The Importance of Jay Beagle
Prior to last night’s game, the Canucks penalty kill ranked first in the entire NHL with a success rate of 93.8%. A huge part of this, really, the biggest part of it, is Jay Beagle‘s defensive abilities and penalty-killing abilities.
As TSN’s Jeff Paterson pointed out last night, Beagle hadn’t been on the ice for any of the goals the Canucks gave up through their first five games of the season. Last night, he was on the ice for all three of the Blues’ goals. It goes to show just how important Beagle is to the Canucks’ success. When he isn’t stopping the opposition from scoring, the Canucks could quickly find themselves in trouble and be forced to play catch up like they were last night.
It’s a thankless job but one that Beagle usually does well. The Canucks penalty kill has looked stellar to start the season, and Beagle is perhaps the biggest part of the success they’ve found early on.
Micheal Ferland gets the monkey off his back
At a certain point, players may begin to doubt themselves when they struggle to find the back of the net. Signed to play on the first line alongside Pettersson and Boeser, Micheal Ferland struggled coming out of the gate.
He was unable to play much with Pettersson and Boeser during the preseason, partly due to Boeser’s contract not being signed right away, but more notably, because Ferland fell ill toward the end of preseason, missing time while he tried to get better. Ferland also lost weight due to his sickness, which could very well be affecting his game more than we think.
Ferland stumbled out of the gate to begin the new season, and appeared to be lacking confidence. His ice time has been steadily decreasing, as he’s now found himself on the third line.
Ferland will look to build off his one-goal performance last night when the Canucks take on the New Jersey Devils tomorrow in an early start time game. Puck drop is at 10 AM from New Jersey.