What does it mean to have or lack playoff experience? As most NHL pundits, podcasters, and writers have mentioned ever since the Vancouver Canucks earned a playoff berth, this group of players didn’t have many playoff minutes to its name. Those who did play games did so in the 2020 summer bubble. Round 1 versus the Nashville Predators, themselves a very good team, would be a vastly different beast, pardon the pun. The truth is, if players and teams can adjust to the playoff atmosphere, it won’t really matter how much experience they had. Here are some takeaways from the Canucks’ 4-2 Game 1 win.
Offensive Woes Continue, But Does It Matter?
Regarding talking points that caused spilled ink over the past weeks, there was the subject of Vancouver’s flailing attack. Granted, Rick Tocchet’s group still finished the regular season with an average of 3.40 goals scored per contest, good for sixth in the league, but the reality is that they were in the race to be the very best by the NHL All-Star Break. However, over the last 20 matches on the regular season calendar, the Canucks netted 76 times, which translates to 2.92 a night. Not quite as thrilling.
Here’s another question for the readers: does it really matter at this time of year? Generally speaking, goals come at a slightly higher premium in the postseason. The important thing, among many others, was that the Canucks’ defence didn’t falter. Not every game is going to finish 7-6 like the Winnipeg Jets’ Game 1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche. That’s clearly an outlier.
The final total of 21 shots won’t impress many people, but given this series features a dual between top-quality goaltenders Thatcher Demko and Juuse Saros, it becomes a matter of Vancouver or Nashville’s guy making that key stop, less so whether they can play well. When it mattered most, Dakota Joshua got the better of the Predators’ defence and their netminder to punch home the eventual game-winner only 12 seconds after Pius Suter tipped home Quinn Hughes’ shot from the blue line.
In an instant, the game flipped on its head, from a 2-1 deficit to a 3-2 advantage for the hosts and the home crowd buzzing. It was an example of how the playoffs are also when role players carve their names in the history books. Tell someone the Canucks will score four times in their playoff opener and most would immediately guess J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser, or Elias Pettersson got the goals.
Getting Away With Some Dirty Play
It could have been a vastly different story at Rogers Arena. Credit to the Predators. For most of the night, they didn’t give the Canucks much. Plenty of chances were on the table, but chances aren’t always shots on goal and we’ve already highlighted that Vancouver only mustered 21 attempts on target. In fact, with only a few minutes left in the first period, they had a grand total of three.
What could have compounded the misery were the power play opportunities awarded to the visitors. It’s not that the Canucks behaved poorly. Four penalties aren’t enough to get too flustered about, but when the scoring chances are so tough to come by, letting a dangerous team skate around one’s zone freely with a man advantage for eight total minutes can easily lead to disaster.
To that point, with the score tied 1-1 in the middle frame, Nashville’s Ryan O’Reilly zipped a wrist shot over Demko’s left shoulder while on the power play to make it 2-1. From that point onward, every time the Canucks had one of their own sent to the sin bin, one wondered if the Predators would go for a game, set, match two-goal lead. But Vancouver held strong, hardly allowing any shots on goal during the other three penalty kills.
Vancouver Adapts to Playoff Intensity
When watching pre-game and intermission telecasts, analysts will often remark that it’s important for the teams to “set the tone.” In layman’s terms, with respect to playoff hockey, that means being tough.
The Canucks surely knew they would be in tough against the Predators. Nashville came into this series with no fewer than three players in the NHL’s top 20 for hits during the regular season: Jeremy Lauzon (386), Kiefer Sherwood (234), and Cole Smith (234). This was going to be a battle, no doubt about it. Vancouver is no slouch either, with the aforementioned Joshua logging 245 hits this season despite missing some time due to injury.
Vancouver delivered 39 hits to Nashville’s 32, and while hitting more doesn’t win teams games, it, well, sets the tone. The highlight of the night came late in regulation as the Canucks were holding onto a precious 3-2 lead. Nikita Zadorov smashed into Smith, sending the Predator to the ice. The Moscovite is a titan of a human being, measuring 6-foot-6 and weighing 248 pounds.
Off we go to Game 2, which will be in Vancouver on Tuesday night.
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