If you’re a Vancouver Canucks fan and you haven’t yet watched the Canucks host the New York Rangers, I have some advice to ensure continued happy thoughts and warm, fuzzy feelings towards your team. Watch the first period only. In fact, scratch that. Watch the first 18 minutes of the first period. Trust me, you will feel very confident and go to sleep happy. Also, disregard those numbers at the top of this article. Ignorance is bliss.
If you choose instead to forge ahead against my advice and endure the second and third periods, don’t hold it against me. Notice my careful choice of words: endure. This was a rough game to witness, as the Rangers manhandled an unsteady looking Jacob Markstrom, scoring seven goals, including two on the power play. Particularly stark was the contrast between the goaltenders, with Henrik Lundqvist looking as sharp as ever. After the game Markstrom mentioned that he’d like at least five of those goals back. I wish he had them back too, because then Canucks fans would be gearing up for an exciting overtime period instead of crying into their Kraft Dinner.
This “I Watched This Game” brought to you by Kraft Dinner: the perfect meal to depressedly weep into! I watched this game.
- Despite Vancouver controlling the play and sustaining pressure against Henrik Lundqvist for the better part of 18 minutes in the first period, and despite some big, timely saves by Markstrom earlier, J.T. Miller tipped in a goal near the end of the frame and the Canucks went into the second period chasing the lead for the 76th time this season. OK that’s a huge exaggeration. They never lead. It was frustrating to watch a team do everything right and yet end the period more deflated than a giant, runaway Minion.
- From that point on the Canucks scrambled to try to even things up with the Rangers. Kevin Hayes made the score 2-0 on a rush halfway through the second period. It was hard to understand how Jacob Markstrom didn’t manage to stop this big, slow slapshot. The windup alone took about three seconds. To say he telegraphed this shot is an understatement. True story: it was one of the first signals that Guglielmo Marconi picked up via his long distance radio apparatus. Needless to say that if an Italian inventor who has been dead for 79 years knew what Hayes was up to, Marky probably should’ve had that one.
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Michael “Did He Say Shampoo?” Chaput had a pretty good game on the fourth line. He was denied by Lundqvist around the 7-minute mark of the second period on a cherry centring pass from Brendan Gaunce. It was among Lundqvist’s best saves of the game.
Chaput did not score his first ever goal as a Canuck against Lundqvist on this brilliant chance. However, moments later on the bench, he realized that if two people accidentally drop a piece of bread on opposite sides of the planet, the Earth temporarily becomes a sandwich. And that’s amazing. So it wasn’t all bad news. - After an unfortunate Luca Sbisa slashing penalty, Jacob Markstrom made a trio of good saves before Brandon Pirri banked a shot up and over Markstrom’s pads to make the score 3-0 for New York. Pirri had way more time and space than he should have had on this goal. In an alarming turn, Canucks fans throughout Rogers Arena began to suffer respiratory ailments due to the fact that most of the breathable air had been sucked out of the building.
- The Sutter-Sedins experiment is starting to yield some results. Near the end of the second period, with Henrik Sedin standing in front of the net as a screen, Brandon Sutter wristed a laser past Lundqvist, going top corner for his third goal of the season. Fans gasped in delight, not because the goal was particularly spectacular but because oxygen was suddenly reintroduced to Rogers Arena, and being able to breath is delightful. Or perhaps their joy was a byproduct of the raw mystique of seeing a Vancouver player screening the goalie. What will they think of next? Finishing their checks? Dumping in the puck and actually having someone retrieve it? A burrito stuffed with Cheetos?
- Interesting tidbit: in his spare time Kevin Hayes moonlights as a door-to-door vacuum salesman. Shortly after Sutter put Vancouver on the board, Hayes performed one of his sales pitches at Rogers Arena, demonstrating the latest in advanced, bagless technology and then hoovering what little breathable air remained out of Rogers Arena. Two minutes into the third period, with the Canucks about to be called on a delayed hooking penalty, Hayes sped up the ice and rifled a puck over Markstrom on a breakaway. It really sucked.
