The Canucks haven’t exactly been the luckiest team in the NHL. It dates back to their very foundations, when they lost the first overall pick in their first draft with the spin of a wheel. They came a post away from tying Game 7 in the 1994 Stanley Cup Final. And I can’t help but look at 2011 and wonder what might have been different if Manny Malhotra wore a visor or Dan Hamhuis didn’t hipcheck Milan Lucic.
But occasionally, the hockey gods dole out a little bit of puck luck to the Canucks, generally when it doesn’t matter at all. Such as this game.
The Canucks got more friendly bounces than a Happy Gilmore putt. More bounces went their way than Kreesha Turner. They got luckier than Gladstone Gander holding a rabbit's foot on July 7th, 2007 in a field of four-leaf clovers.
That’s not to say they didn’t play well — they did — but playing well and getting bounces don’t always correlate. For an example, just look at the Columbus Blue Jackets in this game. They played pretty well and none of the bounces went their way.
I watched this game.
- Brendan Gaunce returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch against the Capitals. Intriguingly, he lined up at centre between two skilled wingers, Sven Baertschi and Nikolay Goldobin. It didn’t last — Gaunce was moved to the wing with Nic Dowd and Jake Virtanen in a shutdown role — but it’s interesting that Travis Green was willing to put him in an offensive role, one that he played for Green with the Utica Comets.
- Goldobin got benched like a weightlifter’s girlfriend for most of the game. He only played two shifts in the second period and three in the third, finishing with just 6:32 in ice time. I mean, the Canucks got out-shot 7-2 during those six-and-a-half minutes, so maybe there’s a legitimate reason he watched most of the game.
- Like a spammer on a message board, the Blue Jackets were hitting post after post. Oliver Bjorkstrand hit one in the first period, Nick Foligno and David Savard hit back-to-back posts on one shift in the second period, and Lukas Sedlak hit another in the third period. This is, of course, why goalies are also called “netminders.” They don’t have to worry about the posts. The posts are their friends and when friends ask if you mind, you never do.
- Alex Edler usually tries to play goalie and block shots instead of being more aggressive and closing the gap on the shooter, but he changed things up on an early penalty kill, skating out hard on Seth Jones. Unfortunately, Jones ended up firing the puck under Markstrom’s right arm and in for the opening goal. “I knew it!” said Edler, probably. “I’m never doing that again.”
- After a pretty mediocre first period, the Canucks took off like a lawn mower listening to Mariah Carey in the second, scoring four unanswered goals. Three of those four goals were aided by a lucky bounce, but there’s some element of truth to the adage that you make your own luck.
- It started on the Canucks’ first goal. Sam Gagner kept an errant Thomas Vanek pass in at the blue line, then sent a shot towards the goal. It was partially blocked, but still (luckily) made it through to Vanek parked in front. He spotted Sven Baertschi at the backdoor and sent a spinning backhand pass towards him that ended up on his tape only because it (luckily) hit Scott Harrington’s skate. It looked like a brilliant passing play and, in some ways, it was.
- Not long after, the Canucks got lucky again when Artemi Panarin, the Blue Jackets’ leading scorer, somehow missed an open net. Perhaps he was intimidated by Chris Tanev’s grim, cage’d visage as the defenceman attempted to block the shot. The newly toothless Tanev does look pretty frightening.
- It may sound odd now, but when Erik Gudbranson was in Junior, he was known as much for his heavy shot as his physical defensive game. That shot hasn’t translated to the NHL, mainly because he’s rarely in a position to use it, but Loui Eriksson gave him the perfect opportunity with a great pass from behind the Columbus net. The puck was right in Gudbranson’s wheelhouse and he blasted the one-timer past Sergei Bobrovsky. It was a beautiful shot.
- Brendan Gaunce could not have picked a more Gauncian way to score his first NHL goal with a stick. See, his previous two goals banked in off his skate, but on this one, he took a gorgeous cross-ice pass from Vanek, loaded up a wrist shot, and went bar down, top cheddar, red light district. Well, that’s what he meant to do until his stick broke in half like Mankind and the puck slid ever so gently through the stunned Bobrovsky’s legs.
- Alex Edler made it 4-1 a couple minutes later, flinging a puck towards the net off a Sedin cycle. Edler hasn’t had a lot of luck with his shots this season, but he got it here. The shot was likely more of a pass to Henrik Sedin at the side of the net, but Edler got the friendliest bounce since Blake Griffin’s overtime three-pointer, as the puck banked in off the skate of Nutivaara, which is not a new granola bar, as I initially thought.
- The Blue Jackets managed to make it 4-2 midway through the third period, but with the way the bounces were going, the game never seemed to be in doubt. Also never in Doubt? Ralph Fiennes. He was not in that movie.
- There was really just one big bummer about this game: no points for Brock Boeser. I didn’t even know it was possible for this team to score five goals without Boeser recording a point. I guess miracles do happen.
