麻豆传媒映画

On any given night, in any particular sport, any team can win. Heck, even the Washington Generals have beaten the Harlem Globetrotters at least once.

It’s just that there are some games that are harder to win than others. Asking the 麻豆传媒映画Canucks to beat the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night was a tall order.

It’s not only that the Predators are a very good team, though they certainly are, sitting second in the Western Conference with a 28-14-4 record. It’s not just that the Predators were hungry to make up for giving up 46 shots to the Edmonton Oilers in their last game, a shootout loss.

It’s not just that the Predators started their All-Star goaltender Juuse Saros and his sparkling .927 save percentage instead of backup David Rittich and his less sparkly .882 save percentage like in their last meeting when the Canucks pulled out a win — another reason why the Predators would be raring to go.

It’s all of that combined, plus that the Canucks played the previous night and the Predators had a four-day break between games. 

“That was four games in six nights in four different cities with a lot of travel and we played a pretty good team that was rested,” said head coach Bruce Boudreau. “I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that they were pretty fatigued but they never quit.”

It’s come to be known as a “schedule loss” — a game that you’re likely to lose simply because your players will be tired and their players will be rested. It might make only a small difference but in the NHL, small differences can be enormous. 

The Canucks did what they could to mitigate the impact of the schedule. They started backup goaltender Jaroslav Halak in the easier game against the Chicago Blackhawks, saving their own All-Star goaltender, Thatcher Demko, to face the Predators. They judiciously opened up the game at times, perhaps reasoning that trying to beat the stingy Predators in a low-scoring game was a fool’s errand.

Perhaps even the healthy scratch of Vasily Podkolzin against the Blackhawks and Nils Höglander against the Predators could be seen as part of the strategy — the young players could go all-out in their one game of the back-to-back set. 

The Canucks managed to out-shoot the Predators and even opened the scoring but the fresh legs of the Predators were too much. Sometimes, there’s only so much you can do. 

I did all I could do when I watched this game.

• The Canucks managed to get more shots than the Predators but they definitely struggled to get to the net, with very few shot attempts coming from the slot. The Predators have a very good defence corps that make it very difficult to get to the middle of the ice, which is likely another reason why the Canucks opened things up and tried to make more happen off the rush at times.
   
• It may seem odd to praise a goaltender who gives up four goals on just 28 shots, but Demko was legitimately very good. The four goals were all tough to stop, with some perfectly-placed shots into the top corner. Of the 24 saves he did make, some of them were of the phylum Great, specifically the genus Ridiculous.
   
• Demko purloined a goal from Luke Kunin in the first period to finish off a penalty kill. Kunin was wide open on the right side, with Oliver Ekman-Larsson failing to take away the cross-seam pass, but Demko kicked hard off the post to get out quickly and cut off the angle.

• The Canucks opened the scoring with a goal from their fourth line, which has been more like a third line, if not a second line, in recent games. Against the Predators, the line of Tyler Motte, Juho Lammikko, and Matthew Highmore actually played fourth-line minutes for the first time in a while, likely because the Canucks were trailing for a good chunk of the game and needed a goal but maybe that means Motte, Lammikko, and Highmore should’ve had more minutes? I don’t know anymore, nothing makes sense.
   
• The goal came off a dreadful neutral zone turnover by Mattias Ekholm, who hit Philip Tomasino in the skates, creating a 2-on-1 for Lammikko and Highmore. Ekholm made it worse by overplaying Lammikko, who made a nifty saucer pass on the backhand to send Highmore in alone, and Highmore kept the puck more low, going under the glove of Saros. Incidentally, yhe glove of Saros is not quite as disturbing as .
   
• The Canucks then got a power play, giving them a chance to extend their lead, but they struggled to get anything going on some juggled units, and the Predators responded with what was essentially a shorthanded goal that came just a second after the power play ended. Michael McCarron sprung Ryan Johansen on a breakaway and Johansen looked blocker side before ripping the puck over Demko’s glove to tie the game 1-1.
   
• A minute later, the Predators struck again to take the lead on one of the best tips I’ve ever seen. It was an alternate-spellings-of-Phillip goal, as Phillippe Myers drilled a slap shot towards Filip Forsberg in the slot, and Forsberg angled his blade perfectly to send the puck off the post and in.
   
• Just two minutes after that, the Canucks tied it up 2-2 thanks to a wobbling shot by Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who took the puck on his backhand and spun around to whip the puck towards the net with J.T. Miller screening Saros in front. The puck toppled end over end and like a , clanking off the post and into the net. 
   
• The second period started as fast-paced as the first ended, with Matt Duchene and Elias Pettersson trading posts before Forsberg scored his second goal of the game. It was a pin-point accurate one-timer on the power play that couldn’t have gone any further into the top corner.
   
• The Predators added one more goal in the third period. Ekholm threw the puck towards the net and hit traffic in front, dropping right onto the stick of Tanner Jeannot to put past Demko, who was stuck playing the original shot. Luke Schenn got caught searching for the puck instead of boxing out Jeannot, which is not a mistake he usually makes.
   
• This was a very physical game, as both sides racked up hits by the dozen: six-and-a-quarter dozen between the two teams, to be precise. None were bigger than this absolute trucking Mark Borowiecki delivered to Ekman-Larsson, sending the Swedish defenceman fully horizontal.

• The biggest Canucks hit was surprisingly delivered by their smallest player, Conor Garland, who sent Myers into the Canucks net with a firm shoulder. It was so unexpected that Myers clearly didn’t believe it was Garland and immediately got into Schenn’s face instead, with Canucks play-by-play announcer John Shorthouse reasoning, “Based on how Luke Schenn has played, I’m going to guess he might’ve been the guy to launch him.” Nope, it was Garland, but that’s a pretty hefty compliment to Garland.

• If the Canucks didn’t have Quinn Hughes, I would actually be a proponent of using five forwards on the power play, so you can just guess how I feel about the Canucks using two defencemen — a tactic that has fallen pretty much completely out of use on first power play units across the NHL. .  
   
• It makes basically no sense for the Canucks to use Oliver Ekman-Larsson with Quinn Hughes on the first power play unit, particularly as the trigger man at the top of the right faceoff circle. Not only has Ekman-Larsson, despite his goal in this game, been completely invisible offensively, it takes a key spot away from either Elias Pettersson or J.T. Miller, who make much better use of it. It is infuriating and I am very much done with it. Stop putting two defencemen on the power play.
   
• “I thought special teams wasn’t very good tonight and that’s kind of why we lost the game, I felt,” said Ekman-Larsson. I mean, it didn’t help.