Canucks monthly November Edition: Power play, Utica call-ups, more

Welcome to the third installment of Vancouver Canucks monthly! The busy men played 15 games in 30, while dropping slightly in the standings.

The Vancouver Canucks are two months into their 50th season and the “Alien”, Elias Pettersson remains to be out of this world spectacular.

But unfortunately for the rest of the Canucks, November brought them back down to earth. After a strong start with an easy October schedule, the team knew the true test was coming in November. Would they be ready for the road ahead? We now have a much better idea of who this team is, and if they are serious about a playoff push.

The west coast hopefuls faced a tough string of opponents in month two, the injuries piled up, there was a season-defining six-game road trip and the team struggled mightily to score five-on-five. Luckily, they managed to gather some points by surviving regulation, but you can count the amount of victories on one hand. At the end of the day, it wasn’t exactly as pretty as the month of October was, but there were some bright spots that need to be talked about.

The Lotto Line –Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser — continued to be one of the most dangerous trios in the league. The power play has been red hot with all five players contributing on unit one, Quinn Hughes leads all NHL defenders in power play points and Adam Gaudette has solidified himself as a solid NHL player.

October saw the Canucks exceed early expectations, November was a bit of a wake-up call, but the Canucks look to be back to full health by the time December rolls around. 10 of the 13 games in month three will be played at home, giving the team a good chance to get back on track.

But until then, let’s discuss the ups and downs (or the pros and cons) of November. The days of the month were dark, but for every grey cloud, there was a ray of light somewhere to be found.

Con #1: Canucks can’t score at even strength

The Canucks averaged a game every other night this month, but the high end scoring each game has dried out. For 15 games played in November, Vancouver only scored 37 times total with 23 of those goals coming at even strength. 23 goals in 15 games played isn’t going to cut it at even strength.

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The goals definitely kept coming at full speed for the Lotto line, but beyond arguably the league’s best line in hockey, the scoring at 5-on-5 for the Canucks has been low and disappointing. If it wasn’t for the Canucks core of players keeping the team afloat, who knows how bad this month could have really turned out.

Bo Horvat was forced into playing way too many minutes in the absence of Jay Beagle and Brandon Sutter. Gaudette was doing well on the third line, but his ice time remained low as the coach wasn’t fully able to trust him defensively. This appeared to weigh on the team’s 14th captain and he has struggled to score when not on the power play.

Once promised to be a consistent 20-goal scorer for the Canucks, Loui Eriksson remained pointless on the year up until the Nov. 30 showdown against the Edmonton Oilers. We all saw the struggles coming, but in a time of need, Eriksson did not step up and the goals were few and far between for the teams bottom nine.

Gaudette has six, Jake Virtanen has six too, but players like Josh Leivo, Tanner Pearson and Eriksson have struggled as the season has gone on. Horvat needs a consistent winger if this team wants a sniff of the playoffs, but it doesn’t look like these players have what it takes this season. Change is coming.

Pro #1: Power play is unstoppable

The power of the power play comes to life when the Canucks deploy their top unit of Horvat, Pettersson, Miller, Boeser and Hughes. It is something truly special to see, and the Canucks special teams haven’t been this deadly since the cup run of 2011. I previously wrote an article about how successful the team’s power play has been. You can read it here.

Each top unit player has contributed a minimum of ten points apiece on the man advantage. Pettersson has 16, and Hughes leads all NHL defenders in points. Yes, you read that correctly. Hughes has more power play points than any NHL defender, and he didn’t see top unit time until the eighth game of the season.

The Canucks group of five are all under the age of 27, and the core four are between the ages of 19 and 23. That’s a young core that is going to be here for a long time coming. I don’t know about you, but I am over the moon that we are going to have the pleasure of witnessing Hughes quarterback power play while feeding  Pettersson and Boeser one-timers for the next decade.

If this month was any indication, the power play is well taken care of for the next decade.

Con #2: Injury bug strikes

Just when everything was going perfectly for the 8-3-1 Canucks of October, the injury bug struck the team just as it does each and every year. Micheal Ferland hasn’t laced up the skates and tossed on the Canucks orca at all in the month of November as he was sidelined with a concussion from a fight during the last game of October against the Los Angeles Kings.

He hasn’t had a fair opportunity to prove his worth to the new club, and his size and hard-hitting playing style were missed in the difficult November schedule.

Tyler Motte was injured on the Oct. 25 game against the Washington Capitals, and he was initially expected to only miss a week or two. But he has a broken foot and is still a couple of weeks away from returning to the Canucks.

The roster will soon be healthy, and management is going to have some tough choices to make in terms of roster cuts. The forward position is thick with bottom-six players and there may not be a spot for Motte, like it or not. Head coach Travis Green is a “Motte” kind of guy, so maybe he gets a chance when he is healthy.

