The Vancouver Canucks and their patchwork defense-corps narrowly held on to a critical 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Monday night. The regulation loss snapped Minnesota’s 10-game point streak. 

Missing their entire top-pair, the Canucks played one of their best games of the season – from an energy standpoint, from an entertainment standpoint, and from a “legitimately out-possessing a high quality opponent” standpoint. 

And in the end, as the clock wound down and a chaotic goalmouth scramble raged, Eddie Lack maintained his composure, securing the Canucks two points and, more importantly, securing 26-year-old journeyman defender Alex Biega a game-winning goal in his NHL debut. 

Shot attempt chart:

(Courtesy: HockeyStats.ca)

Shot attempt location chart:

(Courtesy: War-on-Ice.com)

The hero of Monday night’s contest – Mr. Alex Biega – is an interesting player, with a delightfully pun-able name. 

We told you he could be serviceable depth before the contest, our opinion based mostly on our belief that he’s an elite AHL defenseman who has, perhaps, been overlooked at the NHL level because he doesn’t quite fit the mold of a stereotypical stay-at-home guy. He’s 5-foot-11, he doesn’t weight 200 pounds, and though he plays hard, he’s not exactly a high-end puck mover. 

Not that he’s ever going to be an everyday top-four guy, but it seemed possible to us that he might be able to hack it in the show. In his NHL debut on Monday night, Biega logged nearly 17 minutes, and though the Canucks were narrowly out-attempted when he was on the ice at 5-on-5, he played responsible hockey and at no point stood out for a glaring error or a lack of physical tools. That’s what will give him a shot to remain in the lineup, the game-winner? That’s just icing on the cake.

Though Biega will be the story, the play of Yannick Weber was borderline revelatory. If the Canucks are to withstand their myriad of blue-line injuries, it would seem that Weber’s contributions could prove crucial. 

Not only was the Swiss olympian on the ice to close out the game and seal a critical two points, but he logged 22 minutes in a top-pairing role alongside Dan Hamhuis. Aside from Jannik Hansen, Weber and Hamhuis managed the best shot-attempt differential of any Canucks players at 5-on-5 on Monday. Essentially they provided the club with a reasonable facsimile of what we’ve come to expect from Chris Tanev and Alex Edler. That’s way more than Vancouver could’ve reasonably asked for.

The Sedin twins were flying tonight, scoring a goal off of the rush – it feels like its been a while, huh – and then helping to manufacture Biega’s game-winner with a vintage cycle shift.

After hitting a rough patch for 20 games or so through December and much of January, the twins have been on point since roughly the All-Star break. They maybe haven’t been producing like former Art Ross trophy winners, but they’ve been controlling play the way we’d expect. If they can sustain that level of performance, the goals will come. They did tonight.

Here’s a list of Canucks forwards whom Bo Horvat logged more minutes than in Monday night’s game: Shawn Matthias, Linden Vey, Zack Kassian, Derek Dorsett, Radim Vrbata, Ronalds Kenins and Chris Higgins. Do the math. I’ll give you a second to figure it out. Yep, Horvat was Vancouver’s second-line centre on Monday night and Willie Desjardins rode his line hard in the third period. For good reason too, along with the twins that line was the only Canucks forward group that won their territorial matchup on Monday. Facing mostly top-six competition, Horvat’s group came out ahead of the Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu line – though they fared worse against Minnesota’s secondary group of Mikael Grandlund, Thomas Vanek.

In addition to earning the trust of the coaching staff, Horvat has now doubled his point totals since the All-Star break. It took him 31 contests to record eight points. He has now scored eight points (and four goals) in his last 11 games.

Eddie Lack stopped 20 of 22 shots faced on Monday night, which is good enough for the quality start. The numbers undersell his performance though, especially late in the game as pandemonium broke out in his crease. 

With what seemed like four of five guys prone in the blue, and Lack’s stick stuck in a pile underneath them, Lack made a couple of key stops – a bad angle stop on Pominville, and then another on Pominville from a more dangerous spot on the ice – to preserve the regulation victory. Lack might have been the only person in Vancouver who maintained a normal resting heart rate in the final 30 seconds of the game.

On the game winning goal Alex Burrows set the screen on Devan Dubnyk – who you’ll recall initiated contact with Vrbata in a previous meeting between these two teams and had a goal called back. Dubnyk pushed Burrows off of him moments before the puck went into the net, and once it was scored, Burrows straight up taunted the Wild netminder. The Wild didn’t appreciate it, but this is about as good a goal celebration as you’ll see this season:

The Canucks have a couple of days off as they travel into the heart of the polar vortex. They’re poised to enter Alain Vigneault country for three games in four days against the trifecta of New York teams. 

With the Canucks set to renew their acquaintance with Vigneault, Cory Schneider (who is that you ask? Why he’s the plucky young goaltender who netted Horvat for the Canucks in a trade!), Michael Grabner and, I don’t know, Tanner Glass, there will be plenty of plot lines to chew over this upcoming week.