3 takeaways from the Canucks’ 4-0 shutout win against Winnipeg

Be honest, Vancouver Canucks fans: if I had asked you before last night’s game to pick one team to be shutout, who would you have picked?

Well, I would’ve chosen the Jets, of course! I always have faith in my favourite team, especially in their elite defensive abilities.

Jokes aside, I don’t think many people will dispute that the Canucks played their best defensive game of the season yesterday, resulting in a 4-0 win against Winnipeg. After a month in which they only racked up two victories, Vancouver has gotten off to a strong start in March and will hopefully build off of their impressive performance.

Here are three takeaways from last night’s 4-0 win against the Jets.

Schmidt breaks through

After being acquired from the Golden Knights in the offseason, there was a lot of buzz surrounding the arrival of Nate Schmidt in Vancouver.

In my opinion, he has lived up to the billing as Schmidt has arguably been the most consistent all-around Canucks defender this season, but many fans have been underwhelmed by his offensive totals so far. However, he’s had many unlucky breaks go against him, so it seemed like Schmidt was in for a bounceback soon.

Well, it seems like the Hockey Gods thought the same thing, as Schmidt potted his third goal of the season last night to open the scoring.

Before I could even finish tweeting out his goal, he assisted on the Canucks’ second of the game, which came off a nice tip from J.T. Miller just 18 seconds after.

Schmidt now has three goals and four assists on the season after last night’s game. Those numbers aren’t eye-popping by any means, but his skating and puck-moving ability have given the Canucks an extra gear from the backend that doesn’t show up on the scoresheet.

Let’s hope this is a sign of better things to come for him.

The Hog train keeps chugging

Last night, Travis Green elected to put Jake Virtanen on Bo Horvat’s right-wing to shake things up, which resulted in Nils Hoglander playing on the third line beside Brandon Sutter and Adam Gaudette.

That might be a bad sign for most players, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Hoglander, it’s that his impact will be felt no matter where he plays in the lineup.

The rookie continued to turn heads by scoring his fourth of the year to give Vancouver a three-goal lead, which also marked the second power-play goal from the team’s second unit all season long.

What attracted even more buzz was his attempt at the lacrosse move, which is something he’s been successful at in the past.

If he manages to score such a goal this season, Hoglander should automatically win the rookie of the year and be crowned as the greatest Canuck of all time.