This was Sam Gagner’s 1000th career game in the NHL, which is quite the accomplishment for a player who was waived and sent to the AHL by three separate teams during his NHL career.
Gagner’s ceremony to celebrate prior to the game between the Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets felt special and not just because of the adorableness of his kids saying on video that their dad is their favourite hockey player. It felt special because Gagner had to constantly work to reinvent himself and his game to stick around in the NHL this long, carving out a niche on eight different teams, including the Canucks.
Of course, Gagner’s stint with the Canucks wasn’t the greatest time of his career. In fact, Gagner encapsulates so much of what was wrong with the Vancouver Canucks under the previous management regime.
After a dreadful season with the Philadelphia Flyers where he had just 16 points in 53 games and went on waivers for the first time, Gagner revived his NHL career with the Columbus Blue Jackets in a specialized role. Gagner had a career-high 50 points as a power-play specialist, while sheltered on the fourth line at even strength, all while on a league-minimum $650,000 cap hit.
Canucks general manager Jim Benning looked at Gagner’s 50 points in a specialized role and immediately handed the 28 year old a three-year deal worth $3.15 million per year to be a top-six forward for the Canucks.
A year into that three-year deal, Benning waived Gagner and sent him to the AHL.
It’s not even that waiving Gagner was the wrong decision, though, in retrospect, the 2018-19 Canucks starting the season with guys like Brendan Leipsic in the lineup over Gagner is cringe-inducing. But in Gagner’s first season in Vancouver, the Canucks couldn’t shelter him at even strength, so his defensive woes were a problem, and they couldn’t find the right spot for him on the power play. With 10 goals and 31 points, it was the second-worst season of Gagner’s career.
It’s more that Benning signed a player to a three-year deal that didn’t have a spot on the roster just one year later. But it gets worse.
After Gagner was waived and loaned to the Toronto Marlies rather than the Utica Comets so that he could be closer to his family in Ontario, the Canucks eventually called him up when injuries struck. But he was sent back down after seven games.
While a useful player in Gagner was scoring with the Marlies, the 2018-19 Canucks sunk down the standings. Eventually, the Canucks traded Gagner back to the team that drafted him, the Edmonton Oilers, for Ryan Spooner.
Spooner was previously drafted by the Boston Bruins when Benning was an assistant general manager, so there was some familiarity there. But Spooner played out the final 11 games with the Canucks and was immediately bought out of the final year of his contract during the offseason.
Yeah, that sounds like Benning’s Canucks all right.
Completely misjudging a veteran forward? Check. Overpaying for that veteran forward? Check. Said veteran forward is actually a bad fit because your roster is a haphazard collection of players with no real plan? Check. Trading said player, who was still useful, for a much worse player? Check. That worse player had prior connections to the management group with a previous team? Check. That worse player ended up getting bought out, giving the Canucks a million-dollar cap hit for two more seasons? Stop, stop, he’s already dead.
All credit to Gagner for taking that low point with the Canucks and finding a way to not only get back to the NHL but stay in the NHL long enough to reach 1000 games.
“I’ve had my ups and downs, for sure,” said Gagner before the game. “Getting sent down by Vancouver and then the following year by Edmonton again, you question how your career is going to end up. But you keep pushing along, keep trying to adjust to the modern game.”
Gagner has put in some serious work to evolve his game. He’s become better defensively and is a reliable option up and down the lineup for the Jets instead of needing a sheltered role. Ironically, it was getting waived by the Canucks and sent to the Marlies that helped him get there.
“The big thing that year was defensively I needed to be able to reinvent myself to sustain my career,” said Gagner. “I feel like I’ve been able to become a better play driver by being better in the neutral zone, being better defensively and not spending as much time in the defensive zone. I’m grateful for that year.”
Why am I thinking and writing so much about Sam Gagner’s time with the Canucks? Let’s just say that there’s a reason why I had a lot of time to let my mind wander while I watched this game.
- The game started off amazingly well for the Canucks. Less than a minute in, Elias Pettersson jumped a lane on the Jets breakout to steal a pass from Dylan Samberg. Suddenly facing an odd-man situation, Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck understandably challenged Pettersson aggressively, expecting a shot, but the Canucks star simply set up a one-timer for Andrei Kuzmenko instead. Unlike Samberg, Kuzmenko made no mistake and it was 1-0 Canucks.
- There was another nice moment in the first period. With a crunch along the boards on David Gustafsson, Luke Schenn recorded his 3000th career hit. He was already the NHL record holder for most hits by a defenceman (since they started recording hits in 2005) and he’s sixth all-time behind five forwards, four of them still active. It might have been nice if it was a more consequential hit but it still counts.
