Heading into tonight, the Canucks were 6 points out of a playoff position. Sitting in that playoff position: the Colorado Avalanche.
You just know the players’ moms, who joined the team for this road trip, were having none of that.
“Why can’t you be more like the Avalanche?” they said, “I bet the Avalanche call home every once in a while. What are you, too good to make the playoffs? Fine, go ahead, be an embarrassment to the family, see if I care.”
If only to stop the nagging, the Canucks took this game to the Avalanche, and I watched this game.
- The Canuck moms were a delight, particularly Matt Bartkowski’s mom, Beth. When Bartkowski scored an ever-rare goal (spoilers!) she erupted, like Stevie Ray Vaughan, in pride and joy. “My boy scores! My boy scores!” she said in her best Jannik Hansen voice, “This is the icing on the cake!” It was adorable and marvelous and the highlight of the game.
- That’s actually saying quite a bit, as the Canucks provided multiple highlights. None of them were in the first period. Well, at least no offensive highlights, but Jacob Markstrom made some superb saves, Dan Hamhuis executed some trade-value-increasing backchecking, and Luca Sbisa made a superb defensive play, sprawling out to break up a 3-on-1. That last one alone should have been a sign that this game was going to work out alright for the Canucks.
- An even better sign was when the Canucks somehow managed to survive two 5-on-3s at the end of the first without giving up a goal. Sbisa had a hand in that as well, not so much for the killing of the 5-on-3s, but the creation of one, executing a gorgeous spin-o-rama...straight into a check, falling on his keister and grabbing hold of his check’s stick for the 2-minute minor. He was Dr. Luca and Mr. Sbisa in this game, switching back and forth between brilliance and awfulness.
- The Avalanche opened the scoring early in the second, thanks to three players who are all older than the Sedins: Jarome Iginla, Alex Tanguay, and Francois Beauchemin, who actually scored. The Sedins were also on the ice for the goal, as well as fellow old-fogey (by hockey standards) Radim Vrbata. Poor Ben Hutton couldn’t do anything to prevent the goal because he was too busy explaining to all of them what a Snapchat is.
- The Canucks answered back after Derek Dorsett drew a penalty driving hard to the net. Just as the power play ended, Alex Burrows saw Matt Bartkowski then saw Matt Bartkowscore, as Bartkowski faked a slap shot to draw Blake Comeau into the shooting lane, then slipped a wrist shot under the arm of the newly-screened Semyon Varlamov.
- The first goal of the game may have been super-old, but the gamewinner was super-young, as Sven Baertschi (23) scored on a Ben Hutton (22) rebound that was set up by Bo Horvat (20). The youngest player involved didn’t even get a point, as Jake Virtanen (19) drove to the net, pushing Tyson Barrie into Varlamov, knocking him over to allow the puck to slide in. Surprisingly, the long review that followed upheld the call of a goal on the ice, which leads me to believe they weren’t reviewing the goal, but just repeatedly watching the interview with Beth Bartkowski from earlier in the period.
- The Canucks went into the second intermission up by one, but they were also down by two, losing Brandon Sutter and Alex Edler to injury. Sutter took a puck to the mouth, which likely gave Dan Hamhuis some crazy sympathy pains, while Edler got hit in the ankle by a slap shot. Neither return in the third period, so the end result of this game will satisfy both those on #teamplayoffs and #teamtank.
- Dr. Luca made a reappearance in the second period, as he peeled out from behind his own net and went on an end-to-end rush, slaloming through the Avalanche like they were the bunny hill before dishing off to Bo Horvat. Varlamov, so mesmerized by Sbisa’s Bobby Orr impression, had no chance to stop Horvat’s quick release.
- That gave Horvat a 2-point night, so we’ll ignore how he was 3-for-16 in the faceoff circle, had the worst corsi on the Canucks, and took a bad penalty to give the Avalanche their first 5-on-3. And by “ignore” I meant “awkwardly draw attention to.”
- For someone with a supposedly well-rounded game, Horvat has been looking more and more one-dimensional. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty sweet dimension, full of unicorns, dinosaurs, and laser-swords, but Horvat has to raise the level of his defensive game to match the awesomeness of his offensive game.
