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I Watched This Game: Last chance to see the Sedins

Canucks 2, Oilers 3 (SO)
Daniel Wagner
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After an incredible final home game on Thursday night, what would the actual conclusion of the Sedin’s careers entail on Saturday night? What would be the ideal metaphor for their final game?

Would this be a denouement, an encore, or a post-credits scene?

A post-credits scene, made particularly popular in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, usually provides a glimpse of the future. It’s Nick Fury inviting Iron Man to join the “Avenger Initiative” or Phil Coulson finding Mjolnir. If the Sedins had receded into the background while the kids took centre stage, that would be an excellent post-credits scene to complete the season.

While there were flashes from Adam Gaudette, Nikolay Goldobin, and Jake Virtanen, but the goals were scored by two players that might not even play a game for the Canucks next season. So it wasn't a post-credits scene.

Maybe it would be an encore. Like a great band that played an incredible set on Thursday, maybe the Sedins would come out and play a couple more of their biggest hits on Saturday as an encore. Perhaps the Sedins could dig deep and find one last incredible game.

That wasn’t it either. The Sedins were the Canucks’ best line and they had their chances, but that one magical moment never came.

So it was a denouement after Thursday’s climax. It wrapped up some loose ends — Daniel Sedin can score in the shootout! — and provided a satisfactory closing scene. It was a bit of a letdown after the perfection of their final home game, but it was kind of a necessary letdown, the kind that made it feel okay to turn that final page and close the book.

The late, great Douglas Adams wrote a non-fiction book titled “Last Chance To See,” where he, along with Mark Carwardine, went around the world to see several endangered species before they died off completely. I couldn’t help but think of this as the last chance to see the endangered Sedin twins in the wild as I watched this game

  • I would be remiss not to mention the tragic bus crash involving the Humboldt Broncos. There’s nothing I can say that would do justice to the pain and loss being experienced by the families of those involved and the entire Humboldt community. If you are so inclined, you can donate to the Go Fund Me for the families.
  • This game was never going to match Thursday’s game in terms of the emotion and atmosphere or the perfect plotline, but there was still several great moments and the Sedins once again proved that they didn’t have to; they chose to. They can still play and they dominated puck possession when they were on the ice and created several scoring chances.
  • The player with the most scoring chances, however, was one of the young guns: Adam Gaudette. The young centre has gotten better every game and showed some brash confidence in this game to continually get to the front of the net for scoring chances. He just couldn’t hit the back of the net. His best chance came early in the first period when Brendan Leipsic set him up for a one-timer in the slot, but Matt Benning got his stick in to deflect it out of play. Fortunately, there aren’t other Bennings out there who might prevent a young Canuck from succeeding.
  • It is baffling that a team with Connor McDavid, and other young offensive players like Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, has the worst power play percentage in the league, but seeing it in action on Saturday provided some hints as to why that might be, as they kept trying to force the same or similar play again and again: a backdoor pass to Draisaitl. Like Albert Einstein definitely didn’t say, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
  • That quote, incidentally, is terrible, particularly when attributed to a scientist like Einstein. One of the keys to the scientific method is repetition and one of the most exciting moments is when you repeat the same thing and get a different result. Heck, in quantum mechanics, which owes some of its origins to Einstein, different results happen all the time from doing the same thing over and over again.
  • All that is to say, the Oilers scored on a backdoor pass to Draisaitl on the power play. So either the Oilers are not insane or the Canucks’ penalty kill is quite bad.
  • The Canucks responded well to the goal: the Sedins got a couple scoring chances on the next shift, then Nikolay Goldobin drove to the net, snapped a shot off the post, then sent a spinning backhand in front to Jake Virtanen. While they couldn’t score, the two strong shifts led to a power play, as Virtanen goaded Ryan Strome into a slash.
  • A former Sedin linemate gave the Canucks a 5-on-3 less than a minute later. Alex Edler drilled Ryan Nugent-Hopkins along the boards and Zack Kassian took exception with a hard crosscheck that earned a penalty. It was a nice gesture by Kassian to try to help out the twins in their final game.
  • The 5-on-3 couldn’t come through, but immediately after the power play expired Jussi Jokinen tied the game with a nifty tip on a Leipsic point shot. It’s been a big couple weeks for Jokinen, who came to Vancouver as seemingly a salary dump, but has worked hard to prove he can still put up points. I don’t think the Canucks should sign him, but someone definitely should.
  • I had to laugh at Darnell Nurse leaping up to volleyball spike the puck into the net in the second period. I mean, I know the Nurses are a multi-sport family with his sister, Kia Nurse, representing Canada internationally in basketball, and his uncle, Donavan McNabb, a former star quarterback, but you can’t do that, Darnell. No volleyball on ice; just hardwood and sand.
  • Is Tyler Motte a part of the Canucks future? He certainly has NHL speed, but he lacks certain other NHL-caliber qualities and his puck possession numbers have been atrocious. It’s hard not to compare him to other high-speed players like Griffen Molino and Jayson Megna. He put the Canucks ahead 2-1 in the second period when Brandon Sutter pulled a puck out of a scrum, giving him two goals in 15 games with the Canucks.
  • Alex Edler had a big grin on his face at the end of his second intermission interview with Scott Oake. The likely reason? Oake informed him that Henrik Sedin considers him the third Sedin.

