I look forward to watching the Vancouver Canucks play the Arizona Coyotes; they’re one of the few teams Vancouver looks consistently competitive against. The blue team did their part against the orange-y brown team Wednesday night, preventing Arizona from dragging Vancouver down to their level. I mean that quite literally: Arizona is dead last in the NHL, and a loss here would have meant sharing 30th place with the likes of them and the New York Islanders. Instead, by notching a convincing 4-1 win in Glendale, the Canucks climbed to the lofty heights of 28th in the league.
Surprisingly, despite hovering near the bottom of the pack, that puts the Canucks just three points outside of the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t mention that fact to Jim Benning.
The Canucks must have done a first intermission pump-up to Jimmy Eat World, because in the middle frame, everything, everything would be alright, alright. The second period was exhilarating and full of Vancouver scoring, largely because they faced an exhilaratingly bad goaltender in Mike Smith. He deserves a secondary assist on at least one of Vancouver’s goals. I prayed that Vancouver could play this team 62 more times while I watched this game.
- Sven Baertschi got the monkey off his back early, scoring after a great forecheck by Alex Burrows just three minutes into the first period. It was his second goal of the season. This tally resulted from what John Garrett referred to as a “tic-tac-toe” passing play from Bo Horvat to Sven at the side of the net. Burrows didn’t actually touch the puck, so it was really just a tic-tac play. But that’s great, we like those too. Cool and refreshing.
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Baertschi’s goal was the only scoring that happened in the first period, but Arizona claimed the momentum as the period wore on, peppering Ryan Miller near the end of the frame. Without Miller’s timely saves this writeup could have been darker than the observations of a depressed hedgehog.
A particularly hairy moment happened in front of the net around the 15 minute mark of the first period, when Miller made a midair save with a ton of traffic in front of his crease. One minute later, Miller made a sliding pad stop against Shane Doan, pure desperation. He played incredibly for a guy just returning from the flu. I want whatever they put in his Dimetapp. - Shortly into the second period, Christian Dvorak tipped a slap shot past Ryan Miller with two Coyotes players standing uncontested in Miller’s crease. Like a zombie trying to drag its victim down into the sewers, Arizona seemed hungry to yank Vancouver into last place in the NHL. Side note: maybe being a zombie is actually an amazingly fun party, and they just wanna bite you to share the love. Have you ever thought of that? No, you only think of yourself.
- Loui Eriksson sparked the start of the Canucks' shooting gallery when he picked a Markus Granlund pass out of the air for his fourth goal of the season. The mustachioed man hacked the puck past Mike Smith, continuing to prove that his lip lettuce has accelerated his play. Other notable cookie dusters with great games tonight included Luca “Lower Brow” Sbisa, who had at least one prime scoring opportunity, and Alex “Bro-merang” Burrows, who scored a goal and notched an assist.
- Yes, you read that correctly Sbisa had a strong night. He started out early by joining a rush and wristing a hard shot on net. Later in the game he landed an assist and then participated in a play that led to another goal. Hey you, Vegas Golden Knights! Over here! Look at the nice Sbisa. Oooh, so shiny.
- 17 seconds later, Bo Horvat capitalized on a rush with Baertschi and Burrows, and lifted the puck past a shell-shocked Mike Smith for a 3-1 Vancouver lead. With this goal, Bo now leads the Canucks in goal scoring and is currently tied for the team points lead with Daniel Sedin. It sure seems like those authors predicting Horvat might be first line material were really onto something. Some pretty visionary writing by that dude.
- Three minutes after Horvat’s goal, Burrows threw a soft shot at Mike Smith that inexplicably got past him. That was the end of the night for Smith, who was replaced by Louis Domingue. Burrows' goal was weaker than Beaker’s jawline, and Smith deserved to get yanked for it. Still, the Vancouver trio were owed a little puck luck after playing yet another solid game. Both Baertschi and Horvat had three point games, while Burrows had two points (and probably should’ve had a second assist.)
- Tobias Rieder nearly cut the lead to two goals on a partial breakaway in the third period. I may have suffered a partial heart attack because I experienced a partial flashback to Chicago’s three-goal comeback win on Saturday night. Fortunately Miller isn’t partial to being scored on, and he got a piece of it to preserve the lead.
- How odd to see another team as snakebitten as the Canucks were earlier in the year. Arizona outshot Vancouver 36 - 25 but few were real scoring opportunities, and the good chances they had were neutralized by a razor sharp Miller. Part of that shot differential was that Vancouver nursed their lead throughout the third period, determined not to suffer another breakdown like they experienced at the hands of the Blackhawks.
- Your NHL debut update of the game: Joe Labate saw his first ever big league action, a replacement call-up for Jack Skille, who is out with an injury. However, Willie Desjardins really made Labate blue, rarely tapping the inexperienced forward despite the fact that he is anything but pint-sized. Needless to say, he was beerly noticeable.
- Your random Coyotes thought of the game: I really enjoy that each time Arizona gets a power play, they play a Coyote howl at the Gila River Arena. It really pumps you up. I’d say the Canucks should try to do something similar, but something tells me that orca calls wouldn’t read quite as well.
- Your advanced stats chatter of the game: Sportsnet hosted an interesting first intermission interview with Arizona’s young GM, John Chayka. He believes that plus-minus is a deeply flawed stat, and it would be better for the league to display some kind of metric highlighting scoring opportunities and scoring chance suppression for defensive players. Analytics junkies from across the land later gathered outside Chayka’s home and serenaded him with Patsy Cline’s “I Love You So Much It Hurts.”
