Neither snow nor rain nor heart nor gloom of night stays the Vancouver Canucks from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Despite the best efforts of the Buffalo blizzard, the Canucks made it to Ohio in time for the early start to their game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. It required a detour to Toronto but they got there in the end.
The Canucks broadcast crew, however, didn’t make it.
Around the NHL, most broadcast crews travel with the team on their charter, ensuring that if the team gets to the game, so does the play-by-play commentator, colour commentator, and host. Prior to this season, that was the case for the Canucks crew as well, but this season, they’ve been flying commercial.
While the team was able to bus up to Toronto and fly into Columbus, it was a bit of a tougher traveling situation for John Shorthouse, Dave Tomlinson, and Dan Murphy. To play it safe, they escaped the snowstorm and flew back to Vancouver instead.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to have a contingency plan to make sure that we had a crew in Columbus, and got said crew there while we were kinda stranded in Buffalo,” said Shorthouse to Mike Halford and Jason Brough on Sportsnet 650. “Once that happened, we just made the decision to come home, Dave and I.”
The unusual situation brought some pinch hitters up to bat. Mike Luck, who typically calls Oshawa Generals games in the OHL but has also called NHL games for Hockey Night in Canada and Sportsnet, took over as play-by-play. announcer. Sam Cosentino, known more for being a studio analyst and his NHL draft coverage, took on colour commentary duties. Sean Reynolds, who has plenty of experience as a host on Hockey Night in Canada, filled in for Murphy.
All told, they did an excellent job, especially given how little notice they were given.
Reynolds was a pro in his intermission segments and, apart from confusing Andrei Kuzmenko for the Blue Jackets’ Kirill Marchenko a couple of times — and vice versa — Luck cruised through the broadcast on play-by-play. He even threw in a signature Shorthouse-ism and made sure to let fans know when there was “4:20 to go in the third period.”
The most pleasant surprise was Cosentino on colour commentary. He was quick and observant, and seemed to know exactly when to jump in for a comment without interrupting the flow of Luck’s play-by-play. He had a stack of relevant statistics on hand and provided some keen insight into his play breakdowns.
Honestly, Cosentino was so good in the colour commentary role that it really seems like he’s miscast as a studio analyst. Hockey fans would be better served by him being in the booth on Sportsnet broadcasts than in the studio.
The fill-in broadcast crew pinch-hit so well that you ought to call them Matt Stairs. You could call me Matt Stairs too, but mostly because of my beer-league-style gut. I came by it honestly, sitting on a couch just like I did when I watched this game.
- The Canucks couldn’t come flying out of Buffalo but they came out flying in Columbus. The Lotto Line was both buzzing and bussin’ early, throwing the puck around the offensive zone with impunity. It was like they wanted to convince everyone that they weren’t going to be tired on the final game of a seven-game road trip after some difficult travel delays that forced a team dinner at an airport Panda Express. Or maybe they were trying to convince themselves.
- J.T. Miller got a bounce to open the scoring. Or, rather, two bounces. After some sharp puck movement, Miller took a shot from the point that deflected first off Adam Fantilli’s stick, breaking it, then deflected again off Andrew Peeke’s stick, causing the puck to make like Tuariki Delamere and somersault over Elvis Merzlikins.
- The Blue Jackets quickly responded. Cole Sillinger came crashing down the boards to knock Teddy Blueger off the puck, then Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole got their wires crossed: Zadorov chased Johnny Gaudreau into the corner and Cole went behind the net, hoping Conor Garland could get to the puck and pass it to him. That left Yegor Chinakhov wide open in front, where Gaudreau found him with the puck, and he outwaited an aggressive Casey DeSmith.
- It was a bit of a shaky game for Ian Cole but at least when he took a penalty, he made it worth his while. He got beat through the neutral zone by Gaudreau, so figured if he was going to hook Gaudreau to prevent a scoring chance he was going to hook him like a vaudeville performer and make absolutely certain that Gaudreau couldn’t score.
- Add one to the “Elias Pettersson for Selke” reel. He didn’t need to take a penalty to prevent a goal: he kept his head on a swivel and spotted defenceman Damon Severson sneaking in at the backdoor and broke up the pass with a well-timed stick.
- Moments later, the Good Job Boys made up for the goal against when they were on the ice by combining to give the Canucks the lead. Dakota Joshua went in hard on the forecheck to free up the puck, then Teddy Blueger got wizardous with a no-look hook pass to a wide-open Conor Garland in front. Garland knew he couldn’t let a pass that nice go to waste and sent the mesh rippling with the one-time finish.
- As good as the first period was, the second period was a near disaster. DeSmith was the one rested player on the ice for the Canucks and was also their best, making 41 saves on 44 shots, including 24 saves in the second period alone, starting with back-to-back robberies of Sillinger and Gaudreau after a heinous giveaway by J.T. Miller into the slot. I guess the J.T. stands for Jurnover Turnover.
