Realistically speaking, only seven of the players in the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup for Monday night’s preseason game against the Edmonton Oilers are likely to be in the lineup on opening night of the regular season.
It’s just Pius Suter, Daniel Sprong, Nils Höglander, Kiefer Sherwood, Vincent Desharnais, and one of Aatu Räty, Arshdeep Bains, or Phil Di Giuseppe, with Kevin Lankinen as the backup goaltender.
That’s just another way of saying that 13 of the players in Monday night’s lineup won’t be on the ice on opening night, which makes it all the more impressive that they took the Oilers to overtime.
The Oilers had most of their top-six forward group in the lineup, including both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. They had their two prize free-agent signings, Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson, on Draisaitl’s flanks. They had their number-one goaltender, Stuart Skinner, in net. They had some defencemen.
Okay, so the Oilers didn’t entirely dress their regular season roster for this game but it sure felt like they did, particularly when the Canucks didn’t have any of their stars on the ice.
But perhaps that worked to the Canucks’ advantage. The Canucks on the bubble — most of their lineup — had something to play for. McDavid and Draisaitl? A little bit less to play for.
“It’s not about the wins and losses, the group did a great job,” said head coach Rick Tocchet. “I’m really proud of them, the way they played. I just like the way that they stuck with it.”
There’s something to be said for guts, gumption, and good old-fashioned grit. As they say, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” They also say, “Working hard or hardly working?” but that’s less inspiring.
In any case, as I always say, I watched this game.
- I continue to be impressed by Kirill Kudryavtsev, who I’m convinced will end up in the NHL rather than in the belly of a whale like most krill. He defends effectively with his mobility, battles hard on the boards, and is calm and poised with the puck under pressure. He led the Canucks with eight shot attempts, though only two got through to the net, and he picked up an assist on the game-tying goal.
- “Kirill, he can break the puck out under heat, that kid,” said Tocchet. “I can’t pronounce his last name — you’ve gotta help me out — but I’m really impressed with him.”
- The highlight of the first period was Oilers defenceman Josh Brown executing the mother of all stick lifts early in the first period to send Arshdeep Bains’ stick into space, where it died on its way back to its home planet.
- Kevin Lankinen had a solid night in the Canucks net, stopping 24 of 26 shots. It was nice to see him settle in after a bit of a rough go in his previous preseason start in Seattle. The number one thing that the Canucks have noted about the new arrival is how good he is at handling the puck; he might actually be the Canucks’ second best puck-mover on the backend after Quinn Hughes.
- “Solid,” said Tocchet when asked about Lankinen’s game. “He was really good at handling the puck for us on dump-ins, that really helps. I think he helped our D a lot and made some great saves when we needed him to.”
- The makeshift top line of Arshdeep Bains, Pius Suter, and Daniel Sprong had a great game and managed to hold their own against both the McDavid and Draisaitl lines. That trio nearly opened the scoring on a frenetic jam play in the Oilers’ crease midway through the first period and consistently created problems for the Oilers’ breakout on the forecheck. If they end up as the Canucks’ fourth line at some point this season, I wouldn’t be mad.
- After an egregious dive by Mark Friedman — he grabbed the stick of poorly-disguised vampire Drake Caggiula and executed a marvelous pratfall — we got a look at a power play featuring Bains, Suter, Sprong, Kiefer Sherwood, and Christian Wolanin. Of those five, Suter and Sprong might actually get some minutes on the power play this season; heck, Sprong could even get a shot on the first unit if Jake DeBrusk doesn't work out in the bumper.
- Sherwood made an argument to get some power play minutes this year, setting up Bains for the opening goal with a lovely backdoor pass. Sprong sent the puck down low to Sherwood, who made like he was going to relay the puck to Suter in the slot before swinging the puck cross-crease to Bains for the sports fisherman’s special: catch-and-release.
- “We talked about it before if the backdoor was open,” said Bains. “Woody made a good play and I was ready for him. We kind of drew that one up, so it was perfect that it went in.”
- It was a bit of a tough night for umlauted line of Nils Höglander, Aatu Räty, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who spent a lot of the game stuck in their own zone. Lekkerimäki did have a team-high four shots on goal but the line did not fare well the few times they were up against the McDavid line.
- Räty has had a great preseason but the strain of playing four games in seven nights seemed to catch up to him. He blew his defensive zone coverage on the Oilers’ first goal, as he allowed Corey Perry to skate right by him on a scissor play along the boards. As Perry cut inside while McDavid circled to the point, Räty tried to swap checks with Noah Juulsen when he should have stayed stapled to Perry. Instead, Perry was allowed to walk in all alone on Lankinen and tuck the puckinen.
- It was a nice goal but Perry remains a bum. Suter and McDavid had the mildest of altercations and Perry, sensing an opportunity to prove his toughness against someone four inches and 30 lbs smaller than him, went after Suter, dropping the gloves when Suter clearly had no interest in fighting. It’s the kind of fake toughness you expect from someone screaming, “Don’t hold me back!” to his friends at the club (when he really, really wants them to hold him back).
- The Oilers took the lead 2-1 with a power play goal but the Canucks responded before the goal could even be announced in the building, which is one of my favourite things in hockey. The quick-response goal always takes the starch out of the building but the in-arena announcer still goes for the gusto, trying to hype up the crowd while being met with crickets by the crowd.
- The goal came off a nice zone entry by Max Sasson, who attacked with speed, and then hooked back to create some space with the puck. With the Oilers collapsing back deep off the attack in transition, that left plenty of room across the top of the zone for Mark Friedman to relay the puck to Kudryavtsev, who jumped up the left side and fired a low shot that Nate Smith neatly tipped five-hole on Stuart Skinner. It was the best Smith tip since “Use a sledgehammer head as an anvil.”
- It was great to see Smith get rewarded after he was denied on two chances earlier in the game. The 25-year-old centre has kind of been forgotten about amongst the other players battling for a roster spot or angling for an early call-up from Abbotsford, but Smith does already have a handful of NHL games under his belt; perhaps he shouldn’t be entirely discounted.
- The overtime period was a complete gong show, as the Canucks gave up multiple 2-on-1s and turned into a Keystone Kops routine when they had their own chances in the offensive zone. One sequence was deservedly set to the Benny Hill theme by CanucksArmy’s Arielle Lalande: Sprong get robbed, then was tripped and forced to miss a wide-open net on the rebound, then Sprong tripped Draisaitl in turn, and Draisaitl decided he was done with skating and tried to play the puck entirely from his knees, only to trip Sprong again, this time getting a penalty. Silliness.
- The Canucks couldn’t capitalize, the game went to a shootout, the Oilers won the shootout. Lekkerimäki rung the post with a decent move, then a clearly done-with-this-game Draisaitl hammered a slap shot top shelf. Sprong couldn’t beat Skinner with a snapshot, then Arvidsson got dekey on Lankinen, and that was it. Game over.
- There’s just one preseason game remaining and the Canucks have yet to dress anything like a full NHL lineup. You have to think there will be some significant cuts in the next few days and Friday’s rematch against the Oilers will feature a Canucks lineup more indicative of what we’ll see in the regular season. Maybe we’ll even see the mythical J.T. Miller.
