Canucks’ power play dries up
The Vancouver Canucks’ top power-play unit has been one of the main reasons for their success so far this postseason. They were the league’s most dangerous power-play prior to game 4. With the uber-talented five-man group that the Canucks deploy, that was not necessarily a surprise. What was a surprise though, was after going 6-for-11 in the first three games of the series and seemingly taking over games at will, the Canucks power-play laid a giant egg on Monday.
Vancouver went 0-for-7 on the man-advantage with only seven shots total. That’s just simply not enough if they expect to beat the surging Blues who have no problem battling adversity in a series. The main issue I noticed with the special teams in game four was their lack of movement and inability to connect on passes.
One of the main reasons Vancouver was triumphant so often at 5-on-4 was because the players were constantly moving their feet around in the offensive zone, looking for space and making quick passes. As highlighted in the ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ broadcast, the Blues started to cover Horvat in the bumper slot much more in this game and cheated towards Pettersson so he had no room for his patented one-timer. Their penalty killing lines were exceptional today at cutting off all passing lanes and fearlessly blocking shots, causing the Canucks to stand on the outside most of the time and drain their power-play time away.
Conclusion
The Blues were more aggressive, won more puck battles, and didn’t allow the Canucks much opportunity to crawl back into this game. The Canucks should have played with more desperation, and with no lineup changes on both sides carrying over after game three, there was no reason to believe the Canucks couldn’t grab a huge victory. But the special teams narrative that controlled most of this series was flipped on its head in game four, with St. Louis’ power-play performing well and the Canucks’ top unit failing to deliver.
Jacob Markstrom was not the problem in the game, and although there were some controversial calls, the team can’t chalk this loss up to the refs. They’ll be looking for a huge bounce back as this best-of-seven series now becomes a best-of-three.
Puck drop for game five begins at 7:30 pm on Wednesday night.