The preseason is over! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
The Vancouver Canucks concluded their preseason on Friday night with a win over the much-hated Edmonton Oilers, ending things on a positive note before real games begin next week.
There was some real emotion in this game, even if the stakes were low. The Canucks and Oilers built up some animosity for each other in the playoffs and that spills out even in the exhibition atmosphere of the preseason.
That’s not to say the stakes were low for everyone. Three young Canucks were battling for a spot on the opening-night roster: Aatu Räty, Arshdeep Bains, and Nils Åman.
Last week, it seemed like Räty had sewn up a spot, especially after Phil Di Giuseppe was waived and sent down to the AHL. But Åman has steadily played his quiet, defensively-responsible game, while Bains has made a strong push and had his best game of the preseason on Friday, tallying a goal and an assist while winning battles all over the ice.
“I thought Åman had a good game,” said head coach Rick Tocchet. “Bainsy had a good game. He’s a guy that we’ve really got our eye on. He’s got to work on game management, that’s his next level.”
“Räts was okay,” he added.
The Canucks now have some very interesting decisions to make ahead of the opening-day roster deadline. There are paths the Canucks can take to avoid using the cap relief from putting a player on long-term injured reserve (LTIR) but those paths involve putting Åman and defenceman Mark Friedman on waivers and sending down one of Räty or Bains, who are both exempt from waivers.
Keeping two of Räty, Bains, and Åman likely means using LTIR. A lot depends on Akito Hirose being cleared medically so he can be sent down to the AHL, as well as the health of Pius Suter, who is listed as day-to-day. If Suter is out, using LTIR to keep more forwards around would make sense.
Bains made a strong argument for the Canucks to use LTIR, as he was a force to be reckoned with in Friday's game, proving he can have an impact from the fourth line and even on the power play. It's a complicated situation but it might come down to rewarding a player who deserves to be rewarded.
Fortunately, Conor Garland won’t add to the cap complications. He missed Friday’s game but Tocchet said it wasn’t anything serious.
“He tweaked something this morning,” said Tocchet. “He could have really played if he had to, but why?”
But why, indeed. It is, after all, only the preseason, much like Camelot is only a model. Let’s not go to the preseason; ‘tis a silly place. I rode onward, coconuts clacking, after I watched this game.
- Daniel Sprong got his first opportunity to play with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk and he nearly stuffed it up right away. Early in the first period, he jumped over the boards approximately one hundred years too early and played the puck immediately while his teammate was still sprinting toward the bench. It was not only the world’s most obvious too many men on the ice penalty but he also nearly created a time paradox.
- If the preseason is anything to go by, Quinn Hughes is going to be an absolute monster this season. He unleashed a new weapon in his arsenal midway through the first period: a laserbeam of a slap shot that makes him a scoring threat from the point. He wheeled into the middle of the ice and uncorked his shot like a champagne bottle, sending the puck cannonading past Stuart Skinner.
- The shot was nice but it was the play by Arshdeep Bains leading up to the shot that was most notable. Bains jumped on a Zach Hyman turnover and went on the attack with his head up, finding Nils Åman for a chance, then chased down the rebound to feed Hughes. You know what they say: no Bains, no gains.
- Elias Pettersson hasn’t been playing at full throttle in the preseason but he’s shown enough to demonstrate he’s ready to bounce back from how last season ended. His latest demonstration was a gorgeous backhand pass to Carson Soucy when Leon Draisaitl chased Pettersson, taking himself out of position and leaving Soucy wide open. The pass was a sleek sauce to Soucy in space and Soucy sniped past Skinner for the 2-0 goal.
- “That’s a great play by Petey,” said Tocchet. “Holding onto the puck, shoulder checking, moving his feet — that opened it up. He didn’t panic. That’s a top-notch play to hit Souc on the backhand in the slot.”
- “Honestly, I didn’t know if Petey saw me. That was one of the best passes I’ve seen,” said Soucy. “I mean, he made a perfect pass…I was hoping [Skinner] would save it, now I’ll probably go 20 games without a goal. I’ve gotta save those for the regular season.”
- The Canucks nearly gave up a goal late in the first period on a bizarre play. The linesman initially raised his arm for an offside, than realized that Soucy had carried the puck back into the defensive zone and waved off the offside. Only, he waved it off so weakly and didn’t say anything — linesmen usually shout out, “You’re good!” or something along those lines — that none of the Canucks knew it had been waved off. So when Mattias Janmark swooped in and took the puck from Soucy, he and Tyler Myers just raised their hands in confusion.
