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Horvat pots 2 more goals, sits 2nd overall as Canucks eke out win in Ottawa |
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Tuesday November 8 - Vancouver Canucks 6 - Ottawa Senators 4
Wednesday November 9 - Vancouver Canucks at Montreal Canadiens - 4:30 p.m. - Sportsnet
With the hockey world still abuzz after Jim Rutherford's fiery radio appearance on Monday, the Vancouver Canucks overcame a rough start to start their road trip with a 6-4 win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday.
Bo Horvat scored two more goals, bringing him to 12 goals in 13 games for the year — a 76-goal pace (Hi, Phil Esposito, Teemu Selanne and Alex Mogilny!) He's now alone in second place in the NHL goal-scoring race, two back of some dude named Connor McDavid.
The other goals went to Ilya Mikheyev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jack Studnicka and Elias Pettersson. And much like we saw in last week's wild third period against the Anaheim Ducks, six of the game's 10 goals came in the final frame, after Vancouver was lucky to be in a 2-2 tie after 40 minutes.
Spencer Martin also continues his incredible streak of bringing in points in every game he has played in a Canucks uniform. His record is now up to 6-0-4 despite the fact that the Canucks gave up a season-high 41 shots to Ottawa on Tuesday.
So Thatcher Demko will come back into the net as the scene shifts to Montreal for the second half of the back-to-back on Wednesday.
We did see a couple of other lineup changes against the Sens, with Jack Rathbone drawing in on defense ahead of Riley Stillman and Brock Boeser returning to action after missing another six games.
Boeser was active on Tuesday, finishing with three shots on goal, an assist and a plus-2 in 15:16 of action on Monday, lined up with Tanner Pearson and J.T. Miller. He looked like he thought he got a piece of the puck on OEL's third-period goal, and he does have five assists in his seven games, but that first goal of the year continues to elude him.
Who will score first — Boeser, or the player who beat him out for the 2018 Calder Trophy, Mat Barzal?? The Islanders have won seven of their last eight games and Barzal has 15 assists on the year, but also has yet to tally his first goal.
So after the Canucks opened their season at 0-5-2, they've now gone 4-1-1 in their next six games. Tuesday's win moved them within one point of the second wild-card in the West, but they also sit 13th in the 16-team division. So is your glass half empty or half full?
In his radio appearance, Rutherford certainly seemed to make it clear that he wants to distance himself from Bruce Boudreau as much as he can. But perhaps that's bringing the group closer together inside the room?
Iain MacIntyre got an intriguing quote from J.T. Miller, who has mostly played his way out of his early-season spot in the eye of the hurricane:
One final note before I leave Tuesday's game behind: the win overshadows a rough special-teams night. Vancouver's power play went 0-for-3, while Ottawa's went 2-for-5. That drops the Canucks to fifth overall with the man advantage (28.3%) but they do still hang above 60% with their league-worst penalty kill (60.5%).
Now — on to the Habs. They're also on a back-to-back, coming off a 3-2 shootout win in Detroit on Tuesday that moved them to .500 with a record of 6-6-1. But in the tougher Eastern Conference, they also sit 13th. And they're two points back of a wild-card spot.
Montreal is 27th in league scoring this season. Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield have eight goals each and Kirby Dach is also into double-digits with 10 points. But after that, the dropoff is pretty sharp. For a rebuilding team that has had some pretty significant injuries on defense, it's impressive that they're tied for 17th with a pretty respectable 3.23 goals against per game, especially after giving up a league-worst 3.87 last season.
Jake Allen has been steady in net. But he played Tuesday in Detroit, so the Canucks are likely to see Sam Montembeault on Wednesday night. He hasn't played much but has delivered when called upon, with a 2-1-1 record, .928 save percentage, 2.47 goals-against average and 4.1 goals saved above expected.
And while Joel Edmundson returned to the blue line last week after missing the first 10 games of the season with a lower-body injury, he and David Savard are the only two current Montreal defensemen who aren't rookies.
The Habs' defensive improvement has come with 20-year-old Kaiden Guhle on the top pair with Savard, undrafted 21-year-old bruiser Arber Xhekaj on the second pairing with Edmundson, and 25-year-old waiver pickup Jonathan Kovacevic, with his 16 games of NHL experience, skating with 22-year-old Jordan Harris, who came out of Northeastern last season after four years.
It's a stunning vote of confidence from the Habs' management team. And Martin St. Louis deserves credit, too — it's working.
I mentioned rugged Xhekaj, who went viral after taking down Zack Kassian in a fight a couple of weeks ago. The Habs are definitely playing with an edge this year, sitting fifth overall with an average of 10:11 of penalty minutes per game. That could give the Canucks an opportunity to lean on their power play on Wednesday.
Montreal will also be missing forward Josh Anderson on Wednesday night, who's serving a two-game suspension for boarding Alex Pietrangelo of Vegas last weekend. And first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky could also be missing against Vancouver. He has a hearing scheduled on Wednesday after hitting Detroit's Matt Luff from behind on Tuesday.
Luff is apparently now on the shelf for 10-12 weeks, so that won't help Slafkovsky's case.
I'll leave it there for now. Looking forward to seeing what tonight brings. Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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