Canucks: No Tyler Myers, no penalties, no problem

A shoulder injury to Tyler Myers forced the Vancouver Canucks to march on without him in the lineup, but his absence proved to be no issue for the team.

One of the many reasons Tyler Myers was signed to the Vancouver Canucks was for his size, physicality, and ability to munch minutes inside the top 4. He’s been using all of those attributes since the team returned to the NHL bubble, but maybe not to the best of his ability, at least the physical side of his game anyway.

Despite the fact that head coach Travis Green likes how Myers has been playing in the playoffs so far, his need to be a hard-hitting presence has forced him to ride pine inside the penalty box in five of the Canucks’ six games he’s played in. With that in mind, he’s racked up a league-high, very impressive (but in a bad way) 20 penalty minutes with no majors. That’s right, 10 minor penalties for the 6’8 defender.

What’s the reason for all the bad penalties? Well, a few of them were, in my opinion, pretty weak calls by the NHL refs, but the majority of them were just plain awful, and he deserved the treatment he was getting. His towering size doesn’t help his cause when he takes down a much smaller opposing player, but in a few separate incidents, Myers just needed to keep moving his feet.

Myers eventually got the message and prior to his shoulder injury, he was cleaning up his act in the defensive end. Everything was looking good. Unfortunately, he was driven hard into the boards and had to take the long walk down the tunnel after his first shift in the third period of Game 2. Luckily, he shouldn’t miss too much time with his injury, but in his absence, Vancouver faired quite well.

First of all, Oscar Fantenberg and Jordie Benn (making his 2020 Playoffs debut) stepped up in a big way and ate some bigger minutes. Fantenberg had arguably his best game in a Canucks uniform, and I’m excited to see if he can keep it going in Game 4.

But the point is, the Canucks were hardly caught out of position (something Myers often does), and it wasn’t until the final two minutes of the game that Vancouver took their first penalty. They nearly made it an entire game without sending a player to the sin-bin. Coincidence? I’m not so sure.

Vancouver played a very tight, very responsible game against a rough and tough Blues squad. If Myers can’t get his game under control and stay out of the penalty box then maybe, just maybe, the Vancouver Canucks are better off without him.

The Canucks battle the Blues again tonight in a back-to-back battle tonight after dropping Game 3 in overtime. It’s likely Myers will be out of action, but I’m excited to see what the Canucks can do without him again. The puck drops at 7:30 PM Pacific.