Who has been the Vancouver Canucks’ MVP in the second round?: Canucks Conversation
2 months ago
On yesterday’s episode of Canucks Conversation, David Quadrelli and Harman Dayal discussed the Canucks’ MVP in the second round of the playoffs.
Vancouver is coming off a huge game 5 win over the Oilers to take a 3-2 series lead, heading back to Edmonton for game six on Saturday night. With a new-look lineup, the Canucks played one of, if not their best games of the postseason, limiting the Oilers to just 12 shots in the 2nd and 3rd periods while applying pressure on both ends of the ice.
CanucksArmy posted a poll on X asking fans their opinion on this round’s MVP:
J.T. Miller- 34%
Arturs Silovs- 54%
Brock Boeser- 12%
“There’s a great case to be made for Silovs, but it’s hard to go away from J.T. Miller on this one,” said Quads. “The Canucks haven’t given up a goal to Connor McDavid at five-on-five with Miller on the ice.”
“On top of that, he’s been producing,” Harm agreed. “Even if he’s only scored a couple times, he has a ton of primary assists, so you’re getting the offence out of him. Maybe it’s recency bias coming from a monster game five performance, but I was definitely leaning towards Miller for being a two-way workhorse and still finding ways to manufacture offence in the most taxing situation you can deploy a forward in, which is to shadow Connor McDavid.”
Miller has done an incredible job in his part of shutting down McDavid, who is having one of the worst playoff series of his career.
Miller took a different approach going into game 5 after saying he and his line had been playing “not to get scored on” against Draisaitl and McDavid, and that they were giving Edmonton’s top gunners too much respect.
The change was evident, as McDavid’s line was held to just 2 shots at five-on-five against Miller’s line. The extra energy seemed to echo throughout the lineup as well. Edmonton had 5 powerplay opportunities and failed to convert on one of them, after coming into the game with a historically efficient man advantage percentage.
“They were way more aggressive, pressuring players on the flanks and up top,” Harm noted. “Teddy Blueger had a monster game on the P.K. On the first three Edmonton power plays, they started the P.K. by winning the draw and getting the initial clear, that helps so much relative to if you lose that draw and they can get set up right away. Edmonton was bobbling pucks. They weren’t sharp or crisp enough, not on the same page as each other. Another thing the Canucks did was not allow any cross-seam passes; that east-west was completely taken away.”
You can watch the full replay of yesterday’s show in the video below:
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