Canucks 2, Coyotes 1: Quinn Hughes has put this team on his back
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He's unquestionably the best defenceman in team history. And he's already proving himself to be a great choice as the team's captain.
Published Apr 03, 2024 • Last updated 15 hours ago • 6 minute read
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Quinn Hughes is already one of the Vancouver Canucks’ greats.
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He’s unquestionably the best defenceman in team history. And he’s already proving himself to be a great choice as the team’s captain.
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He’s not the most outspoken but it’s always been true that he leads with his play.
On Wednesday night in the desert, the Canucks were once again struggling to find goals.
Thank goodness for Hughes.
The Canucks’ captain scored the game’s first goal in the second period. On a power play. It was his second-straight game with a power-play goal.
And then with his team struggling for confidence after giving up a mid-third period power-play goal to the Arizona Coyotes, a mediocre team that had been meekly chasing the game all night, he put his team on his back.
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The Canucks as a group were pressing the play but it was Hughes who took things to the next level. For about 40 seconds he spun and swerved and switched back and just sizzled in every possible way. The Coyotes were scrambling … and then couldn’t find Conor Garland on a far-side rebound.
READ MORE: Canucks’ Conor Garland on living in Gastown, how he found his voice and his post-playing goal.
Garland, the Canucks’ feisty little wizard, made no mistake and buried the puck into the Coyotes net with less than two minutes to play.
It wasn’t a convincing win by any stretch, but it was a win nonetheless and put the Canucks that much closer to their first division title in a decade.
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What’s happened to the Canucks offence?
If you weren’t worried about the state of the Canucks’ offence before this week, you surely now are.
Despite a mountain of possession, the Canucks struggled to find quality scoring chances. So when the Coyotes knotted the game up 1-1 midway through the third period, you couldn’t help but say “of course.”
Simply put, the Canucks shouldn’t have been in such a spot. They are a more talented team and they’ve had a far better season than the Coyotes.
They were slow to take control of the game on offence, but all night had been disciplined enough defensively to keep the Coyotes from getting up to much offence. That was especially notable for the tired Canucks, who’d played the night before in Las Vegas: The rested Coyotes had scored 19 goals in their previous three contests.
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While they kept the Coyotes under control, Vancouver did slowly start to build an edge on the game. And as the second period moved ahead, the Canucks started to create chances that weren’t just long-bomb shots from the point.
The Coyotes strained to keep up as the Canucks’ down-low game took hold and eventually the hosts took a penalty. Handed the door they needed, the Canucks’ still-sluggish-but-effective-once-again power play did strike.
That was notable not just because it was the third game in a row that Vancouver had scored on the power play, but also because Vancouver’s first power play effort on the night, in the first period, made a strong case for the most dire man advantage opportunity by the Canucks this season.
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The power play awakening is a good thing. They’ll need it in the playoffs.
But they need to get things humming at five on five again.
They were, of course, absurdly lucky through most of the first half of the season. They were never going to keep scoring at the rate they were.
But they’ve fallen off a five on five cliff.
Two goals at even strength against the Coyotes and the Anaheim Ducks this week? Those are two of the NHL’s weakest teams. The Canucks not being able to score, let alone find scoring chances from anything other than point shots should give pause.
They need to create more.
Canucks goalie goods
Artūrs Šilovs didn’t have much to do for two periods.
The Coyotes had a couple grade-A chances in the first two periods, but on the whole had just 19 shot attempts at even-strength.
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But in the third period, Arizona found its way. The Coyotes fired the puck 22 times towards Šilovs’ net, a few times creating some wild scrambles.
It took a power play marker to finally beat him. Otherwise he was solid as a rock.
The Canucks had plenty reason to thank him.
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Has Hughes fixed the Power Play all on his own?
The Canucks scored a power-play goal for the third game in a row.
There’s lots still that could be improved, but after it stumbled its way through March, it’s hard to say their power play is struggling when they’re finally scoring again.
It was also the second-straight game with a power-play goal by Hughes.
Hughes is now the second-leading scorer among Canucks defencemen; his goal put him clear of Mattias Öhlund.
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He’s also just the second Canuck to record more than 70 points in a season. The only other: Henrik Sedin.
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Seven D
In something of a surprise, Pius Suter was a scratch.
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Mark Friedman, somewhat surprisingly, drew in and he mostly played as a forward. Arshdeep Bains and Phil Di Giuseppe were also scratched, despite being forwards as well.
Canucks playoff watch
The concurrent Dallas vs. Edmonton game was going to have huge implications for the Canucks’ playoff ambitions, one way or another.
Entering the night the Canucks were five points (technically six, because of tie breakers) up on the Oilers, though Edmonton had a pair of games in hand.
They were also three points back of Dallas for first in the west.
But the Stars thumped the Oilers and so Edmonton has fallen seven points back of Vancouver (eight really, again because of the regulation win tie breaker).
It was always going to be a steep hill for the Oilers to climb after their awful start to the season.
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There was some brief hope in Edmonton that next Saturday’s game vs. the Canucks would have some meaning to it … but hard to see that now, even if the Canucks remain in a rut.
READ MORE: Canucks in the playoffs: Here’s who Vancouver could face in the first round
What is NHL officiating anyway?
The NHL got it right last night in ejecting Nikita Zadorov for his reckless check on Brett Howden, putting his head into the glass.
So what gives on this call from Wednesday’s ridiculous game on Broadway?
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This came 4:25 after the ridiculous brawl that opened the game … and it was called just a minor.
A minor!
There’s a case for a match penalty there. Pretty hard to make that clip any more of a textbook example of where the most dangerous area to push a player towards the boards is.
Will Smith managed to twist his head out of danger, but another version of this hit sees his suffer a serious neck injury.
What is NHL officiating anyway, Part 2?
Pretty obvious what happened here: Why can’t the video review crew call the officials on the ice about this?
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In soccer, they let the VAR officials flag incidents of obvious foul play.
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