Vancouver Canucks: Injuries, healthy scratches and consecutive starts

Travis Green had some updates on Vancouver Canucks injuries. Despite the opportunity afforded by injuries, Brendan Gaunce still can’t get into the lineup and are too many consecutive starts affecting Jacob Markstrom?

Before yesterday’s game in Brooklyn, Vancouver Canucks head coach Travis Green spoke with the media about his goaltending situation and a pair of injury updates. Let’s start in goal. Jacob Markstrom started his ninth consecutive game last night, playing both back-to-back games in New York.

Markstrom is 4-3-2 in those nine starts, which isn’t bad. However, once the scoring dried up, the goaltending was not enough to steal hockey games. And I don’t think that’s on Markstrom. I never saw him as a high end number one goaltender who can play 50-60 games per season. However, he is good enough overall to take the starter’s role during this stage of the Vancouver Canucks.

Now, do I think he is playing a little to much? Maybe. At the very least, I was expecting to see Richard Bachman play yesterday, so it was surprising to see Markstrom get the start. We will see who gets the nod in Minnesota tomorrow. But I do think he could use a break, especially before Saturday’s game against the Habs.

Injury updates

Regarding Jay Beagle, this falls within what was expected. He was supposed to be out 4-6 weeks and broke his forearm on October 15th and a return in December fits that. I know some were hoping he would return sooner, but he still needs to be cleared for contact and practice. Besides, I feel the penalty kill is missing Brandon Sutter a lot more than Beagle.

But the news regarding Sven Baertschi is disappointing. With the team’s offensive well drying up, they could use a few extra options for Travis Green. What this also shows is how unpredictable concussion recovery can be.

Elias Pettersson was lucky to be back in action relatively shortly after his concussion. Unfortunately, Baertschi was not so lucky. I am no concussion expert, but I bet it doesn’t help that the Swiss forward has a history of concussions in his career. Hopefully, he can get back to playing soon. I’m sure nobody is more frustrated right now than he is. The recovery from bad concussions can be terrifying at times, so we’re hoping for the best.

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Brendan Gaunce can’t catch a break

I wrote earlier about how the injuries have given other players opportunities with the Canucks. However, it appears Brendan Gaunce is no longer reaping those benefits, which is odd since nobody has returned from injury.

It’s almost like we forgot that Gaunce had a goal and an assist on Halloween. Gaunce has not played since November 2nd. That’s five games in a row as a healthy scratch. I don’t why someone like Tyler Motte is getting more rope than Gaunce.

I know both require waivers to be sent to Utica (Gaunce has 16 more days or 8 games before that is necessary), but I don’t understand the fascination with Motte. He is looking like another Jayson Megna clone and Gaunce is better than that. The penalty kill is struggling, and Motte is front and centre there.

Maybe the lineup will have a different look in St. Paul tomorrow, but I won’t hold my breath. The team has one win in their last five, yet we are not seeing larger changes to the lineup. That’s one of my pet peeves with Travis Green.

I get that the lineup is tired after being on the road the injuries are catching up. But you have a better option sitting in the press box for no good reason. And he is benching one of team’s better offensive talents despite creating chance after chance to dig themselves out of the hole made by poor defence. All coaches have these annoying quirks and I feel for Travis Green because he has little to work with right now when Pettersson or Bo Horvat can’t outscore the team’s problems. But isn’t that what separates the average coach from an elite one?