One of my favourite things in sports is the “sure thing,” that feeling of anticipation when you just know that something great is about to happen. There was that split second when Markus Naslund got the puck at the right faceoff circle with room to shoot and you just knew that Naslund was going to score.
Or those few seconds when Pavel Bure wound up behind his own blue line to come through the neutral zone with speed or the minutes when the Sedins in their prime would ragdoll their opponents with meticulous puck possession. You just knew a goal was in the cards.
During the 2010-11 season, there was a wonderful sense of anticipation every time the Canucks fell behind heading into the third period: you just knew an exciting comeback was on its way. When they didn’t complete the comeback or Naslund, Bure, or the Sedins didn’t score on a “sure thing,” it came as a shocking surprise.
Then there’s the opposite effect: the feeling of dread when you just know that something is going to go wrong. I had that feeling of dread during Super Bowl XLVIII when the Seahawks carried a 22-0 lead into half-time. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to fall apart and I was about to witness the worst collapse in Super Bowl history. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.
I’ve spent most of this Canucks season with that same sense of dread, to the point that it’s become comfortable and expected. When they went up 4-1 on the Blackhawks on Tuesday, I just knew the Blackhawks would come back to tie it. And when the Canucks opened the scoring in this game against the Blues, I had no faith whatsoever in their ability to hold, let alone extend, that lead.
On the other hand, every dreadful loss brings the Canucks closer to the hopeful anticipation of a high draft pick. With hopeful, anticipatory dread, I watched this game.
- With the loss, the Canucks are officially eliminated from the playoffs, just in case anyone was still clinging to the delusion that they still had a chance. Like, say, the team that was still playing a 20+ minutes a night less than a week ago.
- Nikolay Goldobin made his return to the lineup after nearly dying from the death disease of deathy deathness. He had just one shot on goal, but it was a doozy, pulling a bouncing puck free with some quick hands, then wiring a hard shot from the hashmarks that Jake Allen had to backhand awkwardly. Also a doozy: .
- As , Ryan Miller was to the Canucks: he kept them in the game until the bitter end. His best save came early on a David Perron breakaway after Nikita Tryamkin gave the puck away, but he was solid all night, which is good, as if he was in gaseous form, pucks would have gone right through him.
- Alex Edler has pretty much given up on getting shots on goal, it seems, finally wising up after having so many blocked. Instead, he more and more is shooting wide and hoping for deflections and rebounds. It paid off on the opening goal, as he settled a bouncing puck like it was Catan, then floated a wristshot towards where Henrik Sedin was battling with Alex "The Robber" Steen. Allen lunged for the puck with his glove, but it hit Steen instead, falling just right for Henrik to trade it at the 3-for-1 port for a goal.Â
- The Canucks had other chances to score — Daniel put the puck back through the crease with an open net, Horvat hit the crossbar, and Tryamkin hit the post — but like a lousy evangelist, they couldn’t convert.
- Tryamkin had an odd game. It was far from his best, but because he manhandled Nail Yakupov after a clean, if somewhat sketchy-looking, hit and hit the post off of a power move, it gave the impression that he had a much better game. Like my dad used to say, it looked good from afar, but it was far from good.
- Alex Edler was hit and miss as well. Ignoring my earlier comment, Edler led the team with 5 shots on goal and just short of 25 minutes of ice time and was mostly good. But like being mostly dead, "mostly good" means slightly bad. His giveaway and poor recovery on the first goal wasn't a good look, particularly when the pass to Magnus Paajarvi went through his legs. Also not a good look: the one Miller gave Edler after the goal.
- Joseph Labate is about five months older than Reid Boucher, which apparently disqualifies him from being one of “the kids” in the phrase “play the kids.” The 23-year-old was held out of the lineup Tuesday in favour of defenceman Alex Biega playing forward and only got in the lineup on Thursday because Joseph Cramarossa and Jayson Megna are hurt, and even then played less than 8 minutes. Is Labate, an RFA this off-season, good enough to keep around for another season? Who knows?
- Then again, Labate was on the ice for every Blues goal that was scored with Miller in net. To be fair, he wasn’t at fault for any of them. On the first, he was up ice when Alex Edler failed to clear the zone. On the second, he had literally just come onto the ice on a poorly-timed change. On the third, he finished his check on his man, effectively taking him out of the play. His minus-3 on the night was about as reflective of his play as the back of a mirror.
- The bad change on the second goal is an interesting one, because it came off an aggressive play by Chris Tanev. He spotted Goldobin streaking through the neutral zone and looked to spring a breakawaway, or at least a 2-on-1, with a long stretch pass. Instead, it got picked off for a 4-on-2 the other way. It was bad luck for Tanev, but he didn’t really do anything wrong. His defence partner, Luca Sbisa, on the other hand, backed off from Kyle Brodziak like he had just pulled a knife, giving Brodziak plenty of time and space to place his shot top corner.
- Bo Horvat and his line had a strong game overall and you can clearly see them being used more and more like a proper first line. It was particularly telling when the Canucks started the third period on the power play and Horvat's group took the opening faceoff. We'll just ignore how the power play had fewer shots than an anti-vaxxer's children to start the third period, because it's depressing, and focus on the passing of the torch! What a nice-looking torch.
- Willie Desjardins challenged the Blues’ third goal, which was pretty clearly offside, if only by a centimeter. When the goal stood, Desjardins when apoplectic, yelling and cussing while going bug-eyed. Meanwhile, Trevor Linden made sure there was an extra case of beer in the ref’s room for after the game.
