EDMONTON — After five long, tortured years, the Vancouver Canucks finally played a game in the post-season on Sunday night.
Now if they could just win one.
Here’s what we learned from the Minnesota Wild’s 3-0 win in the opening game of the qualifying round series:
Battleground set
It might have only been one game but for the Canucks the grim reality is this: In the history of NHL post-season best-of-fives, the team that wins the first game has gone on to win 68 of the 83 series. If you’re scoring at home, that’s an 82 per cent success rate.
Territorially, Game 1 was close but in the principal battleground areas, the Canucks were the second-best team. Their 16th-ranked penalty kill surrendered two power play goals in the Wild’s first three opportunities.
Their offence, such as it was, was kept to the outside, resulting in a relatively stress-free night for Alex Stalock, the career backup who wrestled away the Wild’s starting job late in the season. Through two periods, the Canucks outshot the Wild 24-20 but 17 of their shots were produced by defencemen.
“It’s a learning process,” said Canucks head coach Travis Green. “You can talk about playoff hockey but until you play it, it’s not easy to get to the net. It’s not easy to score goals.”
At the other end, Jacob Markstrom faced the more difficult chances but he might have done better on Kevin Fiala’s critical opening goal, a slapper from the top of the face-off circle which went through the Canucks’ keeper.
The game, in fact, looked a lot like the triumph of a largely veteran, battle-tested team over playoff neophytes — which is the essence of this matchup. The Wild got big efforts from the indefatigable Ryan Suter (24 minute of error-free hockey), Eric Staal (two assists) and Jared Spurgeon (a power play goal and an empty netter).
Fiala, meanwhile, hit the score sheet while Elias Pettersson and his linemates were effectively shut down by whoever Wild coach Dean Evason dispatched against them.
“I liked his game,” Green said of Pettersson. “They’re going to try to play physical on him for sure. I thought he responded well to it. As far as producing, yeah, we need those guys to produce more. It’s no secret those two lines (Pettersson’s and Horvat’s) are our offensive engine.”
“It’s the same with every team,” said Canucks defenceman Alex Edler. “We try to be hard on their top guys. (Pettersson) just has to keep doing what he’s doing. He knows how good he is. He’s got to battle through it.”
Turning point
The game’s turning point came midway through the second after the Canucks had carried the play for most of the middle frame. After a regrettable start, they outshot the Wild 16-5 over a 20-minute stretch and had just forced Stalock into his toughest save of the night off Quinn Hughes from the high slot.
A penalty to Tanner Pearson, however, produced the Wild’s third straight power play of the night and Spurgeon converted a Staal pass just 30-seconds later for a two-goal Wild lead.
If Canucks fans were expecting a big comeback in the third period, they were severely disappointed. Pearson, who had a tough night all the way around, took an early penalty and the Canucks produced just three shots on Stalock over the first 10 minutes of the final frame.
They finished with just four shots in the third and failed to produce a shot on their only power play of the game late in the frame. Spurgeon ended the scoring with just under a minute left on an empty-netter.
“They’re a good team,” said Green. “You have to have give them credit. They know how to defend. It’s not like we spent a lot of time in their zone. We didn’t get to the net enough and we didn’t get enough shots. We’re going to have to do a better job of getting to the net if we want to score.”
Stalock, who was making his second career post-season start and first in six years, finished with the shutout.
The Canucks’ Micheal Ferland was also penalized for an altercation near the Wild bench in the third period which might draw the attention of the NHL. Ferland speared Ryan Hartman who’d grabbed his stick while he was sitting on the bench.
Squaring up
You couldn’t accuse either team of easing into this one. Ferland, who missed all but 14 games this season with concussion-related issues, squared off against Marcus Foligno in a heavyweight fight at the 1:19 mark.
Shortly thereafter a good fourth-line shift by the Wild produced a couple of scoring chances and a penalty to Alex Edler. Three seconds after Edler was sent off, Staal scored a clean win over J.T. Miller in the face-off circle, the puck went to Fiala in the high slot and the Wild’s breakout star ripped a slapper through Markstrom for a 1-0 lead.
Markstrom was then forced into five-alarm saves off Staal and Zach Parise before Myers took another penalty.
At that point the shots were 9-3 for Minnesota but the Canucks finally got some traction after an efficient penalty kill. After the miserable start, they outshot the Wild 11-3 over their final nine minutes and only some solid work by Stalock preserved the Wild’s lead.
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