- “We just didn’t play well today, there’s not a whole lot to like about it, if I’m being honest,” said Miller after the game. “I love that we got a point. Casey was unreal, it could’ve been way worse than it was.”
- The Blue Jackets tied up the game on the power play, as the frustratingly opaque Dmitri Voronkov screened DeSmith and tipped in an Adam Boqvist point shot. Cole tried to clear out to prevent a double screen, which was probably the right move, but hindsight makes you wonder if tying up Voronkov’s stick might have been a better idea.
- Add one to the “Quinn Hughes for Norris” reel. A wild sequence saw Hughes make three separate plays to save a Gaudreau goal. First, he got his stick on Gaudreau’s shot toward an open net off the rush, deflecting the puck wide. Then, as the puck caromed off the boards, Hughes checked Gaudreau’s stick to prevent him from getting to the puck, then cleared the puck from danger himself.
- The power play chipped in after Andrei Kuzmenko drew a penalty. Miller drew three penalty killers to himself using his mail-order Acme Penalty Killer Magnet before sending a beautiful no-look pass through the seam to Elias Pettersson, which gave him all the time he needed to pick his spot and beat Merzlikin under the glove on the short side.
- Unlike The Spleen, the Canucks seemed to run out of offensive gas in the third period, but at least they also prevented the Blue Jackets from piling up shots and chances like they did in the second period. They came so very close to maintaining their perfect record when entering the third period with a lead but fatigue seemed to catch up to them.
- “We grinded. I mean, we were a tired group,” said Rick Tocchet. “We had some mistakes that we usually don’t make, I think it was just a mentally tough game for some guys. But we hung in there. We had the lead there late in the third and you’ve got to give them credit: Columbus worked hard.”
- The Blue Jackets came up with the tying goal after the bane of Tocchet’s existence: a lost battle down low. Cole and Nils Åman were in a 2-on-1 battle with Jack Roslovic and lost, as Roslovic squirmed out with the puck, allowing Voronkov to squeeze the puck between DeSmith and DePost.
- Heading into overtime, it kind of looked like Miller was barking while in a cheerful-looking conversation with Brock Boeser. I’m no lip-reading expert but that definitely looked like Miller went “Ruff ruff ruff, arf arf!” at one point. Am I wrong?
- Overtime did nothing but add to Pettersson’s penalty totals, putting his bid for the Lady Byng in jeopardy. The Canucks got a power play as the Blue Jackets got caught with too many men on the ice but Pettersson ended it almost immediately with a rare tripping penalty, which is when you know that Pettersson is exhausted.
- Kuzmenko, Miller, and Pettersson were the first three shooters in the shootout and are all obvious choices given their track records, but none of them looked the least bit threatening as they jammed the puck into Merzlikins pads or stick. If the team’s going to be in a lot more tight games down the stretch, maybe they should practice 3-on-3 overtime and the shootout a little bit.
- DeSmith stopped the Blue Jackets first three shooters but Marchenko fooled him with a cheeky one-handed poke through the five-hole. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty cool. I don’t have a quip or any analysis; it was just neat.
- That left Pius Suter to tie things up for the Canucks and he couldn’t manage it with a backhand deke. Some questioned why Suter shot over the Canucks’ leading goalscorer, Brock Boeser, but Boeser actually has a rather poor record in the shootout — 4-for-21 over the last five seasons and he actually hasn’t had a shootout attempt since the 2021-22 season. Suter had only three career shootout attempts but he had scored on two of them, so why not give him a shot?
- Merzlikins made the final stop on Suter, then celebrated like he had just won Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final. It made sense, however, given his situation: it was his first start in over two weeks despite a better save percentage this season than the team’s two other goaltenders, Daniil Tarasov and Spencer Martin. In his postgame interview, Merzlikins confirmed that he’s requested a trade.
- “I’m just mad, I’m going to tell you honestly. I’m mad and I’m pulling the monster out of me now,” said Merzlikins after the game. "There was no other choice but a win. I needed this win and I got it and now I’m laughing.”
- Honestly, given those fiery postgame quotes, maybe the Canucks were lucky to even get three pucks past Merzlikins and get a point out of this game.
- The Canucks had a chance to win this game and let it slip away, but they still ended their road trip — one of their toughest of the season — with a 5-1-1 record. That’s an amazingly successful road trip and the Canucks should not be hanging their heads even the slightest amount.
- “It was a good road trip. We came together as a team, I thought. Won in some really hard environments to play in, some hard teams,” said Miller, adding a moment later, “We’ve done a good job lately, that was just kind of a dud for us and I think we know that. We have a high expectation and we’ll get back to where we need to be for next game.”
