The Vancouver Canucks lost again Thursday, falling to 0-3 on their current road trip. But there were positives. They only lost by two goals this time, for instance. That’s only half as bad as the losses to the Blackhawks and Wild.
Of course, they also lost Henrik Sedin, which is probably a worse loss than all three of these road defeats combined. Which means the Canucks somehow found a way to turn their best loss of the trip into their worst loss of the trip. This team, man. I watched this game.
- I don’t know what happened to Henrik Sedin, but I’m not optimistic that he'll be ready for tomorrow. After all, this is Henrik Sedin, one-time NHL ironman we’re talking about. Considering the things that he’s played through in his career, and considering how desperately the team needs him right now, it’s hard to imagine that he sat out the back half of this game because of a lil owie. You’d have to cut him in half, and even then it might not work. Last time someone tried that, it just made two Sedins. That’s how that happened.
- Boy oh boy, if you thought Jared McCann and Bo Horvat were overworked before, brace yourselves, because if Henrik is out any amount of time, these two kids are in charge. It’s like Lord of the Flies, except with hockey players instead of insects. (I’ve never read Lord of the Flies.)
- For what it's worth, the Canucks played well in this game. Not well enough to win, mind you -- they don’t really do that anymore. But they were shot-for-shot with the Flyers all game, and as I’m writing this sentence, I’m realizing how low the bar has fallen. Not even this guy could get under it right now.
- You could argue that the Canucks deserved better in this game -- Steve Mason was just fantastic. I won’t argue that, though, because I refuse to believe the Canucks were stifled by a Flyers goalie. That’s like saying the Flyers beat you with their defence. As the kids say: LOL. I maintain: If you get shut out by the Philadelphia Flyers, it’s your fault.
- The rightful first star of this game: Alex Edler. I know he was a minus-2 on the night. Don’t care. He was also a plus-14 in even-strength corsi, which will happen when you put up a whopping 15 shot attempts. Edler was the best player on the ice all night. He even had the Canucks’ best scoring chance. Unfortunately, Steve Mason made an amazing save. It was the second-best save of Mason's career, right after the day the Flyers rescued him from Columbus.
- Let's talk about the other goalie. Jacob Markstrom had a steady game for the Canucks, stopping 29 of 31 shots. Unfortunately, the Canucks needed him to stop all 31. This poor guy. Every time he thinks he’s on the verge of NHL success, they keep moving the goalposts. This one season in Florida, they moved them, like, two feet away from the crease. That’s why his stats were so bad.
- The Flyers’ first goal was interesting. Scored on the powerplay by Michael Raffl, it was initially ruled a no-goal because the officials thought the puck had gone off the crossbar. The game continued for several seconds before the officials stopped play, the goal was reviewed and awarded, and the clock was turned back to the time of the goal. Which means that this game featured phantom hockey, a phenomenon when time is of no consequence and the wicked spirits of The Further can cross over into our world and get ino the game. That’s how Brad Marchand happened.
- Speaking of manipulating space and time, consider this silver lining: if a time-traveller had told you in September that the Canucks would be three points up on the Anaheim Ducks heading into Christmas, you’d have rejoiced. Then, when we actually got to Christmas and you realized the time traveller was only being selectively truthful, so as to make a damn fool of you, you’d be furious. So things could be way worse.
- Finally, this is just a great GIF:
The Tank Awakens #Canucks #pShapWars pic.twitter.com/6dHRNhSqBT
— ZoSo (@ZoSoNuck) December 18, 2015
