DiPietro thrown to Sharks
Canuck netminder baptized by fire
We may not all be Canucks, but we are surely all Mike DiPietro.
Starting a 19-year-old goalie, freshly up from junior hockey, against the second-highest scoring team in the NHL — a true Stanley Cup-contending squad — in the San Jose Sharks was always going to be a big risk.
There was, of course, the hope that the kid would play his lights out, but behind the defence the Canucks have, that was a tall order indeed. DiPietro got little help from the defenders in front of him, as the Canucks were shelled 7-2 by the Sharks on Monday evening at Rogers Arena.
Starting DiPietro was a forced move, as “lower-body stiffness” knocked Jacob Markstrom out of action, two days after he stood on his head to guide the Canucks to a 44-save 4-3 shootout win over the fearsome Calgary Flames.
As Canadian hockey fans saw during the world juniors, DiPietro is a talented young man. But the task handed to him on Monday night was beyond him and also very unfair.
That the Canucks were in this situation spoke of dreadful planning going back months. After Richard Bachman, the Canucks’ No. 4 goalie, went down for the season with a torn Achilles in a December game for the Utica Comets, the Canucks waited a month before moving to bring in Mike McKenna to shore up the crease in Utica, but of course they shipped out Anders Nilsson in exchange.
When McKenna was lost two days later on waivers to the Philadelphia Flyers, the Canucks suddenly found themselves on a tightrope. Thatcher Demko was recalled but between him and Markstrom, the Canucks had just two goalies on NHL contracts.
If anything went wrong with either goalie, they’d be in pickle. When Demko hurt his knee last week, the call went to DiPietro.
And then he was the starter Monday, with Markstrom on the bench, but had the Canucks needed to call on him, they would not have been able to. “Markstrom will not be available to play tonight’s game,” the team said on its official Twitter account pre-game.
It’s really absurd it’s got to this point. There’s no need to walk this tightrope: there are goalies in the minors with NHL experience who the Canucks could call on, guys like Michael Leighton, who is currently on short-term deal with Utica, or perhaps Jeremy Smith, currently in Bridgeport; Chris Driedger had a .921 in AHL in 13 games this year; and Jamie Phillips had a .912 in AHL last year and is in ECHL now.
As for the game, the Sharks scored a minute into the game and never looked back.
The visitors got two goals from Evander Kane and singles from Timo Meier, Melker Karlsson, Tomas Hertl, Kevin Labanc and Joe Pavelski.
The Canucks got a first-period tally from Bo Horvat, a goal that made it 3-1 and briefly gave the home side hope, and Derrick Pouliot in third-period garbage time.