EXPANDING GOALS
Surprising Knights come to town
The Vancouver Canucks can’t even beat an expansion team.
To be fair, the Vegas Golden Knights are better than most expansion teams have been in NHL history. They played well. The Canucks did not.
Vegas cruised to a 5-2 win at Rogers Arena on Thursday night, scoring three third-period goals.
Here is what we learned:
THE DEFENCE FLOPPED
At least the Canucks have Brock Boeser.
Against Vegas, they didn’t have much else. Well, they had Anders Nilsson, but they didn’t start him.
Instead, it was Jacob Markstrom who wasn’t good enough to make up for a defence that collapsed in the team’s first home game after a long road trip.
Alex Edler gave the puck away, several times. Derrick Pouliot came back to earth after a string of good games. And Erik Gudbranson lost a board battle and tripped a moment before the Golden Knights scored their third goal to stop a Canucks comeback attempt cold.
LINE JUGGLING INSPIRES OFFENSIVE COMEBACK
Derek Dorsett got a lot of run for fighting in Los Angeles Tuesday. Many argued it got his team going after coming out flat.
It seems line juggling can have the same impact. That seems safer too, no?
Head coach Travis Green has been proving he’s a pretty good deck shuffler this season.
He dealt his team a nice hand in the second period when he flipped Bo Horvat with Brandon Sutter on what many believe to be the Canucks’ first line. The results were immediate.
Boeser jumped on a giveaway and scored his sixth goal of the season.
Less than five minutes later, Horvat, who was on a line with Sam Gagner and Thomas Vanek, seized some ice in front of the net and re-directed a puck in.
The goals tied the game at two.
SPECTATOR INJURED
There were audible gasps in the crowd when a puck tipped by Erik Haula hit an elderly woman in the forehead.
The puck caused a three-to-four-inch gash, and she was taken from her seat in a wheelchair.
“She wasn’t watching, you could see it coming,” said Paul Bishop
who was sitting right behind her. “It wasn’t a hard shot. But it was an unusual angle.”
MARKSTROM SAVED WORST FOR LAST
Nilsson has had one game this season with a save percentage under .900. Markstrom, on the other hand hasn’t crested .900 in four of five starts now. Nilsson’s time to start is right now.
Well, the Canucks have been Markstrom’s team. That could change after Thursday’s gamesealing goal slid easily through his five hole. It’s not that Markstrom has been bad. He hasn’t been. It’s that Nilsson has been better and not by a little.
Despite this, when both goalies have been available, Markstrom is starting twice as often.
It happened again against Vegas even though Nilsson’s save percentage is .942 and Markstrom’s was .913 before the game.
That’s an incredible difference. How long before it starts impacting who starts is anyone’s guess.
Markstrom gave up two firstperiod goals against Vegas and then a third-period tap in, on a backdoor play. You can’t really pin any of the goals against him.
The second, for example, came after a string of poor defensive plays. Pouliot was pushed aside like he was a five-year-old’s stuffie along the boards, while Edler got lost in front of the net.
Edler ended up screening Markstrom, who to be fair didn’t have much of a chance to make a save on that one.
VIRTANEN NEEDS TO HIT TO PLAY
It’s unclear when Jake Virtanen is going to play again.
There are all sorts of reasons this is important. Start with the fact Virtanen is a 21-year-old developing player who needs, um, games.
He’s six weeks into a season and he’s averaging fewer than 10 minutes a game. And that’s only including the games he actually plays in. He did not play Thursday. To get back in, it seems, he needs to hit more.
HOW MUCH MORE?
He said recently he’s targeting two or three hits a period now. It’s worth noting, no one in the NHL averages that much. In fact, there are only 11 forwards in the league averaging three hits a game.
His coach was blunt Thursday in his Virtanen remarks.
“I’m not going to put Jake in for the better of Jake,” Green said. “It’s a fine line between developing and doing what’s right for an individual and doing what’s right for the team.”
There is a fine line, but it can’t be stressed enough, the development of young players trumps all.
“There’s something to be said about lessons, and learning them.”