For the first time in a long, long time, the Canucks have a player who could conceivably win someone a million dollars on Safeway Score and Win. To get a million-dollar winner, one Canuck needs to score five goals in a single game; frankly, it’s been a monumental accomplishment the last few seasons when the Canucks as a team score five goals.
Scoring five goals is a rare feat: just 44 players in NHL history have scored five goals in a game, with Johan Franzen, of all people, the latest to do so.
The last Canuck that seemed like he had potential to score five goals in a game was Markus Naslund. He scored four goals in two different games in his career with the Canucks. Daniel Sedin had a four-goal game of his own, but he was always more likely to mix in a few more assists than goals.
But now the Canucks have Brock Boeser. Is it overhyping the 20-year-old rookie to suggest he has a five-goal game in him? Perhaps. Alex Ovechkin hasn’t done it. Neither has Sidney Crosby. But he could have had four goals in this game if he had been a bit more selfish with the empty net. From there he’s just one lucky bounce away from Safeway (or their insurance company) paying out $20,000 per year for the next 50 years.
I didn't get rich when I watched this game.
- It’s been brewing for weeks, but this game seemed to be the true anointing of the new first line of Sven Baertschi, Bo Horvat, and Brock Boeser. There was a ceremony where they poured perfumed oil on each of their heads and it got all over the ice. Very messy.
- Baertschi, Bo, and Boeser, whose alliterative names lend themselves to B-themed line nicknames, did everything a first line should do: they played big minutes, they went head-to-head with the opposition’s first line, and, most importantly, they scored goals. They may not be as good a first line as “"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***ing big television." but they’re on their way.
- The last two games against the Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils, the Canucks soundly outplayed their opponents but just couldn’t buy a goal. In this game the Penguins largely dominated the Canucks — they out-shot them 39 to 21 by the end of the game — but Jacob Markstrom made like someone who wasn’t raised in a barn and shut the door, while the Canucks’ new first line provided the pushback they needed.
- Somewhere in the multiverse there is a universe that is exactly the same as this one, but their Chris Tanev is slightly worse at playing defence than our universe’s Chris Tanev. In that other universe, when Conor Sheary snuck the puck past Markstrom with the Penguins’ first shot of the game, Tanev did not quite reach it in time, giving the Penguins an even earlier 1-0 lead. In that universe’s timeline, giving up the first goal on the first shot again destroyed Markstrom’s confidence for good. The game quickly went off the rails as the Penguins racked up goals, Boeser never scored his hat trick, and Jake Virtanen got a wash-away blue streak in his hair. Life got dark. Fortunately, this universe’s Tanev prevented all of that with the goal-line save.
- The Penguins did eventually open the scoring thanks to some slick passing on the power play. It’s the type of goal that gets described with the phrase “tic-tac-toe,” but that seems inadequate for how pretty the passing truly was. It was more like Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe, the version of tic-tac-toe where each square contains its own tic-tac-toe board.
- The Canucks responded a few minutes later with a pretty goal from the 99-B Line. Horvat pressured Olli Maatta into a turnover that deflected off linesman Ryan Gibbons’ skate to Boeser. Instead of throwing a panicked shot on net, Boeser calmly got past Kris Letang, then deked to the backhand to beat Matt Murray. I haven’t seen that kind of poise under pressure since the Hydraulic Press Channel put sanitary pads to the test.
- Brock Lobster and the Bae-53’s gave the Canucks the lead midway through the second period on a pretty passing play. After Tanev made a great play at the line to keep the puck in, Horvat swung the puck out front with a blind, backhand pass. Baertschi took the pass off his skate, then gingerly touched his tip to the puck to direct it to Boeser, who suddenly appeared at the backdoor like Michael Myers and slashed it into the net.
- One of the best current names in hockey belongs to Greg McKegg (with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg) and he tied the game at 2-2 with a deft tip on a Ryan Reaves slap shot. It was a lot easier for McKegg to tip the puck in because Alex Biega and Michael Del Zotto seemed to have no idea who should be covering whom, with Del Zotto opting for “providing an extra screen in front of my goaltender” instead of tracking down his check.
- The Killer B’s combined to give the Canucks the lead again. Baertschi sprung Bo on a breakout, but Bo had nowhere to go once he gained the line, so he cut back and found the trailing Boeser, who flipped a hat up into the air and caught it on his head. It was a pretty impressive hat trick, particularly since he did it while ripping a wristshot past Murray for his first career hattrick.
- The Bo-Bo-Baer line added some insurance in the third period, as Boeser deferred to Horvat, picking up an assist after he and Baertschi won a puck battle behind the net. Baertschi found Horvat at the seid of the net and he lifted it shortside on Murray. The four point night gave Boeser 13 points in 10 games: he now leads all NHL rookies in points-per-game.
- What might be most impressive is who the Bob-omb Line was playing against: they mainly matched up against Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel and not only held them off the scoresheet, but out-shot them as well. All three members of the line had a positive corsi in this game, the only Canucks forwards who could boast that other than Jake Virtanen, who only played a little over six minutes. It was an outstanding game all-around for the Brobdingnagian Line.
- Jacob Markstrom might not have pitched a shutout against the Penguins as a whole, but he did shutout Phil Kessel. The Penguins’ leading scorer had a team-high six shots on goal, all of them scoring chances from in close, but Markstrom was up to the task every time. Like the photographer for a motorcycle jacket catalogue, Markstrom was flashing leather all night long.
- Penguins defenceman Ian Cole had a pretty incredible game given his third-pairing minutes. When he was on the ice at 5-on-5, the Penguins out-shot the Canucks 15-0. He was on the ice for just under 13 minutes, so the Penguins were averaging more than a shot per minute when he was on the ice and gave up literally no shots on goal in that time. If the Penguins had won this game, he’d be the unsung hero; since they didn’t, he’s a footnote.
