It was hard to tell without being on the ice whether Alex Burrows was smack talking the Canucks players in his return to Vancouver. I have to wonder how that would work when it came to his former teammates.
Burrows and Ryan Kesler used to do actual research into opponents to figure out the right buttons to push, from innocuously making fun of Aaron Downey's potato farm to taking things way too far, particularly early in his career.
But it feels like if you know a person too well, it would actually be detrimental to your ability to chirp them. A little bit of information — a potato farm, the name of a significant other, a rumoured cocaine habit — adds a certain dash of spice to an on-ice chirp. Too much information and it just doesn’t work. If Burrows said to Henrik Sedin, “Tell Johanna I said hi,” Henrik would just respond with, “Of course! We’ll have to have you over for dinner sometime next summer. I'll tell the kids you said 'hi' too.”
I watched this game.
- One of the reasons I was okay with Burrows (and Jannik Hansen, for that matter) getting traded last season is that it gives another fan base a chance to finally see why Canucks fans love him so much. Sure, the Senators are getting a worn down version of Burrows and don’t get the added benefit of seeing him come from nothing, but they can still see his passion for the game, his willingness to do whatever it takes to help his team, and his scrappy, two-way play.
- How does the saying go? Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it? Canucks fans bemoaned Willie Desjardins’ tendency to roll four lines, foregoing any attempt at line-matching. Well, Travis Green believes in line-matching, to the extent that Derek Dorsett led the Canucks in 5-on-5 ice time because he and his linemates were hard-matched against the Senators’ first line. So, you get line-matching, but it means Dorsett plays more than he should. It’s not quite a wish for 200 pounds granted by the Monkey’s Paw, but it might be from a lesser episode of The Scary Door.
- I have to admit to some befuddlement: Travis Green promised different lineups to face different teams, but dressed the exact same lineup for the Senators as he did for the Oilers. Did the Canucks really need a dedicated shutdown line for Bobby Ryan, Derrick Brassard, and Mark Stone? If so, did they want a shutdown line that gets out-shot 11-5 at even-strength?
- The Canucks gave up 40 shots in regulation against a Senators team missing the best defencemen in the NHL, Erik Karlsson. As much as the Canucks have been more fun to watch in the first two games of the season, if they regularly give up 40 shots, their opponents will be handing them Ls like they’re ICBC and the Canucks just turned 16.
- Jacob Markstrom let in the first shot of the game on Saturday, so he wanted to get off to a better start in his second game. He did: he let in the second shot of the game instead. Cody Ceci’s shot looked harmless, while Markstrom looked like the cockney pronunciation — ‘armless — as the shot snuck through as if his left arm wasn’t even there.
- Markstrom found his arm again in time to rob Burrows with his best save of the night, bailing out Troy Stecher after a terrible giveaway. It looked like a sure goal, but Markstrom reached out his glove like Kylo Ren at the end of the new trailer for The Last Jedi.
- It was Stecher’s defence partner, Ben Hutton, with the terrible giveaway on the Senators’ second goal, losing the puck behind his own net. He then compounded the issue by puck-watching instead of finding his new check, leaving Ryan Dzingel wide open for Bobby Ryan’s nice cross-ice pass. As always, the passes Dzingel gets, Dzingel buries.
- Henrik Sedin showed some flash midway through the first, banking the puck off the back of the net to himself to lose Mark Borowiecki before centring for Daniel, who was tied up. Instead, the puck came to Chris Tanev, and he whipped a shot past a well-set Thomas Vanek screen to tie the game 1-1.
- The Sedins and Vanek combined for the Canucks’ second goal with a set play off the faceoff. Henrik and Vanek won the faceoff back to Stecher, who stepped down the boards, while Vanek rotated up to the point. Meanwhile, Daniel rotated from the right boards to the front of the net to provide a screen, while Henrik set a secondary screen while battling with a check in the faceoff circle. In the chaos, Craig Anderson lost sight of the puck, and Stecher moved it back to Vanek, who had a good two feet of net to shoot at on the blocker side. With those kinds of set plays, Travis Green should have gone to a theatre school to do set design.
- Michael Del Zotto was extremely noticeable in this game, partly because he regular jumped up in the play to create scoring chances, but also because he was always on the ice. He led the Canucks in ice time with 24:38, with only 10 seconds of that coming on the power play. Apparently Green trusts Del Zotto a lot more defensively than anyone expected.
- The Senators finished the game with 42 shots; Markstrom made 40 saves. You can’t pin the loss on him, even if he did make the same save selection multiple times, dropping his right pad and blocker, opening up that side of the net. Kyle Turris and Mark Stone saw the move and took advantage, with each going high blocker. It’s odd to Senators going high blocker, as the Senate is actually working to protect medical marijuana.
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Markus Granlund scored the Canucks’ lone goal in the shootout with a beautiful backhand move, but it highlighted an issue like a preteen with a magazine: the Canucks don’t have dependable options in the shootout. Granlund and Vanek are good options, but that’s about it. If only the Canucks had a skilled goalscorer with sick shootout moves just hanging around, not playing.
