The Canucks Twitter account hyped up this game by saying that “four of the top five scorers in the league” would be playing. They neglected to mention that three of those four are on the Dallas Stars: Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and defenceman John Klingberg.
The Stars also have Patrick Sharp, who now has 21 points in 26 games, and Jason Spezza, who has 11 goals, more than anyone on the Canucks other than Daniel Sedin.
The Canucks have the Sedins, then a recording of cold wind blowing over the barren arctic tundra, then a little bit of Jannik Hansen. That’s about it.
The Stars average 3.54 goals per game. The Canucks average 2.67.
This wasn’t exactly a heavyweight title bout between two equally-matched opponents. I watched socially-accepted bullying when I watched this game.
- The Canucks got off to a great start, scoring less than a minute in. The Sedins cycled, Jannik Hansen set up the screen in front, and Alex Edler accomplished a miracle: he got a wrist shot from the point through to the net. Kari Lehtonen, in awe of Edler getting the puck past the first defender, completely forgot to make the save.
- Dan Hamhuis made a great play on that opening goal, coming aggressively down the boards to set up a chance in front, then wheeling around the net and picking up the puck to keep the play alive. It was the last good play he made all game. He was appallingly bad all game and you could tell he knew it. Like birthday cake on a two-year-old, it was all over his face. His sad, sad face.
- Case in point, the Stars’ first goal. With Matt Bartkowski already pinching, Dan “Community Man” Hamhuis gambled aggressively, which was a bad idea, because he seems like a guy who doesn’t know anything about gambling. Valeri Nichushkin chipped the puck past him, then took off, protecting the puck from Hamhuis’s checking attempts, then using his long reach to tuck the puck past a sprawling Ryan Miller. The Community Man immediately used the experience in an inspirational talk at a Gambler’s Anonymous meeting.
- Derek Dorsett and Brandon Prust must have panicked when Jim Benning called out the team for the lack of pushback in Anaheim, as they wasted no time picking fights. Really, Dorsett and Prust did help keep Jared McCann safe, mainly by keeping him on the bench for most of the first period, because they were his linemates.
- Yes: McCann was centring Prust and Dorsett in this game. Yes, it’s dumb. He and Radim Vrbata skated briefly together on the power play and immediately showed the chemistry together that they’ve previously had as linemates. I’m hoping this is just a romantic comedy: they’ve already had the meet-cute and this is just the hackneyed obstacles that temporarily drive them apart before Vrbata makes some sort of grand gesture, preferably involving a dance routine with the Knicks City Dancers to a Billy Joel song.
- Ryan Miller didn’t look good on the Stars’ second goal, but he had a strong game overall, making 30 saves, many of them difficult, including a breakaway save when Hamhuis somehow lost track of Patrick Sharp. Seriously, Hamhuis had such a bad game. He immediately volunteered to be his game’s Big Brother to keep it from going down a bad path.
- Sven Baertschi had a noticeably good game, which is a switch: normally he has unnoticeably good games and noticeably bad games. At least, everyone other than Willie Desjardins seemed to notice: Baertschi played a game-low 8:09, I guess because everyone else on the team was playing so much better than he was. Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic.
- The second period saw a line combination that made a lot of sense for trying to make a comeback: McCann between Baertschi and Alex Burrows. But it turned out it was just a ruse to get Adam Cracknell back with Prust and Dorsett. I thought the most infuriating time they hit the ice was for an offensive zone faceoff after a long Sedin shift that forced an icing, but then Desjardins sent out Cracknell and Prust with Vrbata when the Canucks were down by one with less than five minutes left in the game and I facepalmed so hard I gave myself a concussion.
- The Canucks actually tied up the game early in the third. Henrik Sedin picked off an Alex Goligoski pass at the Stars’ blue line and set up Jannik Hansen alone in front of the net, who used a quick backhand to beat the hip Lehtonen. I say “hip” because he wasn’t square.
- The Stars took the lead back thanks to some shoddy defending by—Guess who? No, not the band. You know what, never mind, it’s—Dan Hamhuis. Patrick Sharp blew by Hamhuis, then evaded Yannick Weber, whose gap was looser than a nu-metal bassist’s pants, before snapping a shot past Miller. To be fair, Hamhuis had his mind on other things, like why Giving Tuesday only lasts one day when there’s so much giving that needs to be done.
- For the second game in a row, the Canucks managed just 16 shots on goal. Personally, I think the tributes to the 1994 team are getting to be a little much.
