Highlights

Quick Hits

• It was nice to see Jacob Markstrom bounce back from his .250 Sv% and 10.21 GAA season debut. Tonight’s 23 save performance on 24 shots is certainly a step forward for the towering Swede, who’s struggled thus far in his career to make any sort of noise in the NHL. As far as tonight’s performance is concerned, the stats are probably a little flattering of Markstrom’s performance on the whole. As the shot chart will attest, Markstrom didn’t face many difficult shots and wasn’t forced to make any ten-bell saves. Oh well, no arguing with the results.
• Yannick Weber had another impressive outing tonight, potting the opening score for Vancouver on a tic-tac-toe passing play deep in the Arizona Coyotes zone. With that goal, Weber set a new career high with seven on the campaign. He doesn’t get a lot of press, but Weber’s been quietly putting together another solid campaign for Vancouver, rotating from the Canucks top-four all the way to the press box and back. To go along with his goal tonight, Weber had six hits and led the Canucks in power play ice-time with 2:17 on the night.
• I wasn’t overly surprised by the decision to sit Ronalds Kenins in favour of Brandon MacMillan. While Kenins is clearly the better of the two players, rookies don’t get the same leeway as veterans and the Latvian Locomotive had some awful giveaways against the Kings. Most of these turnovers came at the Canucks blue line. Tonight’s benching was probably more of a learning lesson than it was an indictment of the coaching staff’s disaffection for Kenins or favour for MacMillan. 
• Speaking of fringe NHLers, Linden Vey actually had a very solid outing on the whole tonight. Vey was involved offensively, defensively responsible and as physically engaged as one can expect from someone his size. With a Corsi For of 77%, Vey also led the Canucks tonight from a possession standpoint. Maybe best of all, though, was that Vey found himself among a group of only three Canucks forwards that didn’t log a single second of power play ice time. I think Desjardins is catching on. 
• There’s definitely a case to be made for Alexander Edler as the Canucks MVP this season. Performances like tonight’s certainly help to drive the message home. Edler was strong defensively, posting a Corsi For of 75% on the night and led the charge offensively potting the game-winning goal. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but it’s starting to look like Edler’s -39 last season doesn’t mean a thing.

Conclusion