Another goose egg on the Duck pond
Gudbranson shut down for season hours before ’Nucks end road trip without a single goal
“IANAHEIM, Calif. t’s piling on for sure.”
That was Travis Green’s shoulder-shrug response to the latest setback for the Canucks. On Wednesday morning, the club announced Erik Gudbranson, who suffered a small shoulder labrum tear Nov. 22 and missed a dozen games, has been shut down and will soon have surgery.
That’s eight major injuries if you’re counting — Derek Dorsett, Sven Baertschi, Loui Eriksson, Markus Granlund, Brendan Gaunce, Brock Boeser, Chris Tanev and Gudbranson — although Tanev could play Saturday after missing 16 games with a leg microfracture.
Much like Gaunce, who had a similar injury and procedure last April 20 and needed six months to return to the lineup, Gudbranson will be ready for training camp. He wore a brace and could have finished out the season, but the rehab timeline is critical.
The Canucks’ collective mental makeup is also critical to ensure they compete, because this is their playoffs. Given that they face teams pursuing post-season positions — such as the Anaheim Ducks — being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs shouldn’t eliminate the effort.
Despite the absence of scoring the last three games and mounting losses, the Canucks haven’t given up much. They keep pushing the pace. They activate pinching defencemen and haven’t crawled into a let’s-trapit-up hole.
“We’re not playing to sit back and survive — that’s a slow death,” Green said. “I want a very aggressive mindset.
“How we play and compete is non-negotiable for me.”
Here’s what we learned as the Canucks dropped a 3-0 decision, their fourth straight loss in the windup of a sobering goalless three-game trip through the southwestern United States:
Short-siders miffing Markstrom
There’s nothing like allowing an early goal and then getting a snow shower from Jason Chimera to test your mettle.
If Jacob Markstrom was going to get unnerved and unravel, it would have been after allowing pinching defenceman Brandon Montour to pick the stick side from the slot after a give-and-go. That was followed by a Chimera snow shower, after which Tyler Motte challenged the hulking winger.
Markstrom had his share of good saves after that — especially off 30-goal winger Rickard Rakell, who did the dipsy-doodle around Motte — but the clinching goal should bug him.
It was bad enough that the Canucks couldn’t make a play to clear the zone. The fact grinder Chimera got just his third goal of the season by picking the short side should bug Markstrom. Pucks should never go through a stopper or find the short
side. That said, Markstrom had no chance on the third goal, a cross-ice feed on the power play.
Board battle win adds up
It’s the little things that add up to O-zone time, scoring chances and trust.
Reid Boucher has 25 AHL goals and had done little offensively since his recall before getting two good second-period looks and another in the third. He was engaged. He was strong on pucks. He teased with that quick release.
The winger also did the spade work along the wall that started the sequence for two bonafide first-period
chances. Boucher fed Michael Del Zotto at the point and his shot was redirected on net by Nic Dowd in the high slot.
Del Zotto then teed up a point shot that deflected off the right pad of John Gibson and clanged the post.
Bad penalties, good killing
Derrick Pouliot is having trouble moving pucks and defending. Taking bad penalties is now a thing, too.
His double minor for getting his stick up on Chimera and drawing blood tested the penalty kill.
Not only did the tandems of Darren Archibald and Brandon Sutter, and Bo Horvat with Motte kill off the four minutes, Sutter had a short-handed chance on a partial break.
When Sam Gagner took a needless interference minor in the neutral zone, Sutter drove the net again on a short-handed chance and a drew a slashing penalty. In the third period, Horvat drove hard for a short-handed
chance. The efforts were the highlight of the night.
As for other actual goal-scoring chances, they were far and few between. There was too much perimeter play and few forwards driving to the net, or even providing screens or tips.
Alex Biega had one good scoring chance in the third and finished with five shots.
Then there was a power play with the chance to narrow a two-goal deficit that lasted just 14 seconds before Markstrom was called for interference of all things.
Horvat had a good scoring chance on a second-period wraparound after taking a heavy check from Ryan Getzlaf in the first period. Without a goal in six games, the centre’s body language spoke of frustration that comes with losing more players, losing more games and losing confidence.