- In fact, the entire first period was largely controlled by the Canucks, even if they couldn’t extend the lead. It was exactly the type of first period you like to see on the road: they took the crowd out of it early, dictated the pace of play, and took a lead into the first intermission. It’s just too bad about that second period — or, rather, the final six minutes of the second period.
- It was great to see Travis Dermott back in the Canucks lineup after missing the first 34 games of the season with a concussion suffered during training camp. Dermott’s minutes were limited with Luke Schenn on the third pairing and shot attempts were 23-to-4 for the Jets when Dermott was on the ice at 5-on-5, but it was just his first game back, so forgiveness and mercy are wider than the prairies for Dermott right now.
- Besides, the Jets didn’t score a single goal at even strength, so let’s not worry too much about 5-on-5. Also, in Dermott’s 40 seconds on the penalty kill, the Jets didn’t even get a single shot attempt, so kudos to Dermott.
- Now, about the rest of the Canucks’ penalty kill. The Jets went 2-for-4 on the power play, starting with Mark Scheifele tipping in a point shot from Josh Morrissey that bounced off the ice like swear words off Scheifele’s fricking brain, then over Collin Delia to tie the game.
- Two minutes later, Ethan Bear got caught too high in the neutral zone, allowing Pierre-Luc Dubois to get in behind for a breakaway. Bear recovered to take away the scoring chance, but he did that by hooking Dubois directly in the hands, which it turns out is not allowed. That gave Dubois the first penalty shot of the season in a Canucks game.
- Honestly, a penalty shot was preferable to another power play. Prior to Thursday’s game, players made 31.8% of their penalty shots this season. Opposing power plays have scored on 32.7% of their opportunities against the Canucks’ last-ranked penalty kill this season. That’s right: you’re more likely to score on a power play against the Canucks than on a penalty shot.
- But then Dubois scored on his penalty shot with a quick snapshot past Delia. So now NHL shooters have scored on 34.7% of their penalty shots this season, which is slightly more than opposing power plays have scored on the Canucks. But that’s much less interesting.
- The Jets made it 3-1 on the power play in the final seconds of the second period when a Scheifele shot ricocheted off Schenn’s shin and shimmied over the shoulder of Delia.
- It could have been worse. The Canucks gave up 20 shots to the Jets in that second period and ten of them were in that six-minute stretch. That the Canucks were only down 3-1 heading into the third period was a testament to how well Collin “I’m Kind of a Big” Delia played.
- Somehow, Delia was even better in the third period. That’s not just because he allowed three fewer goals but because his saves were like a movie sequel: bigger, crazier, and far less believable. He had a save-of-the-year candidate when Dubois blew past J.T. Miller and sent a pass across to a streaking Dylan Demelo. Delia slid across and got his glove up into the top corner of the net to rob Demelo of a sure goal.
- With Delia shutting the door on the Jets, the Canucks were able to claw back within one. Off a faceoff, Quinn Hughes jumped up the left side and fired a shot that deflected wide. The puck banked off the glass to Conor Garland, who did some banking of his own, depositing the puck off Hellebuyck’s pad and in.
- That’s all the Canucks could get, leading to an embarrassing scene at the end of the game. Delia attempted to leave his net for the extra attacker, but hesitated when first Brock Boeser and then J.T. Miller looped back into the defensive zone. A frustrated Miller started yelling at Delia to leave the ice, then slammed his stick on the top of the net as Delia finally bolted for the bench.
- I understand Miller being amped up in the moment, but it was already toeing the line for Miller to be yelling at Delia the way he was; slamming his stick on the back of the net crossed the line for me. That’s uncalled for in any situation, let alone at the end of a game where your third-string goaltender has made 35 saves to keep you in a game that should have already been over. That’s about the furthest thing possible from being a leader.
- Should Delia have already gone to the bench for the extra attacker? Yeah, probably. But goaltenders typically wait until the skaters are at least taking the puck through the neutral zone, just in case of a turnover. Again, Delia’s the third-string guy, not wanting to make a mistake, while Boeser and Miller wasted a good 30 seconds failing to get the puck up ice to push for the tying goal — I’m not putting the blame in Delia’s hands on that one.
- In any case, the Canucks had the puck in the Jets zone for less than ten seconds before Adam Lowry picked off a pass to the point along the boards, chipped the puck past a pinching Hughes, and passed it to Scheifele for the hat trick. Game over, man, game over.
