Canucks blow another multi-goal lead and lose to the Capitals 6-4 Monday night at Capital One Arena. Vancouver didn’t jump out to a lead, in fact, it was Washington who struck first. Some crazy bounces led to goals and the Canucks all of a sudden found themselves with a 2 goal lead for the 3rd straight game.
I was joking about how I could just copy and paste the opening night game against the Oilers for my Flyers recap. This isn’t funny anymore. Vancouver didn’t get their first shot on the net in the 3rd period until after the 10-minute mark. Talk about parking the bus, (Soccer terminology).
A Relatively Poor Recap Of The Game
Once again turnovers were being handed out by the Canucks like Oprah giving away free cars. My favorite one tonight seemed to be the back pass to the other team. Similar to blindfolding yourself for a Dodgeball sudden death throw, it just seemed a bit misguided. Let’s take a look at what happened to the Canucks Monday night.
The Canucks Don’t Jump Out To A Hot Start
Early goals seem to be the theme for the Canucks. Tonight it was giving up an early goal after going down a man thanks to a high-sticking penalty on Brock Boeser. Alexander Ovechkin would score his first goal of the season just 20 seconds on the powerplay. Just 56 seconds in and Vancouver found themselves in a hole, something they hadn’t seen much early on in games. Maybe it would be different tonight…Narrator “It was indeed not different tonight.”
The 1st period wasn’t really exciting, both teams would finish with 7 shots and it looked like the Canucks were going to go into the intermission down 1-0. A face-off in their own zone but Vancouver would have a rare good breakout. Quinn Hughes would make a great bank pass to Elias Pettersson who was behind the Capital’s defense.
Darcy Kuemper would miss handling the bounce off the boards and the puck would come right out to Petey in front of the net. He would make no mistake and go bar down because he is fancy like that. The Canucks would tie it up with just 8 seconds to go in the 1st period.
The funny bounces would continue off the end boards at Capital One Arena, What’s in your boards? Martin Fehevary would steal a page out of Quinn Hughes’s book and bank a pass of his own down the ice. Just 8 seconds in Lars Eller would score his first of the season to restore the Washington Capitals lead 2-1. Come up with your own plays!
The 2nd period was much more exciting than the first period. Lots of back-and-forth action but a lot of really sloppy play from both teams. Exciting doesn’t always mean crisp and these two teams showed that.
Vancouver would spark fans’ hopes just after the 8-minute mark as some nice passing would lead to a pretty goal from Bo Horvat. Tanner Pearson and Brock Boeser would make a nice give-and-go play off the boards and Pearson fired a shot that was stopped by Kuemper. Bo Horvat was right there to pounce on the loose puck and tie the game once again.
It didn’t take long for the Canucks to regain the lead they had in the 1st period. Just 11 seconds later The Petey line would move into the Caps zone off the face-off. Petey would find Andrei Kuzmenko and he fired a shot that looked to beat Kuemper clean but on replay, it was clearly tipped in by Curtis Lazar.
The Canucks weren’t done in the 2nd period. Evengy Kuznetxov would try and take off Kyle Burroughs head with a two-handed slash. It was just called a 2-minute penalty but I imagine we will see some more repercussions from the incident. I will get more into this incident in The Unnamed Moments of the game.
That lead to a Canucks powerplay so naturally, every fan was nervous. But hey we got one and now have 2 powerplay goals to go along with giving up 2 short-handed goals. Net even! Miller, Hughes, and Pettersson would work it around at the point and Hughes would find Miller coming downhill. He fired a shot past Kuemper and the Canucks had the lead 4-2 at the 17:34 mark of the 2nd period.
The Worst Lead In Hockey As The Canucks Blow Another Multi-Goal Lead
You read that correctly, the Canucks blow another multi-goal lead. Should I even talk about what happened or do you just want to see the 4 unanswered goals from the Capitals? The 3rd period was embarrassing for Vancouver. Despite having the lead they came out flat and would take an early penalty.
