
The Lead
The above photo is a rare look at the Vancouver Canucks’ offense against the Washington Capitals.
Know how on NHL.com you can click on a goal in a box score to see it play on NHL.tv? Head on over to the Vancouver/Washington box score and click on “Watch” next to Alex Edler’s goal. The 15-second clip shows not just the Canucks’ only goal of the night, but also their only offense. Almost literally.
Through the first two periods tonight, Vancouver put three shots on goal. Two in the first (the goal) and one in the second. ONE! It was honestly the most pathetic attempt at conjuring offense I’ve seen at the NHL level, ever. No exaggeration. How does Washington’s so-so defensive system hold any team, let alone a team that’s scored 11 goals in its first two games, to that little offense?
The fact that the embarrassment was broadcast on the Versus HD feed for 20 people to see made it somehow worse. Iain McIntyer summed it up best in the Vancouver Sun: “It was grotesque and bewildering, and in the context of the last month for the Canucks, we hardly know what to make of it. Besides kindling.”
It didn’t help that Alexander Semin and Mike Green seemed singlehandedly determined to shoot the puck every chance they got (the two combined for 11 shots, one more than the entire Vancouver roster), and three of those attempts went in. The padding provided by goals from Milan Jurcina and Michael Nylander, the latter on a salt-in-the-wounds penalty shot, was just the Caps’ way of kicking sand in the Canucks’ faces.
‘Course, it didn’t help that Alain Vigneault tinkered with the lineup that worked so magnificently against the Flames twice in three nights. First, he opted to swap out rough-and-ready Darcy Hordichuk, who admirably scrapped with Andre Roy and fired up the bench on Saturday, for the (theoretically) handsier Kyle Wellwood, who turned the puck over a couple of times and didn’t seem interested in anything resembling backchecking. Second, and this was obviously not his choice and thus not his fault, but Rob Davison was a poor substitute for Kevin Bieksa at the blue line.
Skill vs. Skill doesn’t work when the other team’s best skill player is Alex f’n Ovechkin. Ovechkin, though, was notable by his invisibility tonight. He registered three shots and no points against the Ohlund-Mitchell pairing, who, y’know, play physical, in 23-plus minutes of ice time.
Vancouver’s off until Thursday when they face another skill team, this time Detroit. Yeah, that’ll go well. Enjoy the puck-free practice tomorrow, boys.
Read the rest of this entry »