McCann displaying wow factor
PRE-SEASON: Young prospect should have decent shot at making Canucks roster
SAN JOSE, Calif. — If pre-season really matters, if the Canucks are being honest about an emphasis on youth, Jared McCann will be playing in one week, on opening night, when it matters.
McCann has outplayed Jake Virtanen, Linden Vey, Sven Baertschi and Ronalds Kenins.
In fact, name any Canuck forward. McCann is eating their lunch right now.
He was good in Penticton, great at training camp, impressive in the first week of pre-season and now, well now, he’s scoring.
He has set up plays, picked corners and, lo and behold, produced offence. When is the last time a 19-year-old, who is very good defensively, was doing anything like this in Vancouver in September?
Much of the talk this summer was focused on Virtanen’s chances of making the Canucks. What if McCann is the 2014 first-round draft pick who is more ready for this?
Because, currently, that’s how it looks.
Stay calm. All of this may go away in a flash once the season starts. Many pre-season promises do. But, to borrow a phrase, let’s do this.
McCann now has four points, leading all Canucks. People can compare him with Ryan Shannon, Sergei Shirokov and other frauds who have shown well in the pre-season. The difference? Pedigree. McCann isn’t a journeyman or a late-round draft pick. He’s a firstround stud, who has the potential to be a second- or first-line centre.
Can McCann work centring a line with Brandon Prust and Derek Dorsett? Great question. But right now, honestly, who cares?
It’s like the Canucks just found water on Mars. It requires further study.
Some will point out McCann’s struggles in the faceoff circle. I don’t care.
Something unexpected has a chance of happening here and the Canucks have to give it every chance they can to let it breathe.
Mostly, this has been an awful pre-season. The Canucks’ veterans, and that includes their No. 1 goalie, have been sleepwalking through it for so long, the coaching staff addressed most of them Tuesday, essentially telling them: Give us more, like now.
You can understand it from the Sedins, Alex Burrows and even Brandon Sutter, though you’d think he’d be trying to make a bigger early splash after signing that massive extension.
You can understand it when Alex Edler and Chris Tanev play like they’d rather be watching a Jays game, like they did Tuesday.
You can’t understand it, however, from players like Vey and Kenins, whose jobs are either in jeopardy or should be.
All of the sludge we’ve endured, at least those of us who have watched these games, is making McCann’s efforts stand out even more.
He is doing this for a team that lost players who scored 54 goals last year; for a team that really doesn’t have an obvious answer where those goals are going to come from this season.
And on Tuesday, he was playing on a team of almost entirely prospects who were up against the San Jose Sharks. The real ones.
The roster the Canucks sent to San Jose should have been totally overmatched. There were times they were. For the first 10 minutes of the second period Vancouver produced one shot.
Vey spent most of the first two periods getting, figuratively speaking here, his head kicked in on his matchups. The Canucks had two even-strength shot attempts when he was on the ice in the first 40 minutes. The Sharks had nine.
McCann, meanwhile, was holding his own. His line generated as many shot attempts as it surrendered.
This is good. So is this: McCann can shoot. On the Canucks’ first power play Tuesday, he launched one off the heal of his stick. It was ripped. It was heading for the top corner when Martin Jones made a really good save.
Later, in front of Brenden Dillon, McCann picked up a turnover in the slot, whirled around, and in one motion, wired the puck into the net. You think the Canucks could use that shot this year? What about the second power-play unit, which played last season like Ray Donovan took them out in October and buried them somewhere in a desert.
Where McCann fits in is on the Canucks. They have to make it happen.
Virtanen is hitting people, as advertised. He’s also turning the puck over and not exactly looking comfortable defensively.
McCann has been more polished, and has shown a more complete game. Is it his time? Well, next week it should be time to find out.