Swede makes loss to Flames nothing to sweat
Petterson’s sensational performance spurs optimism for season despite burn from Calgary
And a child shall lead them. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not yet. Not this quick.
The Calgary Flames already had a good idea on how they could corral Elias Pettersson after the Swedish sensation scored on them in his first NHL game Wednesday with a laser wrister. The problem is nothing seems to faze the 19-year-old magician.
Tell him it’s tough to sweep an opponent. Tell him he’s going to face tougher matchups on the road and that time and space will be at a premium, and he responds with a simple shrug of the shoulders.
Pettersson not only scored twice Saturday at the Saddledome — becoming just the sixth player in Vancouver Canucks history to score at least one goal in his first two NHL games, with the last being Rick Lanz in October of 1980 — it was how he found the net.
First, he manoeuvred smartly to find open ice, took a feed from Nikolay Goldobin from behind the net and before goalie Mike Smith could establish position, he whipped a shot to the far side as he was falling to the ice.
Then, he took a cross-ice, power-play feed from Alex Edler and put his full body into a shot that left him on his knees and Smith wondering how the puck got through him.
Pettersson then nearly scored a hat trick off the rush before drawing a penalty with a dirty dangle right down to the crease. He then set up Bo Horvat with a slick power-play pass at top of the crease for the two-foot, five-hole, tap-in to take the very early lead in the Calder Trophy race.
His only misstep was taking a tripping penalty in trying to negate an odd-man rush.
Here’s what else we learned as the Canucks led 4-3 and then fell 7-4:
NOBODY LIKES TO BE CALLED AVERAGE
Travis Green called his top line just that following the season-opening victory, and part of the frank assessment was to serve as some serious motivation Saturday.
The Canucks coach knows his club isn’t going anywhere without its top trio in sync and driving an offensive engine that can’t afford any misfirings. And just when it was looking like it was going to be more of the same — the line combined for just two shots in the opener and had just one in the first period Saturday — there was something.
It was Brock Boeser getting to the net and nearly converting a redirect on Smith’s porch. Then it was Boeser starting the power-play sequence that led to Horvat’s goal. But then it was Brendan Leipsic getting a late top-line look.
“We’ve got to drive the net harder and move our feet a little bit more and try to wear them down in their own end, and that’s where they’ll take the most penalties on us,” Horvat said following the morning skate.
MARKSTROM COULD USE MORE SUPPORT
Jacob Markstrom’s shoulders could have slumped and he could have lost his head Saturday.
When the first shot of the game beat the Canucks stopper just a dozen seconds in — a TJ Brodie point shot deftly deflected at the side of the net by Elias Lindholm — it could just have been one of those nights.
However, there’s more early-season resolve in Markstrom to prove to everyone that he is a bonafide starter, and that starts with a battle level because the Flames nearly doubled the Canucks in shots.
There were goals he wasn’t happy with — a Mark Giordano wrister slipping between his body and arm and putting a rebound on Johnny Gaudreau’s stick — but there was improved post-to-post movement.
Especially on a power-play, cross-ice feed that Sean Monahan got all of. And with the Canucks nursing a 4-3 lead, he stoned Mark Jankowski on a breakaway, before Monahan would convert a cross-ice, power-play attempt and Lindholm did the same.
SOMETHING SPECIAL WITH SUTTER’S LINE
Green spent a good portion of his morning address explaining how Jake Virtanen can help make Brandon Sutter and Markus Granlund a better shutdown line. It’s been the club’s best alignment through two games.
The trio not only saw a lot of Monahan and Gaudreau, it was Sutter and Granlund who sped away on a 2-on-1 shorthanded rush before Sutter found the far side to give the Canucks their first lead of the game.