on 1 shorthanded opportunity. The Canucks wouldn’t be able to capitalize off the momentum of the big save, and would fail to convert on the power-play.

Then, out of seemingly nothing. Alexander Edler would make a great stretch pass to Sven Baertschi, who would come in on goal, make a fantastic fake, and put a puck in behind the outstretched starter Curtis McElhinney to tie the game up at 1.

The next couple minutes would see some quality scoring chances for the Nikolay Goldobin, Elias Pettersson, and Loui Eriksson line. Goldobin and Pettersson’s offensive abilities were on display, with a couple of quality shots fired. However they couldn’t put one home.

11 minutes into the 1st period, the Canucks would be hemmed in their own end. While one Hurricane scoring chance was thwarted by a good back check by Jake Virtanen. The puck would wind up at the blue-line and held in by the Hurricanes. Right after, a shot on goal by the Hurricanes Brett Pesce would be deflected off the leg of Edler and past Markstrom to re-establish the 1 goal lead. 2-1 Carolina.

There wasn’t a lot of action from that goal to the next goal scored, and again it would be the Hurricanes who put another puck in the back of the net. An awful job by Pouliot defending on the rush leads to the Hurricanes having possession in the Canucks zone. In a few short seconds, both defense-men would be behind the Canucks goal, and Sebastian Aho is alone in front to put home the 3rd Carolina goal to make it 3-1 with 2 minutes left in the period.

A minute later, the Hurricanes would take a too many men penalty and put the Canucks on their 2nd power-play of the evening. The Canucks wouldn’t score on the man advantage in the 1st period, and we’d go into the intermission with the score 3-1 for Carolina.

2nd Period

So that power-play the Canucks had going coming into the period? Well they’d capitalize on it. A good move at the blue-line from Baertschi opens up a passing lane to Horvat. Baertschi feeds Horvat, who promptly rifles a shot that deflects past McElhinney to give the Canucks life 46 seconds into period number 2.

Unfortunately for the boys in white, the Hurricanes would respond just a minute later. After numerous attempts to get the puck out of the Canucks zone fail to achieve their intended goal. It would be Svechnikov who finds some garbage and puts it home, just past a sprawling Pettersson who tried to rush into position, but couldn’t get the stick of Svechnikov in time. 4-2 Carolina.

A few moments later Vancouver would get back to within 1. After Baertschi drew a penalty resulting from getting slashed by Hurricanes forward Phillip Di Giuseppe. The team would again come through on the power-play. Pettersson would make a great move to enter the zone and pass to Edler, who then passed the puck hard right to Baertschi who was in front of the net. Baertschi would tip the puck off of the Hurricanes defenseman covering Horvat and into the net for his 2nd goal of the game, his 3rd point, and a secondary assist to Elias Pettersson, who would record a point in his 3rd straight NHL game to start his career.

The second would chug along at a quiet pace until some rough stuff put the teams to 4 on 4 hockey. The Hurricanes would have a glorious chance on the 2 on 1, but it’d be Goldobin on the back check coming to help out his goaltender, clearing a puck out of the crease to keep it a 4-3 hockey game. Oh, and Goldobin was also able to come up the ice while bouncing the puck off his stick like nobody’s business.

As it would turn out, going into the 3rd period the score would remain 4-3 for the Hurricanes. The Canucks special teams were doing their job tonight, but the overall team defense and goaltending would have to be better in order to allow the team to stage a comeback.

3rd Period

This may have been one of the most uneventful 3rd periods I’ve witnessed in a long while. There was a good sequence of end to end rushes a few minutes in, after that, the Hurricanes carefully and methodically wound down the clock. It was a choke hold, with lots of stoppages, good shot selection, and excellent care of the puck from Carolina. Carolina was playing like I hope the Canucks will play down the road… the light after all the pain.

In the dying minutes we’d get the only highlight of the period, and it’d be a Carolina tally. Warren Foeggle would receive the puck after a Brock Boeser turnover and fire a knuckle puck over the shoulder of Markstrom. Making it 5-3 for Carolina.

That’s how this one would end, while the goals were nice to see, again a lack of team defense and goaltending sunk the ship in the middle of the storm.

Advanced Stats

Both photos courtesy of Naturalstattrick.com

Wrap Up

Another good showing on the attack for this Canucks team, and another game where the play in their own end leaves much to be desired. Elias Pettersson getting on the score-sheet in a night where he was played tight is a good sign, and his chemistry with Goldobin is growing by the game. Horvat getting another goal on the is another good sign, and Sven Baertschi had himself a game after being demoted off the Bo/Brock line. Brock Boeser also got a tick in the point column with his assist, and while he still looks like his timing is off after the back injury there were at least some glimmers of hope to show he’s coming back around, albeit slowly. Brock will start scoring, at a rapid pace, it’s just going to take a while to get him 100% back to form. Once him and Pettersson are going at full cylinders, this team might be fun to watch even if they’re getting beat up in the score column.

This defense though… oh my goodness. They’ve allowed 12 goals on the road in 2 games, and just don’t have the talent to compete on a consistent basis. Derrick Pouliot, although he brings a bit of offensive skill, was woefully insufficient in his own end and both him and Erik Gudbranson struggled with the skill of this young Hurricanes team. Ben Hutton didn’t commit many errors tonight, he just didn’t do much that was super impressive. Stecher gave it his all, made some mistakes but everyone does. Edler had himself a night, however he did deflect in the 2nd goal of the game. All in all, this defense isn’t going to be able to help out Markstrom on most nights, and they weren’t able to tonight.

Leading right into the goaltending this evening, Markstrom had himself a rough outing. The 1st 2 goals of this game were deflected shots that Markstrom was having trouble reading, and potentially overplaying. The 5th goal he seemed super uncomfortable as it went over his shoulder. He was fighting pucks all night, losing track of the puck numerous times throughout the game, and struggling at controlling his rebounds. Ultimately it was a rough game for Markstrom, and the Canucks have no hope in winning a hockey game if he plays like this with the defense in front of him.

All in all, a game that might seem all too familiar to Canucks fans. The offensive hope is there, with Pettersson, Horvat, Goldobin and Baertschi putting up some numbers, with the belief that Boeser isn’t too far behind. While that won’t be enough for this current Canucks team to make the playoffs, it should help to keep games reasonable throughout the year. Tonight, it was Baertschi with the highlight reel goal, and most of the offense. We’ll see what happens in Tampa on Thursday.

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