The Vancouver Canucks are a bad hockey team. The Phoenix Coyotes are a bad hockey team. And in the world of hockey, two wrongs can sometimes make a right. When two bad teams meet, the result can be incredibly entertaining.
This game was wide open and great fun to watch, except for the long moment when it was incredibly serious and sobering. Both teams have struggled to score goals, so they threw everything but the kitchen sink at the net, including the bathroom sink, until the referees told them to knock it off and stick to shooting pucks only.
I saw a whopping 78 pucks shots on net when I watched this game.
- The serious and sobering moment came in the second period when Brad Richardson had to be stretchered off the ice after a collision with Nikita Tryamkin. Richardson’s right leg appeared to twist awkwardly beneath him as he got hit and he immediately threw off his gloves as he collapsed to the ice, motioning desperately for the trainers to attend to him. He was in obvious pain as he was gingerly removed from the rink. We sincerely hope that he is okay and wish him a speedy recovery.
- Speaking of injuries, Derek Dorsett played just three shifts in this game, all in the first period, before leaving. His departure activated the Line Blender 3000, with only the Sedins and Sutter sticking together through the entire game. By the third period, Michael Chaput got the promotion from the fifth line to the fourth (since the line Dorsett is on is by definition the fourth line) and he performed admirably alongside Markus Granlund and Loui Eriksson, finishing the game with the team’s best corsi%.
- Interestingly, Chaput took all of the faceoffs for the fifth line, going 9-for-12 in the circle. Brendan Gaunce didn’t take a single faceoff, despite sporting a solid 51.6% faceoff percentage so far this season. Chaput stole all of Gaunce’s faceoffs, including his DVD copy of Face/Off, the Academy Award-nominated John Woo classic that pits Nicolas Cage pretending to be John Travolta against John Travolta pretending to be Nicolas Cage. I mean, who can blame Chaput? It’s the greatest face transplant-themed action movie of all time.
- It appeared that the Canucks had opened the scoring for only the third time this season when Alex Edler’s point shot slipped through a screened Louis Domingue like a fat Pomeranian. But the goal was called back when the video review showed Chaput, making an appearance in a personal-best third IWTG bullet point, interfered with the knob of Domingue’s stick, which is the most sensitive part of the stick.
- The Canucks opener getting overturned from a coach’s challenge made it hurt all the more when the Coyotes opened the scoring and it didn’t get overturned when Willie Desjardins threw the metaphorical challenge flag. I mean, throw us a metaphorical bone here, hockey gods, before I throw a metaphorical fit.
- Though Jacob Markstrom likely wanted the second goal back, as he pulled himself far out of position trying to stop a shot that never came, he still had a great game, finishing with 34 saves, a nice response to his loss to the Rangers. It was the best bounceback after getting shelled since all the times I accidentally killed myself by bouncing a Koopa Troopa shell off a wall in Super Mario Bros.
- The best part of this game may have been keeping Radim Vrbata off the board in his return to Vancouver, as he seemed hungry to score a goal against his former team. Vrbata was unstoppable in this game, except for the part where all of his shots were stopped. He had a game-high nine shots on goal and that doesn’t even count the post and crossbar he hit. It seemed like Vrbata might have been Vrbitter about last season not going Vrbetter.
- After going down 2-0, the Canucks responded with a couple goals of their own thanks to the quartet of Alex Edler, Brandon Sutter, and the Sedins. On the first goal, Edler made a strong play at the point to keep the puck in, throwing it down low to Daniel, who made a stunning play to bat the bouncing puck out front to Sutter. It was a gorgeous pass that deserved a gorgeous finish and Sutter provided the lacquer, releasing the puck in a hurry to beat Domingue.
- Sutter started the play that led to the second goal, throwing a hit on Oliver Ekman-Larsson to prevent the penalty killer from clearing the puck. Henrik picked up the puck and sent it cross-ice to Edler, who drew the puck back like he was setting up a wrist shot before feeding Daniel in front. I would call it a tic-tac-toe goal, but with the combination of physical play and strategic finesse, it was more like chessboxing.
- It’s a shame more people weren’t there to watch this game live, but it’s even more of a shame that the burgundy seats in Rogers Arena match the jerseys of the Phoenix Coyotes. I would suggest they replace the seats with blue or green ones, but they can’t afford to replace them unless they start selling out the arena again, at which point they won’t need to do it. It’s a real Catch-22.
- Late in the third period, the Canucks poured it on like blood on Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra (link very much NSFW unless you have a super-chill workplace). They took advantage of a tired Coyotes team that played in Calgary the previous night, with the shot attempts 23-11 in the final frame, but Domingue held the fort, even stopping Sven Baertschi on a 2-on-1 in the last second of regulation to force overtime.
- Apart from a couple egregious giveaways, Ben Hutton had one of his best games of the season, so it only seemed appropriate that he capped it off with the overtime gamewinner. A burst of speed earned him a breakaway, forcing a slash and a hook from Dylan Strome that got him a penalty shot. He capitalized like an angry internet commenter, faking the shot, then deking to the backhand and tucking the puck five-hole.