- Fortunately, Arturs Silovs was locked in all game and wasn’t fazed by the wishy-washy offside call, forcing Janmark to run out of room and send the puck through the crease. That didn’t even count as a save, but no matter: Silovs still made 28 saves on 29 shots for the win.
- Bains got an opportunity on the second power play unit and made the most of it. He had a monstrous shift, winning battle after battle against Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, then snuck in at the backdoor to finish off a pass from Danton Heinen for the 3-0 goal. Like Joy, Sadness, and Bing Bong after they escaped from the realm of abstract thought, Bains keeps on adding new dimensions.
- “There were a couple of wall battles and then a little bit of chaos; that’s when you get the best chances when everyone is all over the place,” said Bains. “Spronger and Fil and Höggy and Heinen all made great plays on that, I think we all touched the puck, and I was just on the receiving end.”
- “Hell of a goal,” said Tocchet. I then asked him what he liked more from Bains: the finish or the battles that preceded it. “The retrieval is everything on that,” he said. “To me, that is the best. Obviously, to be able to finish, but the retrieval is everything on the power play.”
- The Oilers got feisty down 3-0, with a Darnell Nurse full-on tackling Kiefer Sherwood when he didn’t even have the puck. Nurse was stickless (yes, it’s true: this man has no stick) and gave up a 2-on-1 behind him to chase down the hit, which is a bush league move. Derek Forbort immediately stepped into take on Nurse, leading to all sorts of penalties and, ultimately, a Canucks power play.
- “[Nurse] is kind of running around, I don’t know what he’s doing,” said Sherwood. “You play hockey and go through it and get the power play, that’s all I was happy about.”
- The Oilers got on the board on a 4-on-4 off a fairly inexplicable penalty on Brock Boeser. He was called for holding the stick when the only stick he was holding was his own, which isn’t against the rules last I checked. Aatu Räty blew his coverage on the subsequent faceoff, allowing Evan Bouchard to walk down Main Street and pick his spot over Silovs’ glove.
- “On the goal, that’s a learning mistake,” said Tocchet. “That’s his man. You’ve got to live it, you’ve got to go through that stuff, and now you’ve got to apply it the next time.”
- Nils Höglander had an excellent game, with his best play coming in the third period. He drove down the left wing, then suddenly pulled up with a lovely toe drag around Brett Kulak before setting up Räty for a grade-A chance. Unfortunately, Räty sent the puck wide, as he seemed to be more concerned about missing the goaltender than hitting the net.
- Brock Boeser made a really, really nice pass late in the third period, threading the puck through multiple Oilers to hit his teammate in space. Unfortunately, Sportsnet+ decided to stop working and I cannot show you a gif or video of the exceptionally nice pass. Still, I wanted to mention it because it was just so very nice. It was so nice that I looked over at one of my fellow media members in the pressbox at the same time as he looked over at me and we both just shook our heads in disbelief at how nice the pass was. You're just going to have to take my word for it: it was a nice pass.
- The Canucks wrapped up the game in a neat little bow with an empty-net goal. The Pettersson line with DeBrusk and Sprong was on the ice to defend the lead — notable given Sprong’s history of defensive miscues — and Pettersson made a fantastic read to pick off a Bouchard pass along the boards. Pettersson then calmly fed Sprong to exit the zone and he relayed the puck ahead to DeBrusk for the finish. It’s not quite yet the chemistry fans are hoping to see from that trio but it was good enough for a goal.
- “I put Petey’s line out to see them handle that sort of stuff,” said Tocchet. “We need some work with Spronger. I thought he was sometimes a little lost in his own end but we knew that and we’ll work with him. You want to give a guy confidence and I think that was the time to do it.”
- Here’s something worth noting: Pettersson, DeBrusk, and Sprong led the Canucks in preseason scoring with 4 points each. Pettersson had 4 assists in 3 games, DeBrusk had 3 goals and an assist in 3 games, and Sprong had a goal and 3 assists in 4 games. It would be very, very nice to see DeBrusk, Pettersson and Sprong work as a line and not just because we could call them the DPS Line — Damage Per Second. But maybe we should wait to see if that line sticks together for even one regular season game before brainstorming line nicknames.
