It’s pretty clear that this game proved that the importance of centres is vastly overstated and that the most important position in hockey is right-side defencemen. How can I say that? Because the Ducks were missing their top-two centres — and not just any centres, but perpetual All-Star, Olympic-medal-winning centres — and they wiped the floor with the Canucks, who were missing their top-two right-side defencemen.
Or maybe it’s just that the Ducks without two of their best players are still a decent team, while there are certain players the Canucks simply can’t afford to lose. For all the talk of the team’s improved depth this season, the Canucks’s defence minus Chris Tanev and Troy Stecher are about as hooped as L’Arbre à Basket in Nantes, France.
I could hear Trevor Linden and Jim Benning praying that Tanev’s injury isn’t long-term all the way from Surrey when I watched this game.
- It’s easy to attribute this dismal performance entirely to Chris Tanev’s absence, but that’s only partially correct. This has been brewing for the last week or so. The Canucks now have 21 or fewer shots in three of their last four games, but have escaped scrutiny because they’ve won two of those games, scoring 9 goals in the process. That kind of success is less sustainable than my energy company startup that planned to mass-catch atlantic cod in order to create fish oil to burn to produce electricity. Didn’t get any angel investors on that one.
- Throw in the additional caveat that this was the Canucks’ fourth game in six nights and it’s pretty understandable that the Canucks would be tired, cranky, and want an ice cream cone. Wait, no, that’s my kids. Although really, who doesn’t want an ice cream cone?
- Last week, the Canucks had one of the best penalty kills in the league, clicking along at an 84.1% success rate. They’ve allowed a power play goal in four straight games, however, including three in six power play opportunities in this game. They’re now 25th in the NHL at 76.7%. Their penalty kill percentage is falling faster than Luke Aikins without a parachute.
- It’s not all doom and gloom out of this game: the Canucks’ first line was once again their best line, as Sven Baertschi, Bo Horvat, and Brock Boeser created most of their best chances. Sure, “best” is a relative term, and most of the chances they created fizzled out like a wet firecracker, but it’s something.
- The line produced the Canucks’ lone goal, though they got an assist from former Canuck Kevin Bieksa. Boeser charged in after an Alex Edler dump-in and took it away from Bieksa after he gloved it down. When Boeser couldn’t settle the bouncing puck, Bieksa swooped in and cleared it from danger, only to put it on Baertschi’s tape like that one acoustic song by your crush’s favourite pop-punk band.
- That’s a mix-tape joke, just in case you’re too young to know what kind of “tape” I’m referring to. It’s like an analogue Spotify playlist.
- Alex Edler looked like a guy who hasn’t played hockey in about a month and has been paired with a borderline AHL defenceman. That doesn’t excuse his pretty terrible performance in his first game back from injury, but it’s the lone bit of optimism I can pull out of the way he played. With Tanev out, the Canucks really need Edler to play a steady defensive game.
- Edler ended up on his keister for the Ducks’ first goal, but it was because of one of his better plays. Killing a 5-on-3, he sprawled to the ice to take away a backdoor pass. It worked, but Markstrom had already kicked hard across the net, anticipating the pass. It looked like he thought the puck was underneath Edler, because he was awfully lackadaisical about getting back in position and Hampus Lindholm banked the puck in off his pad. Markstrom immediately gave Edler a tap on the shoulder to confirm it wasn’t his fault, but Edler got a far-off look in his eyes, like he had a moment of clairvoyance and saw the rest of the game flash before his eyes. He said nothing, because time cannot be changed and Edler knew he might cause a timeline-destructing paradox if he tried to change the future.
- At one point, the Canucks went 19 minutes and 15 seconds with just one shot on goal. That’s nearly an entire period with just one shot on Ryan Miller. Heck, that might have even played a role in why Miller got injured later in the game: the Canucks gave him so little to do that his muscles got cold.
- No one on the Canucks’ penalty kill looked particularly good, but the most mind-boggling shorthanded moment came courtesy of Erik Gudbranson. Rickard Rakell came off the side-boards with the puck and broke towards the net with Jakob Silfverberg parked in front. Gudbranson had two good options: go to Rakell and force him to make a pass or go behind the net, or tie up Silfverberg and leave Rakell to his goaltender. He chose to do neither and moved to the far post to defend a wraparound before Rakell had even started to go behind the net. Gudbranson evidently thought Dorsett would take Silfverberg, but even still it was a baffling defensive decision.
- After the Ducks made it 4-1, things got silly. Josh Manson tried to wipe out Bo Horvat with a big open-ice hit, but Horvat dodged out of the way like a Pokemon Go trainer swiped when the screen flashed. Horvat avoiding bodily harm wasn’t enough for Derek Dorsett, who came off the bench to fight Manson despite the Canucks being on the power play at the time. I suppose Dorsett and whichever coach told him to go on were hoping to send a message to the team, but the message was somewhat undercut by him slipping and falling on his rear end. It seemed like his rear was a fitting end to this butt of a game, at least.
