Goals tough to find without top line
FLAMES 5, CANUCKS 2
CALGARY Losing the Sedins was always going to be a problem for the Vancouver Canucks offensively.
Saturday night’s 5-2 loss to the Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome was a reminder of just how tough the offensive sledding is likely to be.
Yes, they were missing Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi, two players who will help a great deal in the scoring department in the regular season, but the Flames didn’t exactly dress their top-flight defensive corps: Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, Travis Hamonic, Justin Falk and Noah Hanifin were all healthy scratches for the home team.
In other words, the Flames were no flaming hell on the blue-line, yet at even strength the Canucks still weren’t up to much.
The Flames got a hat trick from Austin Czarnik, a short-handed marker by Mikael Backlund and an empty-netter by Mark Jankowski, while the Canucks picked up a pair of power-play goals, one by Elias Pettersson and the second by Brandon Sutter. Here’s what we learned:
POWERLESS PLAY
With a mixed-bag lineup, assistant coach Newell Brown tried out a variation on the Pettersson/ Brock Boeser 1-3-1 setup. Those two remained the shooters on the wings, but Brandon Sutter was on top of the crease, Derrick Pouliot or Alex Edler on the point and Sam Gagner in the pivot, a spot he’d done well in when he played for Columbus.
And although they did score twice on the power play, other than Pettersson’s excuse-me goal on a 5-on-3, not much worked with the extra man for most of the game.
“We lost too many pucks,” Pettersson said.
“We need to be safer with the puck.”
Calgary scored a short-handed goal six minutes into the second period, when the puck was flipped just over the outstretched hand of Edler and slid into the Canucks’ end.
Thatcher Demko thought about coming out to play it, hesitated and was caught in no man’s land as Backland raced down, collected the puck and deked around the Canucks goalie to score the Flames’ third goal.
The Canucks did get a nice power-play goal in the third period, Sutter tapping in a Pettersson pass on the doorstep to make things look respectable.
“Just more direct,” he said of why things started to click in the third. “We talked about it after the second (period), too, get more pucks on the net.”
In the big picture, the absences of Horvat, Baertschi and Ben Hutton were duly noted.
“We weren’t great in the second period, but we weren’t terrible by any means,” coach Travis Green said after the game. “I thought the second period our power player took some momentum away from us ... but that’s part of pre-season, it’s guys working out their kinks.”
EVEN-STRENGTH ELIAS
With five penalties between the two teams in the first period, there wasn’t a whole lot of even-strength ice time for Pettersson.
Even with Gagner and Nikolay Goldobin as his wingers, it took until almost five minutes into the second period for there to be a shot attempt by any Canuck while Pettersson was on the ice.
Late in the second, Green put Pettersson with Boeser and Brandon Leipsic. The new-look top line worked well, generating 10 shot attempts before the game was over.
“I like the look of that line after we made the switch,” he said. “Pettersson got better as the game went on.”