The Canucks have had some excellent games this season against tough opponents. They took the Western Conference-leading Nashville Predators to overtime last week. They’ve hung six goals on the Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings, and Washington Capitals.
In their two meetings with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Canucks made short work of the defending Stanley Cup Champions, out-scoring them 9-4 overall.
And yet, they can’t seem to do anything with the last-place Arizona Coyotes. They’ve now allowed 76 total shots on goal in two games against the Coyotes. It’s not just about the absence of Brock Boeser, this was just a putrid pair of games against the worst team in the NHL.
Somehow I managed to watch this game.
- Don’t feel bad for me — this is still a dream job, even with the sometimes terrible games — but feel bad for the NHL’s YouTube guy who somehow had to find nearly nine minutes of highlights for the above video. That guy is the greatest video editor in history.
- Seriously, there was so much nothing to start this game that I expected God to show up and start creating stuff ex nihilo. There was so much nothing that I tried to grill it and make a literal nothingburger, but when I went to divide up the nothing, I ended up with an undefined burger instead.
- It seemed fitting, then, that the first big highlight of the game ended up also being nothing. While killing a 5-on-3, Alex Edler blocked a shot, then swatted the puck out of midair to the neutral zone, where Brandon Sutter skated onto it for a rare two-man-shorthanded breakaway. Sutter’s move to the backhand was great, and the refs signalled for a goal, but the puck hit the crossbar instead. It didn’t even count as a shot on goal. Like Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston, it was almost something.
- When the team in front of him manages just 17 shots, you can’t blame the goaltender for the loss. That’s especially true when one of the goals scored against him was preceded by one of his best saves of the year. Markstrom’s glove save on Brendan Perlini off a rebound was stunning, but the puck didn’t stay in his glove. At least he didn’t hold his glove up in the air like Patrick Roy while Clayton Keller shoved the puck in from under Alex Edler.
- The Canucks replied in the first period after their longest stretch of sustained possession all game, maintaining control for a full minute during a delayed penalty. They passed the puck around in a way they didn’t manage for the rest of the game. It was Brendan Leipsic, Sam Gagner, Henrik Sedin, Jussi Jokinen, Troy Stecher and Michael Del Zotto on the ice for the Canucks, shrinking the Coyotes in the defensive zone. Stecher, in particular, did some nice work to keep the puck in along the blue line, though he didn’t end up with a point on the goal.
- The two key parts of the goal: a one-touch pass from below the goal line by Brendan Leipsic and a top-corner finish by Jussi Jokinen. Passes from below the goal line are tough for goaltenders to deal with, as they have to change their position and angle significantly before the shot, but not even perfect positioning could stop that shot from Jokinen, which was more perfectly placed than a Chase Headley bunt.
- Markstrom got some help in this game from his posts, which repeatedly came up big in the second period. I mean, metaphorically big. I’m assuming Markstrom didn’t get the Rogers Arena staff to switch the nets out for ones with bigger posts.
- Jake Virtanen was physical once again in this game and was credited with six hits, but so were the Canucks as a whole: Troy Stecher also had six hits, Michael Del Zotto and Tyler Motte had five hits, and Alex Edler had four. When you don’t have the puck, you tend to rack up more hits. The Canucks out-hitting the Coyotes 35-19 in this game is a symptom of how badly they were outplayed, not a sign that they were playing a heavy, physical game.
- Among a team of player playing badly, Nikolay Goldobin was playing the badliest. At least, that’s what can be surmised from him getting benched in the third period. He played just one shift in the third, the bulk of it in the defensive zone, and watched the rest of the game. It’s frustrating: with injuries and no playoffs to play for, this is the time for young players to seize their opportunity, but Goldobin has been maddeningly inconsistent. He needs to follow the advice of Wreck-Gar: you check in, but you don’t check out. He’s been checked out far too often.
- In the last nine-and-a-half minutes of the game, the Canucks had just one shot on goal. I don’t have a punch line for this bullet point, because it’s already a joke.
- It was almost a relief when the Coyotes scored with a minute left in the game. For members of Team Tank, you can remove the “almost.” The Canucks didn’t deserve a point in that game and if it had gone to overtime and they had managed to pull out the win at 3-on-3, it seems like it might have reinforced some negative messages. Instead, the Canucks were left with a clear message: they weren’t good enough. Troy Stecher called it “rock bottom.” No, Stecher. That's not rock bottom; this is rock bottom:
