Highlights

Quick Hits

• The Hawks pulled ahead early on a goal by rookie Teuvo Teravainen that was largely the result of a defensive zone clusterbum. Eddie Lack lost his stick, but no one other than Kevin Bieksa seemed to notice as the fire drill was on in full effect.
• Even though the shift started on an offensive zone faceoff (which Bo Horvat lost) and Vancouver forced a dump-in that they retrieved successfully, the puck never found it’s way back out past their blueline. Luca Sbisa was the only guy who had the chance to do something with the puck on the shift, but twice he slapped it off the boards haphazardly and turned it over.
• I thought this sequence kinda encapsulated Sbisa’s biggest weakness as a defenseman, which is in stark contrast to Chris Tanev’s greatest strength. Namely, he can’t move the puck from a high pressure area to a low pressure one, either to regroup or to directly set up a breakout. This results in a lot of glass-and-out prayers and transitional attacks from the opposition.
• I’ve seen a lot of “Sbisa’s playing better because he’s making fewer mistakes” lately, which isn’t really correct. When evaluating defence, the human tendency is to look for directly attributable errors on goals or chances against, while (not deliberately) glossing over the small shortcomings or misreads that result in players being placed in that situation. 
• This is why guys like P.K. Subban are regarded as poor defensive players, even though they have some of the largest positive impacts on defence in the game – too much focus on the big stuff while missing the minutiae.
• For the love of god, it doesn’t matter if you think he’s better than Ryan Stanton, please do not re-sign Sbisa at the end of the year. He’s not worth $2.9 million, and trying to keep making it work just because of the Kesler deal is getting hung up on a sunk cost. Which, in economics, is the very definition of behaving in an irrational manner.
• The Kenins-Horvat-Hansen line running around on the first goal didn’t exactly help things either. Kenins and Horvat had tough nights in particular, as neither looked like they could even handle the puck, and Horvat’s costly mistake in the third period led directly to a goal against.
• It’s been a bit up-and-down of late for these guys, as they followed up a brutal showing in St. Louis with a stellar outing in Nashville. Tonight, they were the bottom of the barrel as Kenins and Horvat were hung with game-low minus-15 and minus-14 Corsis respectively, getting absolutely obliterated by Chicago’s fourth line of Desjardins-Kruger-Teravainen. Oh well. As long as they’re engaged and hungry come playoff time.
• Eddie Lack was good again as he turned away 35 shots again for a save percentage of over 0.920 on the night again. In Ryan Miller’s absence he’s been everything the Canucks could have asked for, including being better than Miller.
• He didn’t look great at times, particularly on this sequence:

• But the above came immediately after stopping Brandon Saad on a breakaway, so I’ll take the good with the bad so long as the puck stays out of the net.
• I’d be quite happy to roll into the playoffs with Eddie Lack since I think he’s at least an average NHL starter, and I would’ve been quite happy to start the year with Lack and a Greiss-type as a backup instead of Ryan Miller too. Miller was Vancouver’s guy though, and may be nearing a return to action soon which would muddy the goaltending outlook going forward.
• Desjardins threw some water on that fire though after the game, saying Miller is still a while away from game action.
• The 3-1 loss sucks, but after back-to-back wins in St. Louis and Nashville, it’s not the end of the world. The team looked tired and sloppy, and still managed to hang with a good Blackhawks team in Chicago for a good portion of this game. I’ll happily take two wins on the first three games of this road swing every day of the week.

Conclusion