- I hadn’t even finished tapping out a pithy comment on Twitter before, seconds later, J.T. Miller fired home his second goal of the game after a gorgeous feed from behind the net by Mats Zuccarello. At this point the Rangers really began to run the Vancouver Canucks ragged. Where did all of the jump, energy and chemistry of the first period go? Did I really watch it, or was it all just a crazy ayahuasca dream? Aren’t those supposed to help you achieve great insights about your life and the universe? If so, I only really had two epiphanies: first, that Vancouver is single-handedly destroying the argument for the relevance of Corsi, and second, fettuccine alfredo is just macaroni and cheese for grown-ups.
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At around the 13-minute mark of the third period, Markus Granlund decided he’d had enough of this “being down by four goals” thing. He donned a hard hat and reflective vest, filled his tin lunch box with Kaalikääryleet and Perunamuusi and drove for the net, batting in a Derek Dorsett rebound off Nick Holden. Sure it was a bit of a broken play, but his goal the result of pure hard work, and kudos to him for avoiding a high stick call. He had a great game.
Before that goal, this goal. pic.twitter.com/TxH98QnSvG
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 16, 2016 - Alas, a comeback was not to be, as Mats Zuccarello padded the Rangers’ lead two minutes later. After a bit of cycling in Vancouver’s zone, Nick Holden slid a cross-ice pass to a waiting Zuccarello, who sent the puck top shelf, smooth as butter. Am I allowed to say the play was beautiful? I’m not even mad, it was amazing.
- An Alain Vigneault coached hockey team does not just insult. It also adds injury. Nick Holden made up for his involvement in the Granlund tally by slapping home a seventh goal after a late penalty awarded them a power play. That means they went 2-for-3 on the power play all evening. In addition to their gaudy scoring and power play statistics, the Rangers lead the league in time spent leading a game, and Vancouver certainly padded those statistics. (Incidentally, who do you suppose is last place on that list?) If only the Canucks could land a coach like Mr. Vigneault some day.
- At this point the game became so un-good that I needed to make up something amazing just so the universe fit my narrative again. Bo Horvat, having earlier received a brutal elbow to the noggin from Brandon Pirri, and frustrated that despite another game of excellent chemistry and plenty of chances the BurBoBae line had yet to contribute to the scoresheet, skated back to the bench, strapped on a jet pack, grabbed Pirri and launched him up and through a plate glass window. “Sorry to send you home early, it’s been smashing,” said Horvat, as glass shards rained down on the ice below. Totally didn’t happen, but I feel better having written it.
- Vancouver lived up to their season motto: “Making the depressingly impossible, possible!” They outshot the Rangers 38-25, and had a team Corsi For percentage of over 62%. In other words, it was an advanced statistics win and a goaltending double whammy loss. Lundqvist on one end had a save percentage of .947, while Jacob Markstrom ended the evening with .720, stopping only 18 shots in total. That’s not to say Vancouver made life particularly difficult for Lundqvist, but a stronger performance by the Canucks backup goaltender certainly could have changed the tone.
- Your perplexing statistic of the game: much maligned defender Luca Sbisa played pretty well. He wound up with two assists and the highest possession stats on the team, a Corsi For of over 75%.
- Your unhelpful comment of the game: Vancouver was three picks removed from being able to select Patrik Laine, who just scored his 12th goal of the season against Chicago, placing him in the league lead.
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Your Troy Stecher update of the game: The Golden Stech looked great all game, playing big minutes and controlling the puck well during a second period power play alongside the Sedins. He later rang a puck off the post after a faceoff win late in the third period. Though it’s easy to label him as the latest in a string of Vancouver puck moving defensemen, it’s pretty clear that his game is far more complete, and his ability to distribute the puck is more effective than “specialists” like Philip Larsen.
