Coyotes 4, Canucks 3 (OT): Teams with something to play for should be better
Facing down a woeful Coyotes squad — one surely weighed down by the news they're set to move to Utah — the Canucks should have had an easy time
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Teams that have nothing to play for should be easy marks.
But in the NHL, nothing is easy.
Bad teams beat good teams all the time.
Sometimes those losses by good teams are self-inflicted. The Vancouver Canucks looked on course for such a disaster on Wednesday night at Rogers Arena, but found their way at the last minute.
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Facing down a woeful Arizona Coyotes squad — one surely weighed down by the news they’re set to move to Utah — the Canucks should have had an easy time.
But they didn’t.
Instead, they fell behind and only caught up in the game’s final stages.
Conor Garland, as he has so often done lately, lit the spark, getting Vancouver’s second goal, and Elias Pettersson fired home the game’s tying goal.
The crowd loved the finish and forgot all about a very messy second period for Vancouver.
But in the end, the Canucks couldn’t find a win. They even had an overtime penalty shot, but Filip Hronek couldn’t convert.
The Canucks killed off a woeful Coyotes power play, but couldn’t find control and in the end, Arizona won the game in overtime on a goal by Logan Cooley.
Rick Tocchet took to the podium with a look of frustration, one he’s carried far too often lately. You know he’s worried about whether his team can even win the division, let alone perform to expectation in the playoffs.
“Too many missed shots. I didn’t think we went to the net the first two periods,” he said.
His team had 75 shot attempts on the night, nearly double what Arizona managed, but Tocchet lamented the fact they missed the net 29 times.
He pointed out that J.T. Miller’s goal in the second period came off a rebound off a low shot.
“It’s very simple, you can’t shoot high from the blue-line. And you’ve got to hit the net.”
Tired? Who’s tired?
What was worse about all this was Arizona got thumped 5-0 in Seattle on Tuesday night. And that was before they awoke to chaotic news about their future.
This was a team that was reeling in every way imaginable.
They were a team to be thrown aside in pursuit of a big win.
Instead, the Canucks lost their way badly and ended up losing.
Canucks captain Quinn Hughes pulled no punches: “I don’t think it’s really a team that’s better than us, so we probably shouldn’t be in that position.”
He knew they should have done better.
Raising (stakes from) Arizona
It really does seem like this will be the final visit to Vancouver for the Arizona Coyotes.
National insiders were reporting all day Wednesday that the Coyotes, who moved to the desert from Winnipeg in 1996 and have been almost a non-stop possible re-relocation story ever since, finally look like they’re going to move.
Destination: Salt Lake City.
Multiple sources confirmed to Postmedia that it’s all but done, with players already looking into the Salt Lake City housing market and the prospective owner in Salt Lake City — Ryan Smith of the NBA’s Utah Jazz — telling people behind the scenes it’s a done deal.
The chatter behind the scenes was all very much in line with what you could read between the lines in the reporting by the likes of Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli and TSN’s Pierre LeBrun.
Of course, in hockey, you never say something is done until you actually see it as so, but here we are.
The Coyotes did seem to struggle under the weight of the world in the first period, playing with barely any energy and hardly meeting the Canucks’ attacking efforts.
Arizona coach Andre Tourigny observed pre-game, in conversation with a team reporter, that when relocation rumours first popped up in late January, his team went on a 14-game losing streak.
“We cannot pretend it did not affect our team,” he said.
But after the woeful first — Arizona had just two shots — the Coyotes got things done in the second period.
They defended the middle of the ice with conviction, limiting the Canucks to just four shots on goal in the frame.
The Canucks pressed hard again late in the game, clearly furious they were trailing in a game like this with a chance to further cement their hold on first place in the Pacific Division — to a team like that.
And they did pull it out at least in the end, getting two late goals.
Standings time
The Edmonton Oilers aren’t giving up. They beat the Vegas Golden Knights 5-1 to keep the pressure on against the Canucks.
With the Canucks’ overtime loss, the Oilers are four points back. Edmonton still holds a game in hand, so Saturday’s tilt between the Canucks and Oilers still holds lots of importance.
Both teams essentially control their own destiny at this point. Edmonton hosts Arizona on Friday, while the Canucks don’t play again until Saturday.
The Canucks’ magic number to win the division is now six, meaning any combination of points gained by Vancouver or lost by Edmonton totalling six will mean the Canucks will win the division.
Punchless PP
The Canucks’ power play has been baffling to watch at times.
When they’re on, they move the puck quickly. They move their feet quickly.
They attack with abandon.
That was not evident on any of the Canucks’ three power plays in the first two periods. They were just too ponderous.
The first power play of the game — 30 seconds into the game, no less — started well enough, but then lots its way. But a power play late in the second and then a third man advantage in the second period were both aimless.
A late third-period power play finally saw the Canucks strike and it was all because Elias Pettersson finally did what fans have been wanting for a long time: he just ripped the puck.
Asked about how ponderous the power play had been up to that point, Tocchet initially raised his hands in agreement as well as mild exasperation, telling the assembled reporters that, yes, Pettersson’s goal was point-proven.
And then in his description of the power play’s course on the night, it was evident that that early man advantage was essentially a forgotten opportunity.
The team had been moving hard, and then those two power plays killed their energy, he felt.
“When you start setting up and slowing it down, it’s just … the PKs are too good nowadays, there’s too many good PK coaches and you got to move the puck in or you got to move your feet to change your angle to make a pass,” the coach said.
Oh that breakaway
Teddy Blueger had a glorious chance to get the Canucks within one with a third period short-handed breakaway.
He didn’t score, but it would have been quite the moment and likely would have changed the finish to the game.
Oh hi
Dylan Guenther, who Arizona picked with the first-round pick traded for Conor Garland and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, had four points on the night.
Despite his high-profile night, Coyotes PR did not make him available.
Losing your cool
There’s no doubt the officials missed a call or two against the Canucks in the first two frames, but it was inexcusable for Vancouver to take three penalties in the first 10 minutes of the third period.
Channel that frustration into creating scoring opportunities.
The fact the Canucks roared back in the final 10 minutes made the penalties in opening half of the third that much sillier.
“Sometimes it’s not going to go your way but you can’t kill three, four times in a row. It’s tough, especially when you’re down,” Tocchet lamented.
Big rebounds
If you felt like the Canucks were overshooting the rebounds coming off Connor Ingram, with the puck actually ending up behind them too often, you weren’t wrong.
Ingram’s Bauer pads are designed to do that.
They’re the latest in a now 12-year-long project from Bauer to produce goalie pads that actually create big rebounds.
According to a 2018 article by NHL.com’s Kevin Woodley, it all goes back to a 2012 product test with former New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist. Bauer had wanted to create pads that would deaden rebounds, but the pads they gave Lundqvist essentially did the exact opposite.
“The aha moment was Lundqvist saying he loved that rebounds were flying off,” said Henry Breslin, a manager on Bauer’s goal team at the time told Woodley. “His point was it would be nice to stick like Velcro, but if you can’t do that, then further is better.”
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