The Canucks had their undefeated streak ended in their last game, falling victim to a messy, stupid matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the entirely-inhuman Andrei Vasilevskiy.
In an absolutely blessing of a gift from the gods, though, the team was delivered a complete shitshow of an opponent for their follow-up game on Thursday night, getting the downward-spiralling St. Louis Blues to finish off and show that yeah, this team may actually have turned the corner for real now.
This game had it all: a disastrous defense strategy in the opening period, an elite showing by Jacob Markström, and a two-point night for Shotgun Jake.
5-1 finish and a 6-1-1 showing over their last eight? Not too bad for the BC Boys.
THE RUNDOWN
Jacob Markström entered this game with a .904 save percentage in 25 games – and although he’s been reasonably effective over the last stretch of games, he remains frustratingly inconsistent on the year. Add in that he boasted a career .892 save percentage in all situations against the Blues, and an opening period in which Vancouver got outshot 15-5 could have gone incredibly poorly.
From the start, though, it was clear that this was one of those games where Markström was going to be totally dialed in. He kept the team in the game through the first 20 minutes, keeping the game scoreless and letting Jake Allen and Vancouver’s offense take care of the rest of the game.
St. Louis would get held to just three shots in the second period, but their bigger concern was the offensive onslaught they faced.
Although the visitors were able to kill off their first penalty of the period, an interference penalty for David Perron just over five minutes into the period gave Bo Horvat the perfect opportunity to capitalize on a beautiful power-play sequence to open up scoring. The once and future captain initiated a cycle play from the outside down low, then slowly moved to the net front while Boeser passed to Edler, then Pettersson – who was able to fire from the right point for a tap-in on Allen’s doorstep.
It then took, I kid you not, less than a minute for Jake Allen to implode on himself (in fairness, following a defensive implosion by the team in front of him). After Adam Gaudette’s shot from the low point got bounced back out in front, the 22-year-old followed through, pulled the puck across the crease, and managed to jam one in on Allen’s right side for the 2-0 tally.
Props to Gaudette for walking Joel Edmundson like that, but shame on Allen for that narrow butterfly and letting that one past.
In any case, the Blues managed to enter the third period down just two goals, but Vancouver really turned on the jets in the final frame with three goals for and only one Vladimir Tarasenko tally against. Frankly, we can forgive Markström this one:
Props to Jake Virtanen for having as many goals this year as Tarasenko, which says as much about how much fun he’s been having (and Canucks fans everywhere in the process) as it does about how absolutely turrible the Blues have been.
Case in point. Woof:
In any case, the Canucks saw St. Louis give it the old college try in the third, outshooting them 12-10 through the final 20 in an attempt to stop the bleeding. But between Markström’s night and whatever was happening on Jake Allen’s end, Vancouver took home a pretty decisive win to tide them over until they face Winnipeg on Saturday.
THE BEST OF THE TWITTERVERSE
If you aren’t absolutely howling at this, we’re on such drastically different wavelengths that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to reach you.
THE SHOTGUN
Brother Virtanen! #BlessUp
Finally, my favorite:
Girl, hit me up. I’ll be in Vancouver for the draft in June. Let’s do this.
