Remember when the Canucks were healthy? That was a pretty great five minutes.
Now Brandon Sutter and Alex Edler are broken, so Alex Friesen and Yannick Weber have been called up from Utica. It’s unclear if Weber even made it to Utica after clearing waivers, actually.
Even with the injuries, Jared McCann was set to miss his third straight game, but Derek Dorsett came down with a mysterious ailment before the game. Unrelated, Mrs. McCann was missing from the group of Canucks’ moms for several hours that morning. When asked where she was, she said, “Nothing! I’m just holding this poison for a friend! Maybe you look guilty!”
Just like she watched her son play, I watched this game.
- As pointed out on the broadcast, there are currently just 9 teenagers in the NHL. Two of them combined for the opening goal when Jared McCann charged into the Coyotes’ zone then pulled up and found an open Jake Virtanen. Like the discredited doctor who called wheat a “perfect, chronic poison”, Virtanen went against the grain, hammering his one-timer into the far corner.
- The Canucks’ Edler-less power play looked atrocious. That’s because it was atrocious. On four power plays, the Canucks had just 1 shot on goal. Meanwhile, they gave up 3 shots. They got out-shot on their own power play, which is particularly egregious when you consider they had their two best defensive defencemen, Chris Tanev and Dan Hamhuis, on the first and second power play unit, respectively. Oh wait, I think I see the problem.
- It seemed obvious that Tanev would get a lot of added responsibility with Edler out, though the first power play unit may have been going too far, but the big beneficiary was Ben Hutton, who led the Canucks in ice time and had a great game on Tanev’s left side. The pairing allowed just one shot when they were on the ice together at even-strength. Hutton's play was either a result of playing with Tanev or just relief at not having to play with Luca Sbisa or Matt Bartkowski.
- It looked like the Coyotes had replied late in the first period, capitalizing on a Radim Vrbata turnover in the defensive zone, but the goal got overturned on a coach’s challenge for an offside that happened three weeks ago in an entirely different game. It was a pretty savvy catch by the Canucks that you were allowed to challenge plays that happened in previous geologic eras, but full credit to video coach Ben Cooper and his crew who somehow managed to get footage from before the dawn of time.
- The Coyotes eventually did tie the game, taking advantage of an Alex Biega penalty and some overly aggressive penalty killing to go tiki-taka for the tic-tac-toe. The toe, in this case, was Martin Hanzal, who was left wide open at the back door, which he immediately started eating, as it was made of gingerbread.
- Poor Henrik Sedin is clearly injured and is also in a slump, with no goals in 19 games, though he does have 11 assists in that time. He had two great chances to change that, the best coming in the first period, but Louis Domingue dove across to deny the elder Sedin with the glove. And by “the glove”, I mean Gary Payton. Really, either too many men on the ice should have been called on the Coyotes or Payton should have been called for goaltending.
- Henrik did at least pick up an assist on the gamewinning goal, which came after a dominant shift from the Sedins, Jannik Hansen, Ben Hutton and Chris Tanev. For over a minute, they moved the puck around the Coyotes’ zone with impunity, but needed some help to finally move it into the net. It can be tough finding help for a move, but Connor Murphy and Oliver Ekman-Larsson had a free weekend and a couple pickup trucks, which is a weird way of saying Hansen’s shot went off both their legs and in.
- Radim Vrbata is in a slump of his own, now 10 games without a goal, but Willie Desjardins still trusts him more defensively than Jake Virtanen, swapping Vr for Vir on the Bo Horvat line in the third period. Despite Virtanen’s solid game, depending on the veteran more defensively was a defensible move: the Canucks out-shot the Coyotes 7-3 with Vrbata on the ice. Also, an empty net goal would’ve given him a little boost in the stats department for a potential trade.
- Ryan Miller was outstanding in this game, flashing more leather than a photographer for a saddle catalogue, but he also had some help in the final frame to secure the victory. Dan Hamhuis, who you might recall had his jaw shattered by a shot a little while back, laid out to block a sure goal, then Alex Biega pulled a puck off the line, earning a Miller hug and likely a few Miller Lites as well.
