Kiefer Sherwood wanted to score so badly against his former team.
After the Nashville Predators let him go to free agency, Sherwood has swiftly become a Vancouver Canucks fan favourite with his approach to the game. That approach was on full display on Friday night, as he threw the body and the puck on net with equal abandon.
Sherwood led the Canucks with five shots on goal on seven attempts, while adding six hits to his league-leading total. He also led all Canucks forwards in corsi, as the team out-attempted the Predators 14-to-9 when he was on the ice at 5-on-5.
There was just one thing standing in Sherwood’s way: Juuse Saros.
The Predators’ goaltender stopped all five of Sherwood’s shots as well as the 21 shots from Sherwood’s teammates for his fourth shutout of the season.
“I thought we probably deserved a better fate,” said Sherwood. “He's obviously a world class goalie. I thought we probably needed to make his job a little harder and get more traffic to the net.”
“We ran into a hot goalie tonight,” he added.
It’s hard to argue that point. Saros was fantastic when he needed to be. The trouble was that he wasn’t needed all that often, especially down the stretch. Down by a goal, the Canucks managed just one shot in the final 10:48 of the third period, including a couple of stretches at 6-on-5 with the net empty.
That’s simply not good enough. At a time when the Canucks needed somebody to step up, nobody did. Sherwood did what he could; the Canucks needed more from other players.
When the team goes flat in crucial moments, it’s hard to take heart in the moral victories, like the Canucks outshooting the Predators 27-to-19 or tallying 51 hits. The hits, at least, show that players were engaged physically in the game but if those hits don’t lead to puck possession, scoring chances, and goals, they don’t mean much.
But maybe the Canucks are just in a cold stretch and things will go their way again soon. Maybe if they keep playing the body, their game will come.
“You've got to get physically engaged and I think it's a mindset,” said Sherwood. “I thought we imposed our will. We definitely had momentum and tides to swing the game, it just didn't go in, you know?”
I do know because I saw the puck fail to go in when I watched this game.
- This might sound crazy (): Vincent Desharnais was one of the Canucks’ best players on Friday night. To , that’s good for Desharnais but not good for the Canucks.
- Seriously, though, Desharnais led the Canucks in even-strength ice time and was primarily matched up against the Predators’ top line of Filip Forsberg, Steven Stamkos, and Jonathan Marchessault, and still led the Canucks in corsi. The Canucks out-attempted the Predators 27-to-7 at 5-on-5 with Desharnais on the ice and out-shot them 13-to-2. He was legitimately very good in this game.
- “He’s playing well,” said Tocchet. “He’s getting an opportunity and he’s been getting better the last couple of weeks.”
- Desharnais has even shown a little offensive flare, with a nice pass in overtime on Thursday night, then hitting J.T. Miller with a stretch pass for a breakaway early in the first. No one’s going to confuse him for Bobby Orr anytime soon but he’s shown an ability to move the puck that he didn’t earlier in the season.
- “If I can help the team offensively, great; I don't think that's why I'm here,” said Desharnais. “Obviously, overtime last night, I think a lot of you guys were surprised I was out there. But I know what I can do, and I think the last seven-eight games I've been playing with more confidence, making more plays, moving my feet a lot more, and I know I can help this team.”
- It was a weird game for J.T. Miller. The last time he faced the Nashville Predators, . Perhaps that's why he looked highly motivated early in the game, as if he was seeking to avoid a similar fate. He was flying right from puck drop with multiple good chances in the first period, including a couple of breakaways. The issue was that he seemed to fade away as the game progressed.
- By the third period, Tocchet shook up the lines, bumping Pius Suter up between Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser, while dropping Miller to a line between Conor Garland and Phil Di Giuseppe. After DeBrusk, Miller, and Boeser were the low minute men at 5-on-5 on Thursday, the activation of the Line Blender 3000™ seemed like an admission the top line just isn’t clicking right now.
- “I think that line was just okay in Seattle,” said Tocchet. “They needed some pizzazz, so I wanted to switch it up. The other couple of lines weren’t that bad…It was one of those games where we had our chances. You need a pass here, you need a shot here, you need somebody to do something in that moment.”
- Kevin Lankinen certainly wasn’t to blame for the loss, as he stopped all but one shot he faced. While the Predators only had 17 shots on goal, that’s not a reflection of Lankinen’s actual workload, as the Predators missed the net on some of their most dangerous chances, wtih Lankinen still going through the motions of stretching out to stop a shot that never came.
- Lankinen’s best stop came after a bizarre shot selection by J.T. Miller, as he golfed a puck from the boards that Ryan O’Reilly easily blocked. That led to a Luke Evangelista breakaway. Evangelista stumbled as he deked and barreled into Lankinen, who still managed to stretch out his left toe to stop the puck. Evangelista ended up in the back of the net; the puck did not.
- It looked for a brief moment like Teddy Blueger had opened the scoring mere seconds into the second period but it was waved off immediately for goaltender interference. Which was fair enough considering Dakota Joshua was essentially lying half on top of Juuse Saros and half on top of defenceman Nick Blankenburg in the crease. Goalie interference can be ambiguous sometimes; this wasn’t.
- Joshua had an eventful game, including a fight in the first period and five hits. He also briefly left the game midway through the second period. Teddy Blueger hit Roman Josi on the forecheck and the Predators defenceman torpedoed into Joshua’s left leg, causing it to buckle awkwardly. Joshua tested his leg with a quick spin on the ice at the next whistle, then went down the tunnel. It looked like his night might be done but he returned for the third period and played a regular shift.
- The Predators got the only goal on a goaltender of the game late in the second period on a bad pinch by Guillaume Brisebois. With two Canucks forwards caught in deep, the Predators broke out 3-on-2 as Brisebois scrambled back defensively. Stamkos passed to Marchessault, then teed off on the return pass, slamming the one-timer past Lankinen.
- “When their top line is on the ice, I’d like to see a couple of guys reload on a 50/50 puck,” said Tocchet. “I honestly said to the coaches, it should have been a 0-0 game heading into overtime. We gave them a 3-on-2 and they scored. We had a couple of 3-on-2s, we had a 2-on-1, and so many breakaways, and we don’t score.”
- The Canucks created some magic last season at 6-on-5 but haven’t been able to recreate that magic recently, particularly without Quinn Hughes. Tocchet seemed unhappy in particular about the play of his top line in the empty net situation.
- “Sometimes, when you want to score so much, you forget about doing the little things,” said Tocchet when asked about DeBrusk, Miller, and Boeser. “Six-on-five, if you just eliminate people, somebody's going to get the puck. I think we're trying to worry about plays, then the bodies. You've got to take bodies out at six-on-five.”
- The Canucks were outshot 2-to-1 by the Predators at 6-on-5 and, since the Canucks didn’t have a goaltender in the net, they gave up two goals. The Canucks’ lone 6-on-5 shot was a Tyler Myers point shot with no traffic in front.
- I have to agree with Rick Tocchet: the Canucks were missing some pizzazz. Also, "Pizzazz" is now the new nickname for Quinn Hughes.
