Chris Tanev returned to the Canucks lineup for the first time since breaking his thumb against the Calgary Flames in early November. His absence from the lineup was very noticeable: with Tanev out for the last seven games, the Canucks allowed an average of 4.6 more shots against per game.
Before Tanev’s injury, the Canucks were 8-5-2. They went 3-3-1 with Tanev out, and that was largely because they got a few outstanding goaltending performances and Brock Boeser went bananas. The Canucks weren’t outright terrible with Tanev out, but it became eminently clear that they are a better team with him in the lineup.
So, of course, when he returned to the lineup, the Canucks lost, even though they only allowed 26 shots on goal. Of course. And of course, I watched this game.
- The heat map of unblocked shot attempts from this game tells a big part of the story of this game: the Canucks just couldn’t get to the net. Like Adele saying “Hello,” their shots were from the outside.
- Troy Stecher was back from injury in this game as well, pushing Alex Biega to the press box. With Erik Gudbranson out for a week with a shoulder injury, that gave the Canucks a mobile, puck-moving defence corps that could quickly transition the puck up ice to spark the offence, in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.
- Alex Edler definitely should have received a boarding penalty for his hit on Nico Hischier in the first period. The hit and the lack of penalty upped the ante on the physicality of the game, as everyone went from being mad chill to just plain mad.
- The Canucks just didn’t have an answer for Taylor Hall, who had points on all three Devils goals. I feel like part of the answer might have been to not leave him wide open like Derrick Pouliot did on the first goal. As answers go, that’s up there with 42.
- The Sedins responded a few minutes later by creating a little bit of luck. Henrik won a faceoff in the offensive zone, then pushed his way to the net while Alex Edler skated the puck below the goal line. Edler banked the puck to Daniel, who immediately centred for Henrik, who made like the Queen of Hearts with a flamingo and used his check, Blake Coleman, as a stick to put the puck in the net.
- I think Ben Hutton has been one of the Canucks’ better defencemen this season, but it’s easy to understand why some Canucks fans don’t have a lot of faith in him: when he makes a bad defensive play, it’s often really bad. Case in point, when he got undressed by Will Butcher on the Devils’ second goal. Hutton stopped moving his feet, fished for the puck with his stick, and, when he didn’t get the puck, was left standing still, completely out of the play.
- There’s plenty to talk about on the Devils’ third goal. Taylor Hall got in behind Chris Tanev for a breakaway, but there were some shenanigans along the way. Hall interfered with Tanev in the neutral zone, knocking him off stride to get the separation for his breakaway. You could tell that Tanev was incensed, as he immediately started yelling at the ref after the goal. It was weird, like seeing a baby punch someone, it was so out of character.
- Sven Baertschi gets more blame than Tanev on that goal. At the tail end of a power play, he had the chance to get the puck deep to complete a line change, but instead turned it over to Hall. The bigger issue is that he didn’t skate back hard enough on the backcheck, coasting like he was listening to Lupe Fiasco. He may have been tired after nearly a minute on the ice, but he still needed to get back on his man, Damon Severson, who easily put the puck in off Hall’s rebound off the post.
- Even if the Canucks struggled to create offence at even-strength, the power play kept rolling, producing a goal midway through the third period to bring the game within reach. Since combining Horvat and Boeser with the Sedins on the top unit, the Canucks power play is 8-for-18, with goals in four-straight games.
- Daniel Sedin picked up his second point of the game with an assist on Bo Horvat’s power play goal. With his eyes on Henrik, Daniel swung the puck down low to Horvat, with the no-look pass causing the penalty killers to give Horvat a little bit of extra room. Horvat used it, bringing the puck out front on the backhand, then pulling the puck to his forehand and lifting it under Schneider’s right arm.
- Brock “Weird Bounces” Boeser picked up the second assist on Horvat’s, extending his point streak to six games. It was a bit of a cheesy assist, as he merely sent the puck around the boards to Daniel, who passed it back and for with Horvat before the goal, but it still felt deserved, as Boeser did some nifty stickhandling along the boards to evade the check of Brian Gibbons. He was more slippery than Slippery Slim, who was infamously slippery.
