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Canucks Army Postgame: Hammer Time!
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Rhys Jessop
Apr 10, 2015, 01:40 EDTUpdated: Invalid DateTime
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With the Canucks already having clinched a postseason berth with a Kings loss on Tuesday, all eyes in the hockey world were watching the game going in on in Calgary with much more intent. And who could blame them? Vancouver-Arizona is hardly a compelling match-up at this juncture of the season, and the Flames had the opportunity to play unlikely spoilers and eliminate the defending champions from Stanley Cup contention.
And wouldn’t you know it, Calgary did the improbable and set themselves up for a first round showdown against the Canucks with a 3-1 win, as Vancouver geared up for the postseason by laying a 5-0 beatdown on the lowly Coyotes. Read past the jump for a look at tonight’s game.

Highlights

Quick Hits

[Canucks.com Recap] [Willie Desjardins Postgame] [NaturalStatTrick Stat Pack] [War-on-Ice Stat Pack]
  • Right off the hop, this game looked like it was going to be a blowout. The ‘Yotes were in full-on tank mode and had their season end long ago, whereas the Canucks looked like a team that was playing loose and excited hockey with a bunch of energy of their own. The best early chance came courtesy of an Alex Burrows powerplay breakaway that was set up by a beautiful tape-to-tape pass from Kyle Chipchura of all people. The man is committed to the tank, if nothing else.
  • Sven Baertschi was noticeable once more, playing in the offensive zone and making some smart passes. He’s not exactly being put in a position to succeed playing with Vancouver’s two least effective 5-on-5 forwards, but he’s been involved in a few chances. Hopefully he’ll have the opportunity to light up his former team in the first round here.
  • Even with all that concern earlier that Vancouver’s powerplay was struggling, it looks like they could finish top-10 in the NHL in conversion rate. They scored three times with the man advantage tonight, including two Yannick Weber bombs.
    • With Luca Sbisa returning at $3.6 million next season, it’s almost guaranteed that Vancouver will not have enough cap space to re-sign Weber, who is a pending RFA. Given that not much was expected him of this season and he has a cap hit of just $850K, Weber has been real good this year. Money Puck will have an article touching on this in more detail tomorrow.
  • Weber’s D partner Dan Hamhuis also got into the scoring act, potting his first goal of the year up over the shoulder of Coyotes backup goalie Louis Domingue. Was nice to see Hammer bump the slump going into the playoffs after the year he had.
  • Oh, and Eddie Lack got a shutout like it was no big deal. Given that Miller will likely get the call for the final game of the regular season, Lack looks like he’ll finish the year with a 0.921 save percentage – tied for the third highest single-season mark for a Canucks starting goalie behind Roberto Luongo’s 2010-11 (0.928) and Cory Schneider’s 2012-13 (0.927). Lack is also 15th in the NHL in save percentage, pacing guys like Luongo, Rask, Rinne, and Lundqvist. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t get a game at the start of the year.

Conclusion

Vancouver finishes up their regular season on Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers, but this is just a warm-up to playing against the Calgary Flames in the first round of the playoffs. Ryan Miller will get some game action, and expect Willie Desjardins to rest some of his top guns and give guys like Sven Baertschi and Bo Horvat a lot of ice time.
We’ll have a bunch of playoff preview stuff ready in the coming days as we know who Vancouver’s first round opponent will be, so keep an eye out for that. It’s gonna be a fun ride!

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