Highlights

Quick Hits

• The game started out really well for the Canucks. Systemically, they appeared to know what the Flames were going to try to do, and they executed to near perfection. Vancouver was aggressive in all areas of the ice, forechecking hard and generating chances.
• one tactical thing in particular the Canucks did early was have a defender jump the lane to cut off the cross-ice stretch breakout pass the Flames were looking for. Calgary would send their weak side winger up the boards when the strong side forward corralled the puck in the defensive zone, and look for the long-bomb pass. The Canucks simply stepped in that lane and intercepted the puck on a number of occasions, leading to more offensive zone time.
• Calgary quickly adjusted though, bringing their centre into the middle of the ice and moving the weak side winger closer to the strong side, allowing them more puck support. This approach worked significantly better as the Canucks were unable to have the same success in jamming the Flames at their defensive blueline and preventing control through the neutral zone.
• Although the results weren’t there, the Sedins predictably gave the Flames fits down low and seemed to have the puck on a string at times. Daniel Sedin’s 3-on-2 rush chance in the 3rd period (and Chris Tanev’s follow-up rebound opportunity shortly thereafter) looms large as the one golden opportunity the Canucks had to seal the game before they collapsed into the defensive shell. 
• The good news is that if the Sedins keep this up, they’ll see pucks go in sooner or later. Preferably sooner though, as teams that go down 2-0 in a series have a roughly 1-in-5 chance of coming back to win.
• As you can probably guess, the Sedins led all skaters in Corsi% on the night, as well as raw Corsi differential. Daniel and Alex Burrows also combined for about 1/3rd of all Canucks scoring chances at even strength with 11 between them.
• Here’s what kills me: you roll four lines to keep your stars fresh for games like this. To preserve them for when it matters. Well, this is when it matters. And at even strength, Henrik Sedin played the 5th most ES TOI of any Canucks forward, and Alex Burrows and Daniel Sedin were the least used and third least used Canucks forwards at even strength. 
• The Canucks have one tremendous advantage in this series that Calgary can never hope to match, and that is the Sedin twins. Shorten your bench in high leverage situations, and let your best players be your best players. God love Jannik Hansen, but there’s no way he should be seeing two minutes more ice time at ES than one of the top-10 scorers in the NHL.
• Back to positives. You really notice the difference that Brad Richardson makes offensively on the fourth, or, uh, third line tonight seeing as the Sedins were the fourth most used line at even strength. Unlike Linden Vey, he’s capable of working the puck down low and putting it into high-danger areas in the offensive zone. It didn’t turn in to anything tonight, but the Matthias-Richardson-Dorsett line played very well.
• Vancouver’s Achilles heel tonight? The second line (who were first for ice time!) and the third pairing. While the Higgins-Bonino-Vrbata trio looked good early, they struggled significantly as the pace of Vancouver’s game slowed. While many will (not unfairly) attribute the Flames first goal to Yannick Weber’s tremendous screwup, the play was originally started by a botched Radim Vrbata clearing attempt.
• Vrbata couldn’t handle the breakout pass, bobbled the puck, turned it over, then just continued to cruise up the ice and cherry pick rather than stop on the play and provide some back pressure. Bonino and Higgins kinda did fly-bys too, leaving Weber in a panicked position with very few options. Weber still chose to make a dumb pass up the middle, but the second line really didn’t put him in a position to make a good play either.
• Sbisa and Bieksa also had a 33% scoring chance for percentage on the evening, and were big minuses as far as Corsi was concerned too.The guy that did most of the damage against them? Not Gaudreau or Monahan or Hudler or even Bennett, but David Jones.
• It’s not even that they’re turning the puck over any more. They’re just incapable of efficiently moving the puck up ice on a consistent basis and keeping opponents away from the front of Vancouver’s net – two things you kinda really need your “shut-down” guys to do.
• Eddie Lack was good, but Kris Russell’s game winner was one of the few “low-danger” shots he’s allowed this season. LD save percentage is prone to being influenced by bounces, deflections, and screens though and is tough to repeat for goalies, so a goal like that was bound to happen some time. The timing was just awful for Lack though. Oh well. Go right back to him next game, especially since I have zero confidence that Miller is even healthy yet.

Conclusion