Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin/USA TODAY Sports

Willie Desjardins, in his first year as the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, was disciplined in his approach to rolling four forward lines and all three defense pairings. It worked for the club, as the team improved on their 2013-14 performance by 17 points in Desjardins’ first year behind the bench.

Going into this series the Canucks’ two best players, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, had played fewer minutes per game than they had in over half a decade. They were thought to be rested. Meanwhile the Calgary Flames entered this series with four defenseman (three of them healthy) playing over 23 minutes per game and their third-pair defensemen rarely see the ice. 

Presumably that should be an advantage for the Canucks, particularly late in games. It didn’t go down that way in Vancouver’s series opening loss though.

In Wednesday night’s game one, as the third period went on, the Flames looked like the fresher team. 

As the clock wound down in the third period, they opened up a Canucks defensive structure that had smothered them for 50 minutes. Odd-man rushes and endless cycle shifts ensued, as the Canucks coughed up home-ice advantage with a last minute goal.

What happened?

Part of the answer, surely, is that the Canucks didn’t throw their fastball frequently enough. 

In the final 10 minutes of the game, as the Flames began to seize control of proceedings prior to taking a late lead on a Kris Russel point shot, the Sedin twins saw the ice for just two shifts. That’s the same number of shifts that Bo Horvat’s line and Brad Richardson’s line received in that time frame, and a shift fewer than Nick Bonino’s group was given. 

It was the same story on defense, where Vancouver’s top pair of Alex Edler and Chris Tanev logged just four shifts in the game’s final ten minutes, while Luca Sbisa and Kevin Bieksa’s high event third pair played five.

By the end of the game Henrik, who was dominant, logged fewer minutes at 5-on-5 than Bonino, who was dormant. He logged less than 30 seconds more at 5-on-5 than Horvat, who is 20-years-old! Meanwhile Bieksa, who has struggled for much of this season, logged a minute more at even strength than Tanev did, and Tanev has arguably been the best defensive defenseman in hockey this season.

All season long Desjardins has pushed the right buttons in shepherding this team back to the postseason. He’s also taken a long view to success, focusing on being loyal and giving players an opportunity to make mistakes. 

Desjardins’ approach makes sense in the regular season for a variety of reasons, and the results speak for themselves. The main benefit though, surely, is that deploying your lineup in a balanced fashion helps keep your top players fresh for moments like the last 10 minutes of a tied playoff home game. 

It’s like Desjardins and the Canucks have made a wildly successful investment, but refused to liquidate and reap their gains on Wednesday.

There isn’t a lot of margin for error in a seven game series. At some point Desjardins and the Canucks may have to eschew taking the longview and focus on riding their top players – the Sedins and the Tanev-Edler pairing in particular. 

Otherwise a much shorter Flames bench may well find ways to open them up, and defeat them.