CANUCKS: Fourth liners show plenty of Skille (and Megna) in Tampa
Fourth liners combine for four goals — two each from Jayson Megna and Jack Skille — as the Canucks shock the Lightning 5-1
TAMPA, Fla. — Sorry, Willie.
The Vancouver Canucks head coach kept saying he just needed more from his fourth line.
Most of us laughed, and said things like: “These guys? Good luck with that.”
But those guys made Willie Desjardins look like a genius on Thursday, turning the fourth line into snipe city.
The Canucks got two goals each from Jayson Megna and Jack Skille. All four were beauties, too.
You couldn’t have picked two more unlikely multi-goal-scorers on this team. There was some doubt whether Skille would be in the NHL this season. Meanwhile Megna probably should never have been a hockey player, and he almost wasn’t.
His dad, Jay Megna, played defensive back in the NFL, notably for the Miami Dolphins, but didn’t want his son playing football until high school.
So, unable to follow in his dad’s footsteps, when Megna went to a birthday party at seven years old at a Chicago ice rink, he was looking for a sport to play. He found it.
This year he was looking for opportunity. He’s found that too. Partly because Jake Virtanen wasn’t ready and partly because Derek Dorsett is out for the year, Megna got his best chance of the season in Tampa. He was elevated to a top-six role in front of about 25 family and friends who came to watch him play, and he did not disappoint.
One was a brilliant tip, as he bounced an Alex Biega shot hard off the ice and into the net. The other was off a feed from Daniel Sedin, which he flicked into the net as time ran out in the second period.
It was part of a five-goal scoring outburst from the Canucks that was hard to believe. This Canucks team could play a thousand more games and you’d never see five goals scored by Erik Gudbranson, Skille and Megna.
It looked like divine intervention. How else can you explain Gudbranson missing the net with a shot only to watch Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Ben Bishop poke the puck into his own net with his glove?
The deceptively quick Megna, signed this summer to give Vancouver some depth, was actually on the team’s radar years ago.
“When I came out of college (in 2012), it actually came down to a couple of teams and Vancouver was one of them,” Megna said. “Even last year when I signed with the Rangers, there was interest from Vancouver.
“It has always seemed like Vancouver kept coming up. They made me feel wanted and I’m very happy with my decision.”
With good reason. Desjardins was looking to kick-start both Loui Eriksson and Markus Granlund, so he replaced Michael Chaput on that line with Megna.
With his dad having played for the Dolphins, Megna has lots of family in Florida. They’re mostly from the Fort Lauderdale area, but many of them made the drive for his game in Tampa.
He said he just wanted to “put on a show” for them.
You just knew it was going to be an odd game when Skille made one of the most artistic moves of the season, taking a breakout pass around his back and then to the net, where he beat Bishop short side just 3:50 into the game.