This was technically game number 1002 for Tyler Myers, but he didn’t look a day over game 1000.
Myers’ actually 1000th career game came on the road against the Philadelphia Flyers, so the Vancouver Canucks had to wait until they returned home to celebrate the milestone properly. And it was a lovely celebration, with Myers joined on the ice by his wife and kids to be lauded by the fans, his teammates, and the NHL.
The clear highlight was that after Myers got his traditional 1000-game silver stick from general manager Patrik Allvin, captain Quinn Hughes stepped up with three mini silver sticks for Myers’ kids, which is the cutest possible thing.
As an added touch, J.T. Miller asked to take the alternate captain “A” off his sweater to give it to Myers for this game — a very nice touch.
“Millsy went to the trainers and the trainers asked me if it was okay and I said, ‘Yeah!’” said head coach Rick Tocchet. “I thought it was a great gesture by Millsy to give it to his buddy.”
Unfortunately, the game itself got off to a lousy start for the towering Texan.
On the Penguins’ first goal, Myers was a step slow to get to former Canuck Anthony Beauvillier, who tipped in Marcus Pettersson’s point shot. Immediately after that, Myers took a high-sticking penalty and it seemed like his game was going off the rails.
But then Myers totally redeemed himself. He made a fantastic read on the Penguins’ breakout and picked off the puck, leading directly to the Canucks’ first goal. Then, down the stretch in the third period, he played major minutes to close out the win.
There were other great storylines in this games, such as Elias Pettersson’s first goal of the season and Arshdeep Bains’ first goal of his NHL career, but I appreciated that Myers’ night wasn’t ruined by a bad game.
Tyler Myers had a lovely time when I watched this game.
- Now that Pettersson has scored, the attention might turn to the other top-six forward without a goal yet: Jake DeBrusk, whose chemistry with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser is a work in progress. He made a great read to pick off a pass in the first period and broke out for a 3-on-1 the other way. He had Miller behind him calling for the drop pass but instead tried to force a pass around the defenceman that was completely out of the reach of Boeser. Like a broken mouse, they’re just not clicking.
- Immediately after the 3-on-1, the Penguins went the other way and opened the scoring, which only served to heighten the importance of that missed opportunity. Conor Garland got pulled out of position trying to poke the puck off Evgeni Malkin’s stick, so wasn’t in the shooting lane when Marcus Pettersson fired a point shot that was tipped in by Anthony Beauvillier.
- I really enjoyed this set play off an offensive zone faceoff. After Miller won the draw, he rotated around the zone as Quinn Hughes rotated in the opposite direction, while Filip Hronek cut through the middle of the ice, creating, in a word, chaos. The end result was a wide-open chance for Hughes coming down the right side that he just couldn’t squeeze past Alex Nedeljkovic.
- The Canucks were flailing a little bit in the first period, as the Penguins, desperate after four straight losses, had a little more gin and juice early on. A superb shift by Conor Garland and Nils Höglander gave the Canucks some life late in the first. My favourite moment came early in the shift when Höglander out-muscled Matt Grzelcyk, whose last name I spelled correctly first time without looking it up, in a race for the puck, then made Evgeni Malkin look like a dope as he nimbly avoided a bodycheck.
- The Penguins came out hot again in the second period, however, and took a 2-0 lead. Bryan Rust swung around the net and tucked the puck in with a backhand wraparound. Carson Soucy, who has really struggled to start the season, was too slow to get to Rust and Kevin Lankinen, like Susan Ross, couldn’t quite seal the entirety of the post.
- Giving up three goals on 24 shots won’t do wonders for Lankinen’s save percentage but he was legitimately quite good in this game. His signature moment came when the game was 2-0 and the Penguins got a 3-on-1 after a mistake by Vincent Desharnais.
- Much like the Debrusk 3-on-1 in the first period, Lankinen’s stop on the Penguins 3-on-1 was a turning point in the game as the Canucks scored three goals in the next three minutes to take a 3-2 lead. Like SungWon Cho setting up the cheese-tasting phase, it was an incredible turn of events.
- “Since I’ve been here, I think that 8-10 minute stretch of the rush chances was the best I’ve seen this team do that,” said Tocchet. “That was excellent. You can tell that the stuff we’re practicing and they’re applying, it’s working…I thought we played really fast. Our neutral zone regroups got us off the rush. That’s the stuff we’re looking for; it can change a game.”
- ELIAS PETTERSSON SCORED A GOAL! I felt like I was Pockets squishing all the wrinkles out of Robin Williams' face in Hook: “Oh, there you are, Petey!”
- Myers stepped up to pick off the puck along the boards and sent it down low to Garland, while Pettersson found a soft spot in the Penguins’ defensive zone coverage. Admittedly, that wasn’t very hard, as Sidney Crosby, who should have been on Pettersson, mindlessly drifted toward the puck like he was a zombie and the puck was braaaaaains. That left Pettersson wide open to rip Garland’s pass off the post and in with a gorgeous shot.
