BIG PUNCH DELIVERED IN CRUNCH
OVECHKIN IGNITES OFFENCE
Washington’s star captain scores twice to lead the Stanley Cup champions to a 5-2 road win against the overpowered Canucks
In the opening minute on Monday, Alex Ovechkin lined up Alex Edler in the neutral zone the way a heavy-handed 10-pin bowler lines up a corner pin.
The Washington Capitals winger wiped out Edler, and it was a precursor to what the Vancouver Canucks would endure, because the Stanley Cup champions came as advertised at Rogers Arena.
Speed, skill and size are a formidable combination. And whether it was Andre Burakovsky following up the Ovechkin hit by running over Troy Stecher, or the Canucks chasing the game for too many stretches, or the Capitals pulling the trigger on their top-rated power play, it was a big boys’ game that would test the Canucks’ collective resolve.
To their credit, the wake-up alarm sounded in the second period. The Canucks got a gift goal and found themselves back in a game that had the potential to get out of hand in a hurry. You could argue that the Capitals played as hard as they had to, or that there’s something to the resilience the Canucks keep talking about.
Here’s what we learned as the Canucks fell 5-2:
NET RESULT
IS UP TO NILSSON
The road to redemption ran through downtown Vancouver. Where it leads is up to Anders Nilsson.
The much-maligned backup goaltender — or Mr. October, if you flip the calendar back a year to his only other memorable month here — played like a starter on the last trip to give coach Travis Green what any coach savours: competition for the crease and renewed faith in a guy he lost hope in last season. On Monday, Nilsson wanted to erase the stigma that he’s only an option in back-to-back games. And even though he got off to an inauspicious start — a charging John Carlson re-directing a Jakub Vrana offering off a 2-on-1 rush past Nilsson — there was some resilience that has to become part of his revamped game.
Then there was bad stuff. A pair of power-play, shortside goals by Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ovechkin were the difference and they were shots Nilsson simply had to stop.
He knew that. Maybe not so much on Kuznetsov, but everybody knew where the Capitals were looking in the third period with the Canucks pulling to within 3-2.
Ovechkin loaded up his cannon and showed why the defending champs have the top-rated power play and why they play so hard and drive
the net so hard to get those chances.
What Nilsson also didn’t get was offensive support.
Former Canucks centre Nic Dowd helped by trying to glove a Stecher point shot and had the puck deflect off his mitt and fool Holtby.
Nilsson regained some composure after the opening goal. He got all of a hard Matt Niskanen point shot, he stopped Kuznetsov from the top of the slot on a power play, backhanded feed by Carlson. He thwarted a pinching Michal Kempny and then got a piece of a Kuznetsov. But that’s not what we’re going to remember.
What does this all mean in the big picture? That’s up to Green. Nilsson’s sparkling 3-1-0 record on the six-game sojourn, which included a 2.26-goals against average and .925 save percentage, and Jacob Markstrom’s tidy 30-save effort Saturday in an overtime win over the Boston Bruins, meant Monday was going to be an early litmus test for Nilsson. Did he pass?
FINALLY, SOME POWER IN THEIR PLAY
The Canucks were 5-for-19 with the man advantage in their first five games and were operating at a 26 per cent success rate. Then Elias Pettersson was concussed, and read what you want into that, because the Canucks didn’t score a power-play goal in three outings before finally clicking on Monday.
It was the way you draw it up and there has to be more of it.
Brock Boeser took a Bo Horvat cross-ice pass at speed, unleashed a heavy shot, and Holtby served up a room-service rebound to a charging Sven Baertschi. It made it 3-2 early in the third period. Game on and maybe some worry gone, too.
After all, the first power-play unit that had a double-edged shooting sword with the one-timers of Boeser and Pettersson suddenly looked pedestrian. Pettersson had quickly become a Henrik Sedin passing clone with a rocket of a release.
The encouraging news is that the rookie sensation took the game-day skate on Monday in his post-concussion recovery protocol and some critical power-play help may be on the horizon.
ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER MAJOR MATCHUP
Brandon Sutter, Loui Eriksson and Antoine Roussel drew the Ovechkin assignment and the only evenstrength goal the Caps’ top line managed was a pingpong goal that deflected in off Ovechkin.
It was a silver lining in the loss because the Canucks’ trio has had credible back-top-back shutdown challenges.