The Canucks have now been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Even if they win all 11 of their remaining games, the Canucks can only reach 81 points. Nine teams in the Western Conference, including four in the Pacific Division, are already at 82 points.
They’re not the first team to be mathematically eliminated this season. That honour goes to the Arizona Coyotes, thanks to a convoluted series of potential outcomes that can be better explained by Micah Blake McCurdy and his PhD in Mathematics.
Mathematical elimination is a funny thing, because it implies that there can be other types of elimination. Emotional and mental elimination seem to have occurred several weeks ago. In the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle of Elimination, Canucks fans have been at Acceptance for a while.
What other types of elimination could there be? Philosophical elimination? Existential elimination? Metaphysical elimination?
I saw a lot of body waste elimination when I watched this game.
- The Canucks can’t score. That’s been true for several seasons now, but it’s become quite literal over the last three games. With no Brock Boeser and with the Sedin twins looking increasingly weary, the Canucks have been shutout in three straight and have barely even threatened to score. How many goals do you think they have in them over the remaining 11 games?
- The Canucks last goal came 212:09 ago in ice time. In real time, it’s been a lot longer. By the time the Canucks’ next game rolls around on Saturday, it will be over a week since they last scored a goal. Cue the Barenaked Ladies references. Heck, the last time the Canucks scored a goal, Rex Tillerson was still the US Secretary of State.
- The last Canucks goal was scored by Jussi Jokinen. The primary assist? Erik Gudbranson. Neither player was even in the lineup in this game. It’s been that long.
- Going goalless in three straight games is relatively rare, but it happens. In fact, the Buffalo Sabres were shut out three times in a row earlier this season, though it was the first time in franchise history. But the Canucks are nearing history: the longest goal drought in modern NHL history is 253:33, set by the New York Rangers in the 1999-2000 season. Unless the Canucks score a goal by the first minute of the third period on Saturday, they’ll be the new record holders.
- Of course, the Canucks are extremely unlikely to touch the all-time mark of eight games without a goal, set by the 1953-54 Chicago Blackhawks. That was 581 minutes and 42 seconds without scoring a single goal. Incredible.
- Just to rub it in, the Ducks got their goals from some unlikely sources. Brandon Montour opened the scoring with his first goal in 50 games. Then Jason Chimera scored just his third goal of the season and first of 2018. And finally, Montour scored again, this time on the power play, for his first ever two-goal game. It’s like the Ducks were laughing at them: What, you can’t score any goals? Even these chumps can score!
- I’d like to clear something up: I have it on good authority that Alex Biega does not, in fact, drink two Red Bulls before every hockey game, as Jake Virtanen claimed he did. I guess Virtanen was just joking around about Biega’s high energy style of play or maybe he actually thought it was true. But it’s not. Biega’s energy levels actually come from a controversial and likely illegal gene-splicing experiment that infused him with bulldog DNA.
- (For the sake of journalizm, that last bit isn’t true either.)
- The pairing of Biega and Ben Hutton was the Canucks’ best defensive duo on the night, despite some shaky moments from Hutton with the puck. The Canucks out-shot the Ducks 10-3 when they were on the ice together at 5-on-5, as they successfully pushed the puck up ice and limited the amount of time they spent in their own zone. With Gudbranson out, we’re likely to see a lot more of Biega and Hutton and it will be interesting to see how the different play style affects Hutton.
- I dropped the gloves with Nic Dowd for his role in the Ducks’ second goal, but to be fair, he had some nice moments offensively. His redirect on a Michael Del Zotto slap pass was one of the Canucks’ best scoring chances in the first period and he set up a Reid Boucher shot with a lovely bank pass off the boards that would make a billiards player proud. It’s not that he had a great game, but it certainly wasn’t all bad.
- It’s always a bad sign when a Sedin complains to a referee so much that he gets a misconduct. They’re about as even-keeled as they come, so when they lose their cool, it’s a sign of some real frustration. Daniel’s 10-minute misconduct came after Alex Edler took an interference call for hitting Corey Perry away from the puck. The Canucks likely thought Edler was interfered with on the Ducks’ second goal and that Perry embellished, but the hit on Edler wasn’t too long after he passed the puck and Edler’s hit on Perry was a blatant penalty. There wasn’t much to complain about, but it’s easy to understand the frustration. We’re all frustrated, but the players are the ones that live in that frustration day-in, day-out.
- You have to feel for Bo Horvat. He's giving it his all, playing over 20 minutes again in this game, but he's lost both of his usual linemates in Brock Boeser and Sven Baertschi. He's trying to make it on his own like Li'l Brudder. He's got the heart of a champion. He's gonna be a quarterback when he grows up. He's just such a trooper.