 

 

  • I’m fairly certain Oake got that from this article I wrote on Saturday. To be clear, it’s not that Henrik calls Edler the “third Sedin” but when I asked if that’s how he thinks of Edler, Henrik didn’t hesitate: “Yes, for us, for sure.” Daniel and Henrik speak so highly of Edler and are quick to volunteer praise for him even when he’s not mentioned by name. It was clearly special to the Sedins that Edler was involved in both of Daniel’s goals on Thursday.
  • The Sedins nearly ended the game twice in the overtime. Daniel put one just wide off the rush on their first shift, then Henrik made a great move on Cam Talbot, but had his shot cleared off the goal line by Kris Russell. Like he blocked Dan Hamhuis from getting traded to the Dallas Stars, Kris Russell blocked what should have been a legendary end to the Sedins’ careers.
  • How fast is Jake Virtanen? He beat Connor McDavid in a foot race. To be fair, McDavid had been on the ice for over a minute and Virtanen had been on the ice for ten seconds, but McDavid actually had a slight head start in the neutral zone and Virtanen crushed him, creating breakaway separation in just a few powerful strides. Now I’m pulling for Virtanen to become a star in Vancouver, just so he can be sent to an All-Star weekend and compete against McDavid in the fastest skater competition.
  • According to Sportsnet Stats, Henrik Sedin set a record in the final game of his career for the most games without a fighting major or misconduct. If anyone should have won a Lady Byng Trophy in his career, it’s Henrik — Daniel was always too out for blood — but his hooking penalties got the best of him and always took him out of contention. We need gentlemanly play fancy stats so that it’s not all based on penalty minutes.
  • It was nice to see Daniel and Henrik get another chance in the shootout — particularly since Daniel scored on a great wristshot — but it was even better to see their kids on the bench, cheering on their dads. If the waterworks weren’t already going by the end of the game, seeing the Sedins embracing their kids at the bench surely got them started.

 

 

  • I was struck while watching the end of the game that what Travis Green has said all week is very true: this doesn't happen. Retiring players rarely get a proper send-off in-season the way the Sedins did. Players like the Sedins rarely get to end their careers on their own terms; they never had to face the indignity of an off-season of free agency where it becomes painfully clear that no team wants you on their roster anymore. And rarely are two players so respected by their peers and hockey fans around the league that a rival building full of opposition fans provides repeated standing ovations. We're going to miss the Sedins; I'm not sure anyone realizes just how much.
  • That’s the end of the Sedins’ career and it’s also the end of the Canucks’ season, which means this is the final I Watched This Game of 2017-18. I want to thank all of you for taking the time to read my work over the past season, my first doing this full-time. It’s been both incredibly rewarding and surprisingly difficult and I appreciate all of you for coming along for the ride. There will, of course, be plenty of PITB in the off-season, particularly heading into the draft and free agency, so stick around and keep reading.