On the back end, Alex Edler and Hughes both escaped what could have been a potentially scary injury for each defender. Hughes fell awkwardly in the first game of November and bruised his knee, but luckily he only missed one game due to soreness. Edler took a skate blade to the ribs but managed to get back into the line up for the next game. His minutes still need to come down a notch or two.

Surprisingly, the injuries to bottom-six centers Beagle and Sutter have been the biggest losses to the team this far. Sutter has been absent since he pulled his groin in a game on November 12th, and Beagle hasn’t played since Nov. 21. The two penalty killing specialists have been dearly missed in the defensive end and you have to wonder if they could have helped the Canucks find an extra point or two.

Pro #2: Utica’s best get NHL chance

The injuries began to pile up, and general manage Jim Benning plucked his most talented players from the Utica Comets for a chance to prove themselves at the NHL level. Gaudette got the first call and he earned it. Sven Baertschi had an extended look, Nikolay Goldobin remains with the team. And finally, Zack MacEwen, Tyler Graovac and Ashton Sautner also got some games in.

Gaudette

If one thing is for certain, Adam Gaudette is done playing hockey in the AHL.

In the absence of Sutter and Beagle, he was given an extended look at playing center where he has been succeeding and proving his worth to the big club. The 2014 fifth round pick has already scored six times while adding five assists in 17 NHL games.

He still needs work in the defensive end, but given a full season, he has the potential to be a 30-goal scorer. He can definitely make it to 20 this year. Don’t expect Gaudette to be sent down. He is an NHL player.

Baertschi

Captain Horvat has without a doubt felt the weight of captaincy this month. He has struggled at even strength. So with Miller clicking on line one, and Ferland after went down with a concussion, Baertschi was the obvious choice to call up and find chemistry with his old linemate.

Baertschi was one of Bo’s groomsmen this summer, so you would hope he could help Bo find his game. That didn’t happen, unfortunately. Baertschi only got two assists in six contests and was a minus-two. He ran out of time to prove the doubters wrong, which opened the door for the Russian playmaker, Goldobin.

Goldobin

He has only got one game under his belt, where he played just 8:37. Goldy started the game on the top line with Petey and Miller, but coach Green didn’t like what he saw against the high-scoring Pittsburgh Penguins. As such, Goldobin was demoted to line four.

Green still doesn’t have the defensive trust in Goldobin, but he should get another crack in the top six. He leads the Comets in scoring with 20 points in 18 games, so he deserves a good look with either Pettersson or Horvat. When that happens remains to be determined, but Goldobin better be ready to bring it. This could quite possibly be his last chance to land an NHL job with the Canucks.

MacEwen, Graovac & Sautner

Sautner’s NHL debut was short-lived, as he suffered an injury during the Nov. 2 game against the San Jose Sharks. Sautner will get another shot at some point as top prospect, Olli Juolevi is out once again with an undisclosed injury.

Graovac has been a big body on the fourth line with very limited minutes. The coach has shown some trust in him though, as he has seen time on the second unit power play over guys like Jake Virtanen. A bit of a head-scratcher in my opinion, but he hasn’t been terrible. He looks like a career-long call-up kind of guy.

MacEwen, the undrafted winger, has played five games for the team — and he even got a chance to play with Horvat and Miller. He didn’t look out of place, but he still needs some time in the AHL to sharpen up his game as he only has one assist. He is still a better option than Eriksson.

Pro #3: Goaltending still solid

With the games played count reaching 15 in the 11th month of the year, you would hope the team could gather more than a handful of victories and get out of the month at .500 or higher for a winning percentage.

That was not the case for the Canucks this month as they failed to finish games finishing well below the mark. Despite the lack of wins, for the most part, Jacob Markstrom and Thatcher Demko stood tall and kept their team in the game.

Markstrom lost his father to cancer, but he managed to tune in remarkable performances time and time again. The Swede didn’t miss a beat and he stood on his head bailing his team out when it mattered most. If only the Canucks could have finished a few more games.

Demko was solid in October and exceeded expectations to the point where the fans were asking for more starts from the backup. Was Demko about to steal the net from Markstrom? Not quite. The duo swapped starts for a big chunk of November and Demko got the nod for the Flying Skate game, and he made some incredible saves.

Markstrom had some big games of his own, especially when you consider the rough month he has had outside the game of hockey. It is nice to see him thriving at the NHL level and it appears that the Canucks will have a controversy in the net very, very soon. But for now, Markstrom has made it crystal clear it’s his crease this season.

Final thoughts

It wasn’t the best month of hockey for the Canucks, but traditionally, November has been a tough month for them.

The wins were low, but at least they managed to gather points by making it to the extra frame. An above .500 record would have been nice, considering they played the majority of the month on the road, but as it stands now, the team remains above .500 overall on the year.

The Canucks struggled in the month of November, but the December schedule looks nice for as they play 10 games at home Hopefully, Christmas comes early with a long winning streak in December.