It’s tough to fault Canucks for effort
A look at the Vegas Golden Knights and other winners as season reaches halfway point
We don’t promise much but we will promise this edition of the musings and meditations on the world of sports will be better than Sunday’s Buffalo-Jacksonville playoff game.
n At the start of the season, the general feeling was the Vancouver Canucks wouldn’t be measured by their record but rather by a more imprecise standard that had to do with effort, player development and entertainment value.
Based on that, it’s hard to find fault with the Canucks’ two efforts over the weekend.
They played hard. They played fast. Brock Boeser had one of his best all-around games of the season in Toronto on Saturday night. And the difference in Montreal on Sunday for the first two periods was Carey Price.
True it all resulted in one measly point but remember the expectations at the start of the year when everyone seemed happy to sign up for another year of transition.
That’s what the faithful are getting now. The next question is will that be enough to sustain them over the next three months. It’s easy to say you’re on board the rebuild train in October.
It’s a little tougher when it’s January, the Canucks are in 28th place and they’re on a 2-10-2 run.
n With the NHL season at its midway point, here’s our first-half award winners:
Hart Trophy: Nathan MacKinnon
The NHL’s most under-reported story over the first half, MacKinnon has almost single-handedly dragged the Avalanche in the second wildcard spot before Sunday’s games.
The Avalanche weren’t just the worst team in the NHL last season. They were the worst team by a historic margin, finishing 21 points behind the 29th-place Canucks. MacKinnon now sits second in NHL scoring but this is more telling. He has 20 more points than Gabriel Landeskog, who’s third on the Avs in scoring.
Honourable mention: Blake Wheeler, top-10 scorer and the leader of a team that sits third overall.
Norris Trophy: Drew Doughty
It’s a photo finish with Victor Hedman. Hedman has one more point than Doughty (31-30) but Doughty leads the NHL in average ice time and also leads the NHL in Corsi-for and Fenwick-for. This might be the first major trophy decided by advanced stats.
Vezina Trophy: Andrei Vasilevskiy
This one isn’t that tough. The Lightning goalie leads the NHL in wins and is second in save percentage and goals-against average. Connor Hellebuyck and Freddie Andersen have had nice seasons in Winnipeg and Toronto respectively but, statistically, they are not in the same time zone as Vasilevskiy.
Calder Trophy: Brock Boeser
He’s fully deserving plus Canucks’ fans deserve one nice thing.
Adams Trophy: Gerard Gallant
At this point, they should retire the trophy and name it for the Vegas Golden Knights’ head coach. An expansion team with the NHL’s second-best record and the best mark in the West. Unprecedented.
Story of the first half: Vegas, baby
Might be the story of this century’s first half. Everyone figured the Golden Knights had a chance to be competitive. No one figured they’d be leading the West, especially with Maxime Lagace starting 13 games.
Story of the second half: Will the surprise teams continue to surprise. Will the disappointing teams continue to disappoint?
As of this writing, Pittsburgh, the Islanders, Anaheim, Chicago and Minnesota all sit under the playoff bar and Edmonton has fallen off the map.
Las Vegas, Colorado, Carolina and New Jersey, meanwhile, occupy playoff spots. Doubt if all this will hold in the second half but it would be fun if it did.
n Epic matchup between the Bills and Jaguars on Sunday but I’m not sure if Pittsburgh is going to be intimidated by what they saw in the Jags.
Quarterback Blake “Crazy Legs” Bortles had one more yard on the ground than he did in the air (8887); amassed, if that’s the right word, 230 yards in net offence while producing 10 points and, amazingly, still delivered a win. The Steelers’ challenge in the next round appears to be scoring 11 points or more. Somehow I think they’re up to it.
Then again, I don’t think New England is quaking at the thought of facing Marcus Mariota and the Tennessee offence next week. Geez Louise, there was some crummy quarterbacking over the weekend.
And finally, it will take some time for Canada’s gold medal at the 2018 World Juniors to be put in perspective but the sense is, years from now, it will be remembered alongside another Canadian win over Sweden in 1993.
That year, Canada beat a stacked Swedish team 5-4 in the round robin behind standout goalie Manny Legace, a win that was instrumental in Canada’s golden turn. That Swedish team featured Peter Forsberg, who finished with a mind-boggling 31 points in the tournament, Markus Naslund (24 points), Nicklas Sundstrom and defenceman Kenny Jonsson.
Fast forward, yikes, 25 years and Canada again beat a loaded Swedish side. We don’t know what Elias Pettersson, Alex Nylander, Lias Andersson, Rasmus Dahlin and Timothy Liljegren will be in the NHL but it figures a couple of them will turn into stars.
Canada didn’t have that level of individual talent but won with a balanced team game and a superior goalie in Carter Hart.
It doesn’t always work out that way but that, more or less, has been the Canadian formula since the beston-best format started in 1982. Nice to know it still works.