Bo Horvat would get called for cross-checking on Kuznetsov and the home side didn’t waste any time converting on the powerplay. John Carlson would find Dylan Strome at the back post for an easy tap in and just like that only 1:16 into the 3rd period the floodgates started to open.
Instead of bending and not breaking the Canucks decided to both bend and break…
I would like to tell you the Canucks pushed play and made a game out of it but they really didn’t. A goal post from Kuzmenko and that was basically the only dangerous play for the visiting side as they didn’t register a high-danger chance and only managed 4 shots in the final frame.
As Canucks fans could feel the game slipping away the Washington Capitals took advantage of a struggling team. They popped in another goal to take the lead and then finished things off with a 6th goal. Conor Sheary would get his 3rd of the season before Ovechkin would get his second of the game.
The game was over…
Thatcher Demko let in a couple of goals he would have liked to have back as he made just 24 saves on 30 shots. Kuemper wasn’t that good but he didn’t have to be in the 3rd period. He made 26 saves on 30 shots but as mentioned only faced 4 shots in the final frame. Pettersson had a good game on the stat sheet with 1 goal and 2 assists but it wasn’t enough. Should have been enough, but it wasn’t.
The Unnamed Moments Of The Game
Another game and another Canucks player taking a whack to the face from an opposing player’s stick. This time it was at least called for a penalty but we will see more from this two-handed chop. Then we look at some fun analytics before getting to your reaction from Twitter. Not going to lie I didn’t have much to choose from tonight but I don’t really blame anyone.
The Unnamed Huh? Of The Game
Another Canucks loss and another huh moment. This time it was Evgeny Kuznetsov two-handing Burroughs in the face and only receiving a 2-minute penalty for it. Minimum 5 and a game for that garbage!!
The precedent has been set from incidents we saw last season, Matthews, etc. So look for the NHL Department Of Player Safety to have a word with Kuznetsov. I imagine he will see a 2 game suspension but still what are you doing man? You could have ended his career!
The Unnamed Game Analytics Of An Idiot
Welcome back to Analytics of an idiot! Today we are going to look at High Danger scoring chances. Those are scoring chances that come in high-danger areas. Simple enough. The Canucks managed just 7 all game despite scoring 4 goals. One of the things that were most deflating is they didn’t get any in the 3rd period after they had given up the lead.
Some less fancy analytic stats is the penalty kill that went 1 of 3 tonight and gave up another 2 goals. That drops Vancouver to 6/12 on the penalty kill. Remember when they talked about not digging themselves a hole last season? Turns out there was a shovel sale and the Canucks seem to be doing what they are best at.
The Unnamed Reaction To The Game
Not going to lie there wasn’t much reaction after the game on Monday night. Maybe it was people being busy or maybe it was just so much pain that people checked out. I have a feeling it was the second option. I was able to get some reaction to the game tonight but the one I am going with taps into both my love of the Canucks and Whitecaps…
He needed a softball lobbed up to him and I was happy to provide it. Including the Dodgeball references that makeup 4 sports I have included so far in this article. Just for the hell of it, I am going to mention Russell Wilson and the Denver Broncos lost on Monday Night Football to the Chargers 19-16. Five sport article and it only adds to the tags I can get away with.
Sports Talk Line And The Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks blow another multi-goal lead against the Washington Capitals. They won’t have any time to rest as they travel to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets Tuesday, October 18th. The Canucks set an NHL record with the first time a team has lost 3 straight games to start the season after having multiple goal leads. That’s not a good stat.
The good thing for the Canucks is that the Columbus Blue Jackets are also 0-3 to start the season. That means one team is going to add a notch into the win column. Let’s hope it is the Vancouver Canucks as they are quickly falling behind in the Pacific Division. Yes, I am already looking at the NHL standings.
Make sure to check out the Sports Talk Line website for all the latest sports news and updates. Follow me on Twitter at JoshuaGriffith0 for even more Canucks coverage and sarcastic tweets. If the Canucks lose tomorrow can they at least not have a lead at any point in the game so I can write somewhat of a different recap. 3 games in and I am getting complacent already!
