One down, twelve to go. While no one should realistically expect the Vancouver Canucks to run the table in the month of November, after their 3-2 win in San Jose on Saturday, dare to dream.
One look at what’s ahead for the hockey club in the second month of the new NHL season, and it’s impossible not to hear opportunity knocking. And loudly.
Of the seven teams ahead of them by points percentage after the completion of play on Saturday, the Canucks face only one of them this month. The New York Rangers (currently 7-2-1) visit Rogers Arena on November 19th. Extend that further and look solely at raw points earned in the standings so far, and the Canucks find only two of the 11 teams ahead of them on the schedule this month – the Rangers and the Los Angeles Kings, who are off to a solid 6-3-3 start.
Otherwise, the month features a steady diet of gettable games against teams like Anaheim, Edmonton, Calgary, Nashville, Chicago, the Islanders, Ottawa, Boston, Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Now, that doesn’t guarantee success in any way. The Canucks have to go out there and take full advantage of what can only be seen as a three-ply schedule.
But it should allow a team that has yet to truly find its own form to accumulate points even if not at the top of its game, as was the case again on Saturday in the Shark Tank. And really, if you look at what the Canucks have accomplished in the early going, it’s fair to say they have already taken advantage of favourable scheduling with wins over the Sharks, the Flyers, the Blackhawks, the Penguins – and even arguably their best win of the season so far a 3-2 overtime victory in Florida came against the defending Stanley Cup champs who were without star forwards Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk.
The Canucks are aided this month by the fact that they won’t have to contain Connor McDavid, Mat Barzal or deal with old nemesis Drew Doughty – all key pieces missing from their respective line-ups with significant injuries.
Life moves fast in the NHL; Saturday was a perfect example. Even San Jose, which started the season winless in nine, entered the night on a three-game win streak and gave the Canucks all they could handle. So teams that are currently struggling could very well be in much better form by the time they face the Canucks this month. Still, on the surface at the very least, this gives the appearance of a stretch of the schedule that lends itself to success and presents a path for the Canucks to really hit their stride.
At 5-2-3 after the win over the Sharks, the Canucks record looks better than the team has on the ice for the most part so far this season. Now if Elias Pettersson ever gets going, if the power play finds its form and if the Canucks can rein in some of the defensive mistakes they’ve made through the first 10 games of the season, they have a real chance over the next four weeks to shoot to the top of the NHL standings. Especially if they strengthen their line-up with the return of Dakota Joshua and possibly ace netminder Thatcher Demko.
Of course, by season’s end, they will have seen every team in the league, so at some point, they will have to deal with Winnipeg, Vegas, Dallas and other legitimate Cup contenders. But they won’t see those teams any time soon.
November presents a unique opportunity for the Vancouver Canucks. It’s on them now to take what the schedule maker has offered them and spin it into something special.
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