Yesterday was a huge success for the Canucks. It may have been boring as sin, but they got to be the local heroes in a city that isn’t technically theirs. But after a ferry ride home, the boys from Vancouver looked to repeat their victory against the Sharks in Rogers Arena; a tough, but doable task. Unfortunately, four very similar shots were enough to rain on the team’s parade, delivering the first loss of the pre-season.

The Canucks looked relatively solid throughout the course of the game, but ultimately, the Sharks had a plan and executed it spectacularly. They drew traffic to the front of the net, be it themselves or their opponents, and sent the puck to the left point for a shot. Paul Martin fooled Ryan Miller for the first time just three minutes into the game, and with just as much time remaining in the first period, Brent Burns repeated the act; though he passed on the one-timer and went for a traditional wrist shot.

Vancouver switched goaltenders midway through the second period, replacing Miller with Joe Cannata, but ultimately, that made no difference. Tomas Hertl deflected Matt Tennyson’s one-timer midway through the third period, and Nikolay Goldobin followed it up with his own snipe, from distance and through traffic to widen the gap even further.

No matter what the Canucks did, pucks just wouldn’t go in for them. They outshot San Jose 30-22, but Martin Jones stood tall against every opportunity, including those in a well-controlled and league-suggested three-on-three overtime. 

It’s hard to point to a player of the game in a situation where the Canucks get shutout and neither goalie was particularly spectacular, but I’m going to go with Jared McCann. He created a few legitimate opportunity, and the momentum of the game always seemed to go in the team’s favour while he was on the ice. If he continues to play like this throughout the pre-season, he might make sending him down a more difficult situation than anticipated.

Full credit to Alex Burrows for sticking up for Jake Virtanen, and while he didn’t come out on top, I refuse to acknowledge the success of anybody named “Mirco”.

Andrey Pedan totally misinterpreted the direction of the puck on this one. He rebounded to have the best shot attempt differential on the team tonight, but man, he was dangerously close to being sent off the bench and straight to Utica just a few minutes into the game.

The Canucks return to the ice on Friday night – they’ll be taking on the Flames at 6PM at the Saddledome.