Highlights

Quick Hits

• That game just felt like more like a Canucks game than the others so far in the series. Michael Ferland was running around early, but Vancouver didn’t get caught up in the emotions and stayed well away from the scrums and extracurricular stuff. I mean, after the first period how often did you hear Ferland referenced? I certainly don’t recall any mentions.
• But this is the type of game the Canucks will have to play to win the next two as well. They got to Hiller twice tonight, but there’s still significant room for offensive improvement. Hiller’s not being challenged on the shots he should be challenged on, and Vancouver has to give their goaltender more breathing room to work with.
• I think there’s a bit of generous home scorekeeping going on in Vancouver’s shot chart (Nick Bonino was standing on the faceoff dot when he scored, but his goal is placed in the mid-slot), but even if you bump most of those shots out a bit, that’s still a large number of shots coming from high and medium danger areas. The Canucks – the Sedins in particular – have struggled to turn chances into goals at even strength for a couple of years now so scoring is going to be a challenge, but more efforts like tonight will give them as good a chance as possible to pop 3 or 4 past Hiller next game.
• The 3-on-2 rush when Daniel hit a trailing Henrik with a pass was about the saddest shot attempt of the game and it came on the best chance the Canucks could have hoped for. The Sedins are fantastic and have been fantastic, but you have to get a better shot away than what Henrik did.
• Scratch that, Mason Raymond’s breakaway was the saddest shot attempt.
• Ryan Miller played a relatively clean and calm game tonight, but the outcome could have been a hell of a lot different if Dennis Wideman’s 1st period blast was just one inch to the right. Wideman beat Miller cleanly on a slapper but drew nothing but iron, saving the Canucks from being in a larger hole than they already dug for themselves.
• Jannik Hansen rung one off the iron too, and a goal there probably would’ve made Thom Drance rip his suit off and run ass-naked across the ice screaming “I TOLD YOU SO” at the top of his lungs. 
• Hansen had a fairly solid night himself, firing four pucks at the net, generating two scoring chances, and helping his team to a +5 Corsi while on the ice.
• The Sedins were, once again, the best players on the ice for Vancouver. The twins combined for the game winning goal and had 13 scoring chances between them. They were unlucky enough to be on the ice for Alex Edler’s bungle that led to a goal against, but they once more out-possessed, out-chanced, and out-shot Calgary.
• Jonas Hiller has robbed each Sedin now on a 5-alarm chance from the low slot this series. A lot of their lack of offense is on them for being relatively poor finishers by NHL standards these days, some of it is Hiller playing fantastic, but some of it is also the breaks just not going their way. Henrik and Daniel are working hard enough to get some bounces, and we saw them finally get one in the early third period when Deryk Engelland blew his coverage and let Daniel flub a rebound between Hiller’s legs. If they keep playing the way they’re playing, they’ll continue to have chances to score. And if they have chances to score, the offence will come.

Conclusion