Stick-taps and glove-drops is a recurring feature after every Canucks game giving some quick kudos and criticism before the longer I Watched This Game feature. Feel free to leave your own stick-taps and glove-drops in the comments.
Stick-tap to the hockey gods, who decided to give the Canucks their entire season’s worth of bounces in one game. I mean, thanks, but couldn’t you space them out a little bit?
A tap of the stick to Travis Green for reuniting my favourite defence pairing: Ben Hutton and Chris Tanev. The duo led the Canucks in 5-on-5 ice time and played a pretty solid game considering Tanev was returning from losing 6.5 teeth (the “.5” is the part that bothers me the most) and was wearing a full cage.
I have to drop the gloves with Jacob Markstrom on the opening goal. Even with Edler charging out aggressively to Seth Jones, Markstrom was able to see the shot and it still squeaked under his right arm. Markstrom finished with 27 saves on 29 shots, but got lots of help from the posts in this one.
Tap of the stick to Thomas Vanek for his heads-up assist on Sven Baertschi’s 1-1 goal, even if he got a little help from Scott Harrington’s skate. Vanek picked up a deflected Sam Gagner shot and spun it around to Baertschi at the backdoor.
Vanek keeps building up that trade deadline value pic.twitter.com/K9R8n8hMwb
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) January 13, 2018
Stick-tap to Erik Gudbranson, who took a nice pass by Loui Eriksson from behind the net and drilled a one-timer inside the far post to make it 2-1. If only Gudbranson spent some more time in the offensive zone when he was on the ice, we might get more opportunities to see his heavy slap shot.
Gudbranson building up that trade deadline value pic.twitter.com/Be4mwipXPT
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) January 13, 2018
A tap of the stick to Loui Eriksson and the Sedins, who were the Canucks’ best line in this game. After a lacklustre first period by the entire team, they maintained offensive zone pressure for the rest of the game and provided two of the Canucks’ goals.
Brendan Gaunce gets a stick-tap, as does his broken stick. Gaunce took another sweet feed from Vanek, stepped into the left faceoff circle, and attempted to rip a shot top corner. Instead, his stick splintered beneath him and the subsequent weak shot along the ice completely fooled Sergei Bobrovsky to make it 3-1. To top it off, it was a power play goal, as Gaunce came on just before the penalty expired.
Vanek is so good he can get Gaunce to score a goal. #TradeDeadlineValue pic.twitter.com/7lVkwvvzJo
— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) January 13, 2018
A bonus stick-tap to Gaunce for making a "power play goals per 60" joke post-game.
Gaunce told me his PPG/60 is off the charts after that 5-on-4 goal. Didn’t care his stick broke. #canucks
— Dan Murphy (@sportsnetmurph) January 13, 2018
A tap of the stick to Alex Edler, who had the best hit of the game, leveling Josh Anderson in the first period, and also scored to make it 4-1 in the second period. Off a Sedin cycle, Edler threw the puck towards the net and it deflected in off the improbably-named Markus Nutivaara’s skate.
It looked like the Blue Jackets’ second goal might have been tipped with a high stick, but the replay was so inconclusive that I’m not surprised it wasn’t overturned. So I won’t drop the gloves with anyone, but I will look around the room menacingly.
I don’t know what to do with Nic Dowd. He gets a stick-tap for a beastly night in the faceoff circle, going 17-for-24, including 11-for-14 in the defensive zone. But he also gets the gloves dropped for his giveaways in the defensive zone and for getting crushed in puck possession: shot attempts were 17-6 for the Blue Jackets when he was on the ice at 5-on-5.
A tap of the stick to Markus Granlund and Jake Virtanen for combining on the empty-net goal to clinch the game. Granlund did the yeoman’s work of winning battles along the boards to get the puck out of the defensive zone, while Virtanen got to bust his six-game goalscoring slump with the shot into the empty net.
