There appears to be no greater disconnect between the Canucks’ fans and coaches than the one sparked by Jake Virtanen. The young winger has satisfied both the eye test and the analytics types, showcasing his great speed and shot, while also posting a solid 54.84% corsi. He’s drawn penalties without taking any himself, he takes shots on goal at an elite rate, and he has provided a spark to the Sedin line every time he takes the ice with them.
And yet, Travis Green doesn’t seem sold. He’s averaging under 10 minutes per game in ice time, the lowest on the Canucks, and was just a healthy scratch for three straight games.
This game was no different: Virtanen helped create a couple good early chances, nearly scored on a wraparound, and threw a few hits, while he and the Sedins largely controlled the pace of play when they were on the ice. He ended up getting just 9:12 in ice time, getting benched for a long stretch of the second period when his line was on the ice for a goal against.
Alternatively, maybe it was the Sedins getting benched and his limited ice time was just an unfortunate byproduct. If only it wasn’t such a pervasive pattern, I might actually believe that. But I've seen the pattern as I've watched each game, just like I watched this game.
- Like Conner4Real, Brock Boeser never stops never stopping. He shows no signs of ending his point-per-game pace. He opened the scoring by driving out of the corner between Colton Parayko and Brayden Schenn, dekeing past Sven Baertschi, then using Carl Gunnarsson as a screen to beat Jake Allen.
- Boeser isn’t perfect, however, and he proved it later in the first period. Tired after a minute-and-a-half long shift, he made a classic backchecking blunder, skating straight back to the net without checking to see if there was anyone he should be checking. Turns out there was, and he scored. Look, Brock, I know you want to put the team on your back, but wearing blinders like a racehorse is unnecessary. As is the saddle and the neighing. It’s weirding everyone out.
- Some might argue that the Blues’ first goal shouldn’t have counted as the Blues had too many men, with 9 skaters on the ice when the Blues entered the zone. I’m not entirely convinced: any time teams change on the fly, there’s going to be a moment when you could capture an image of “too many men” on the ice. This one is really close: Paul Stastny received the puck at about the same moment the player he was replacing stepped onto the bench. This might need some more scrutiny.
- Anders Nilsson didn’t have his best game, giving up four goals on 31 shots, but he did manage to keep Vladimir Tarasenko off the scoresheet. Tarasenko had 12 shot attempts, including a game-high five shots on goal, and came closest to scoring off a neutral zone turnover by Loui Eriksson. His wrist shot squeaked through Nilsson, but the big Swede managed to spin around and grab the puck with his blocker hand before it could make like Louis CK and cross the line.
- Loui Eriksson chipped in on both sides of special teams in this game, assisting on both a shorthanded goal and a power play goal. For the shorthanded goal, he broke out on a 3-on-1 and lifted a nifty saucer pass over a laid out Alex Pietrangelo to Markus Granlund, who took advantage of his time and space to open up Allen’s pads like an unboxing video, and tucked the puck between them.
- That goal had to feel sweet for both Granlund and Eriksson, who have both struggled offensively. Granlund did a more restrained version of Danny Briere’s slide-on-one-knee fist-pump, which, knowing Granlund’s fairly reserved personality, is equivalent to throwing both gloves in the air, riding his stick down the ice like a pony, then leaping through the glass at the other end of the ice.
- Eriksson added another primary assist on a Bo Horvat power play goal, creating a rebound with a high hard one: the equivalent of a brushback pitch in baseball. Allen fought off the shot with his shoulder, but the effort of the save sent him off-balance, and he braced himself with his blocker on the ice. That moved his stick away from his five-hole and Baertschi swatted it through his wickets.
- The Blues pulled one back with a dominant shift against the Sedin line, which might have been the impetus for the Sedins and Virtanen seeing so much of the bench for the rest of the game. On the scoring play, however, it was Alex Biega leaving his man, Vladimir Sobotka, to deliever a hit on Jake Virtanen’s check. Somehow, Virtanen got blamed on the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, as well as in our local media, but it was Biega’s check that was left open to score the goal.
- The Canucks looked to score a fourth goal not long after, but the referees called it back with a decision that was, to be diplomatic, utter bullpucky. With a delayed penalty about to be called, the Canucks maintained possession and Bo Horvat centred for Thomas Vanek, who scored off his own rebound. But the goal was disallowed as “the puck was touched by St. Louis and a hand pass.” The puck was touched by St. Louis: Alex Steen grabbed the puck with his hand and knocked it to the ice; I wouldn’t call that a change of possession, though I might call it a minor penalty for closing his hand on the puck. There was no hand pass: it seemed like the linesman who called the hand pass thought the Canucks committed the hand pass, as a hand pass against the Blues wouldn’t be called, since they were in the defensive zone. All-around, it was a complete clustercuss, and it stole the 4-2 goal from the Canucks.
- Here’s how brutally they screwed this up: with a penalty on the Blues, the faceoff should have been in the offensive zone. Instead, they pulled it out to the neutral zone, which only would have happened if it was called a hand pass on the Canucks, which — once again — did not happen. The Blues won the faceoff in the neutral zone and Alex Edler took a hooking penalty on the subsequent rush, negating the power play right after the referees incorrectly negated the goal.
- About five minutes into the third period, the Blues tied the game 3-3 when Sam Gagner completely lost track of Joel Edmundson sneaking down from the point. You can check the replay: Gagner doesn’t so much as look at Edmundson for a solid 10 seconds. By the time he does, Edmundson is hammering a one-timer past Nilsson.
- It’s hard to blame Sam Gagner too much, however, as he’s just really ill-suited for a defensive role. His offensive awareness is very good: his defensive awareness, non-existent. It’s like taking a square peg and line-matching it against Vladimir Tarasenko. The Canucks were out-attempted 13-5 when Gagner was on the ice at 5-on-5 against Tarasenko, with shots on goal 6-1.
- Travis Green didn’t like his defence pairings in this game and for good reason. Alex Edler and Derrick Pouliot got shelled playing some tough minutes early on, so Michael Del Zotto moved to Edler’s right side and Pouliot got paired with Alex Biega. The two new pairings looked decent enough together and could possibly get a longer look on the upcoming road trip.
- Derrick Pouliot has been about as good as the Canucks could reasonably hope, but his flaws are easy to pick out, which is likely why he got a rough ride from coaches in Pittsburgh. His skating is superb, but in overtime he got caught pivoting to the outside defending Brayden Schenn 1-on-1. As soon as Pouliot stepped to the outside, Schenn cut inside and Pouliot was about as hooped as a hoop dancer. Schenn ripped the shot blocker side on Nilsson and completed the comeback.
