I didn’t get a chance to watch this game live, as I had my office job and a kid’s soccer practice to coach. So, by the time I started watching this game, it was already pretty clear that Donald Trump was about to be elected President of the United States of America.
The prospect of trying to crack jokes about a hockey game at a time like this seemed more than a little difficult, but I prepared myself for the task ahead and even pre-wrote a few jokes anticipating the certainty of a 10th-straight Canucks loss.
- “Sure, the Canucks suck, but at least my country didn’t just elect Donald Trump.”
- “The Canucks may be the laughing stock of the NHL, but the US just became the laughing stock of the entire world.”
- “It’s so nice to have something to rely on when the world gets flipped upside-down, like the Canucks being terrible.”
Are they good jokes? No. No they are not. But they steeled me for the task of watching the Canucks disappoint me after our neighbours to the south did the same. But then the Canucks won! And for a brief moment of time, I enjoyed myself when I watched this game.
- Wait, is this the Canucks fault? Did a Canuck make a deal with the devil to win a game and a Trump presidency was the cost? If so, you’ve got to negotiate for a better deal: a Stanley Cup at minimum. Who would sign such a terrible contract...it was Benning, wasn’t it. Damn it Benning!
- Or wait, it has to be the Cubs fault, right? That makes more sense.
- I’m sorry to bring politics into this, because sports are often a place people go to escape such things, but it’s on my mind and impossible to get off my mind, so I have to say something or I’ll go out of my mind. So don’t mind me.
- Here’s the funny part about this win: with the Rangers' starting goaltender in net, Antti Raanta, the Rangers actually out-scored the Canucks 3-2. In a weird, stealthy way, the Canucks did actually lose this game.
- Antti Raanta was briefly knocked out of the game after Markus Granlund crashed into him. The NHL’s concussion spotter pulled him off the ice to run through some tests, forcing a cold Henrik Lundqvist into the game. In the six minutes he was in the game, the Canucks scored two goals. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but does this incentivize teams to crash into goaltenders’ heads in hopes of knocking them out of the game for a few minutes?
- Jacob Markstrom was the star for the Canucks, making stellar saves all night. The Canucks only allowed 26 shots on goal, but it felt like at least half of them were seven-alarm scoring chances, frequently off defensive zone giveaways. He made six saves on Michael Grabner alone, who leads the Rangers in goalscoring, which just made me sad about the Keith Ballard trade all over again.
- It took him 14 games to do it, but Loui Eriksson finally scored his first goal as a Canuck, converting on a set up, appropriately enough, from both Sedins. It came on a long shift in the offensive zone that wore down the Ranger defenders like the eraser on a No. 2 pencil, until there was nothing left of them in front of the net, giving Eriksson enough time to fill out a multiple choice bubble sheet and deke to the backhand to roof the puck with the firm authority of ScanGrade the Magnificent.
- Henrik Sedin put the Canucks up early in the third when Erik Gudbranson sent him in on a breakaway out of the penalty box. Henrik busted out the Quadruple-S: the Surprise Sedin Slap Shot. A slap shot from Henrik is the most unexpected thing since the Spanish Inquisition, so it’s hard to blame Raanta for letting it by him on the short side.
- Inspired by Eriksson breaking his goose egg and taking advantage of a cold Lundqvist who was likely upset that he had to ruin his perfectly-coiffed hair, which he has expressly styled with bench-sitting in mind, Alex Burrows and Sven Baertschi chipped in their respective first goals of the season.
- Burrows played on a line with Sven Baertschi and Bo Horvat and benefitted from their forechecking when Baertschi created a turnover and Horvat swung it on net, leaving Lundqvist flailing in his crease for the rebound. Burrows jumped all over it like Freddie Mercury on grapes.
- Jake Virtanen was a healthy scratch for the second game in a row, with Jack Skille and Michael Chaput in the lineup, so of course Skille and Chaput assisted on the gamewinning goal. Skille actually made a really nice play, sending a saucer-pass cross-crease for Baertschi to finish, which, shockingly, he actually did finish. This, of course, means that Virtanen will never play again.
- Burrows capped off the game with an empty-netter and, in doing so, tied Don Lever for 10th all-time in franchise goalscoring with 186 career goals. Not bad for a former member of the Greenville Grrrowl of the ECHL.
