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Stick-taps and Glove-drops: Canucks at Penguins, November 22, 2017

Quick congrats and critiques from tonight's game.
Stick-taps and Glove-drops

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. That’s right: two post-game articles for the price of one! That price is still zero dollars.


Anders Nilsson deserves a tap of the stick from every player on the Canucks. He faced a shooting gallery, making 43 saves on 45 shots. He’s now up to a .934 save percentage on the season, good for second in the NHL among goaltenders who have faced at least 200 shots.

Stick-tap to Brock Boeser, who opened the scoring with his tenth goal of the season. He took a nifty little saucer pass from Sven Baertschi and whipped the puck into the top corner while falling to the ice. It was a pretty goal to extend his goalscoring streak to four games.

 

 

Have to drop the gloves with Erik Gudbranson, even if he did leave the game with an injury. He got caught flat-footed on the Penguins’s first goal, allowing Jake Guentzel to blow past him and get two cracks on Nilsson, putting in his own rebound.

Tap of the stick for Loui Eriksson, who scored his first goal on a goaltender this season and his second in as many games. He was Johnny-on-the-spot, finishing off a Thomas Vanek rebound after Phil Kessel ran into a broken stick and turned over the puck.

A tap of the stick for Derrick Pouliot, who did what every player longs to do against his former team: score a goal. He got some help from his former teammates, as his shot appeared to hit Kris Letang’s stick before going in off Brian Dumoulin’s leg.

Thomas Vanek gets a stick-tap for his hard work in front of the Penguins net in this game. He picked up his assist on Eriksson’s goal by taking the puck hard to the net, then picked up his second assist on Pouliot’s 3-1 goal. He provided an additional assist by tying up Dumoulin in front of the net so that Pouliot’s shot could hit him and go in.

Another stick-tap for Boeser, who certainly deserves it. He scored his second goal of the game on the power play, drilling a one-timer off a pass from Alex Edler. The shot came from the top of the left faceoff circle.

 

 

A tap of the stick to all the people who wanted Boeser to play at the left faceoff circle on the power play. So, everyone.

Stick-tap to Brendan Gaunce for making the safe play to pass to Brandon Sutter with the Penguins’ net empty instead of trying to force a shot through his check from centre ice to break his 81-game goal drought. Good guy Gaunce