Canucks blow three-goal lead
KANATA, Ont. — Never lacking motivation, Eddie Lack has another reason to be more than just an occasional net presence.
The coach is in his corner, even though it was a 99-percent certainty he would face the Ottawa Senators in a scheduled start Sunday.
“I really believe in Eddie,” Willie Desjardins said before the Vancouver Canucks blew a 3-0 lead and lost 4-3 in overtime. “I don’t think he’s average and I have a lot of confidence in him.”
The uncertainty was how the Vancouver Canucks would react in the second half of back-to-back games after building what looked like a comfortable three-goal lead. They looked tired. They paraded to the penalty box in the second period, and when Erik Karlsson scored at 1:41 of overtime to cap the comeback, a 41-save effort by Lack was overshadowed by the lack of discipline.
“It probably wasn’t a 3-0 game,” said centre Brad Richardson, who made it 3-0 early in the second period before the roof caved in. “I don’t think we played very good at all. They (Senators) were a lot more desperate than us. Eddie held us in for a bit, but they were the better team.”
It was going just fine until the Canucks gave the Senators life and a pair of 5-on-3 power plays.
It took David Legwand scoring off a rebound with a two-man advantage to end Lack’s shutout streak at 138:03. It took a puck going off Yannick Weber’s skate to turn what was looking like a laugher and an Ottawa coach killer into a cruel joke.
The sleepy Senators awoke with a 15-2 power-play shot advantage in the second period — including 22-7 overall — and if it wasn’t for Lack stopping all seven shots on a power play to start the frame, the hole would have been dug a lot sooner.