- Maybe Pettersson’s teammates were spurred on by the excitement of him scoring his first goal of the season or maybe it was the hype of the Rogers Arena crowd, who erupted in raucous cheers of support for their superstar, but the floodgates opened after that. Suddenly, the Canucks couldn’t stop scoring, with all four lines recording a goal.
- 43 seconds later, Kiefer Sherwood tied up the game. Danton Heinen lifted a stick on the backcheck and Desharnais poked the puck free for a 2-on-1. Teddy Blueger made like Charles Barkley and put that white sauce on it, floating a lovely pass across to Sherwood, who one-timed it past Nedeljkovic.
- Just 22 seconds after that, Miller got on the board. After some great gap control by Hronek, Boeser sent a stretch pass ahead to Miller for a breakaway. Nedeljkovic got a piece of his initial shot but couldn’t control the rebound with Miller crashing the crease. When he tried to swat the puck out of harm’s way with his stick, it instead deflected off Miller and into the net for a third goal in 65 seconds.
- Not long after, Surrey’s own Arshdeep Bains got his first NHL goal, which stood up as the gamewinner. Daniel Sprong led the counter-attack from the defensive zone, zooming right past Erik Karlsson like he wasn’t even there. His low shot on Nedeljkovic’s left pad sent the rebound right to the net-driving Bains, who popped it into the net. The best part: he scored on Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi.
- “I’m going to go see my dad and give [the puck] to him right away,” said Bains. “We’ll see what he does with it.”
- “I think they did a helluva job down in Abbotsford — Jeremy Colliton and now Manny [Malhotra] in the summer, talking to [Bains],” said Tocchet. “I’ve got to give the development guys — [Mike] Komisarek and [Mikael] Samuelsson — those guys did a helluva job developing him. And now you get more of a finished product when a guy is up here. He’s trying to create an identity of a fast player, who can make some plays but also can check.”
- Tocchet was also effusive in his praise for Sprong, despite a third-period penalty in the defensive zone. In Sprong’s defence, it was a terrible call. It was nice to see Tocchet wasn’t holding that against him.
- “I thought Daniel Sprong was excellent tonight,” said Tocchet. “I don’t know who picked the stars, but to me, he was a star tonight — he played really, really well. Along the wall, he went through his guys. He did the little things that he needs to do. But that Bains goal, that’s pretty special what he did: going around a guy with speed and the shot selection was great. He didn’t rip it high and wide. I think he tried to do that, make the shot-pass — the P.O.P. they call it: the pass off a pad.”
- The physical side of Sprong’s game was a pleasant surprise, as he was credited with three hits, including a stiff open-ice hit on Noel Acciari that broke up a Penguins rush. No one’s going to confuse him for Sherwood, who added six more hits to his league-leading total, but, like when you’re eating a bland meal, it’s nice to see that tasty element brought to the table.
- Erik Brännström quietly had a great game. While he didn’t record a point, he kept the puck moving in the right direction all night. Shot attempts were 23-to-12 for the Canucks when he was on the ice at 5-on-5, shots on goal were 15-to-6, and goals were 2-to-0. He’s going to make it awfully difficult to take him out of the lineup.
- “We could probably give [Brännström] a few more minutes,” said Tocchet. “He’s a feisty guy. I think what people worry about is he’s a small guy, he’s going to get pushed around in the corners, and I haven’t seen that, to be honest with you. I’ve seen really good boxouts. Obviously, he wheels the net really well — he’s like Huggy, he can do that — but I find his feistiness is there.”
- The Penguins may be struggling but Crosby and Malkin are still Crosby and Malkin. Late in the third period, Crosby tied up Hronek in the neutral zone and the puck popped free to an on-rushing Malkin for a breakaway. It doesn’t help that Boeser stopped moving his feet in the neutral zone, anticipating that Hronek would win the battle with Crosby. Malkin undressed Lankinen with a lovely deke to the backhand before crashing into the post.
- “I’m not going to bitch about a win but the third period, I’d like to see a little bit more of us putting a stamp on it,” said Tocchet. “We didn’t have as much possession time offensively and stuff like that. I don’t know if we’re hanging on but I did like at the end how we defended. There’s a lot of pride in that room over there — they’re not going to go quietly.”
- There was a weird moment near the end of the game where the Penguins’ net bizarrely got stuck propped up on the padding at the back of the net. Nedeljkovic, realizing he couldn’t properly tend a net at such an off-kilter angle, just pulled the net down intentionally. Technically speaking, a goaltender intentionally dislodging the net is supposed to be a minor penalty, but I kind of understand them not assessing a penalty in such odd circumstances, especially since Miller was initially responsible for knocking the net askew.
- Side note: it’s a hoot to see the goalpost pegs go sproinging out of their holes when Nedeljkovic knocks over the net. That is delightful.
- It was less delightful to see the referees go into full game management mode, blithely ignoring Letang interfering with Sherwood or Acciari blatantly tripping Hughes, so as to not unduly affect the results of the game. There are no penalties late in the third period of games, just as there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
- It’s a shame that Boeser couldn’t get a goal in this game. He was all around the net all game, with a game-high 10 shot attempts, including multiple grade-A chances on the power play. Oh well. I guess he’ll have to content himself with only being on pace for 47 goals this season.
