VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks were back on home ice, though you’d forgive them for thinking otherwise.
Returning from a California road trip that put them on a two-game win streak, the Canucks faced the Atlantic Division–leading Montreal Canadiens in an arena flooded with Habs sweaters.
Chants of “Go Habs Go” quickly spread through the building, though some of the home team’s fans eventually piped up, so that “Go Habs Go” and “Go Canucks Go” blended into an undecipherable mishmash that began to sound like some neutral chant: “Go Ca-Habs,” “Go Ha-Nucks.”
Vancouver hadn’t won three in a row since its six-game streak of victories, which stretched from Dec. 28 until Jan. 6. Despite tying the game in the third period to force overtime, the home team failed to pick up another win. Outshot 38–28, the Canucks fell when a shot from Alex Galchenyuk deflected off the shaft of Paul Byron’s stick and bounced past Ryan Miller, spoiling an otherwise excellent performance for the Vancouver netminder. The fans, most of them wearing red, stood and cheered.
“I thought it was a well played game from both sides, and it could have gone either way in overtime,” said Daniel Sedin, who added that while the Habs’ winner was “unfortunate,” the team would certainly “take the point.”
The Canadiens opened the scoring 3:57 into the first period, on their second shot of the game. Centreman Torrey Mitchell tipped the puck past Miller after the Canucks failed to clear the zone, earning his first goal since Dec. 8, and his eighth of the season.
The Canucks’ 32 first-period goals are the fewest in the National Hockey League; the team failed to add to that tally on Tuesday, taking nearly 53 minutes to find a way to get a puck past Carey Price, who was honoured throughout the night with chants of “Carey! Carey! Carey!”
Montreal
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While the Canucks outshot the Habs 12–11 in the first frame, Vancouver struggled to put pucks on Price in the second, with Montreal outshooting the Canucks 16–4.
“It’s about winning one-on-one battles,” said Sedin when asked how the team was coping with its struggles generating offence. “That’s what it comes down to.”
The Canucks were without Loui Eriksson, who suffered a lower-body injury on Sunday in Anaheim. The 31-year-old is expected to be out of the lineup for one to two weeks. But they did have a player who has generated buzz in recent days: Nikolay Goldobin, who was acquired in the trade that sent Jannik Hansen to San Jose, and who scored his first goal as a Canuck in Saturday’s 4–3 win over the Los Angeles Kings.
Goldobin made his home-ice debut in Tuesday’s game. The 21-year-old winger earned 10:19 of ice time, starting the game on a line with Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi, in the spot formerly occupied by Alex Burrows.
The newcomer, nicknamed “Goldy,” showed signs of chemistry with his new linemates midway through the first period, when they broke on a three-on-two, with Horvat feeding Goldobin, who fanned on the shot after losing track of the puck. Minutes later, it took an acrobatic save by Price to prevent Goldobin from tying the game after Baertschi delivered him the puck, alone and in point-blank range.
Goldobin was intermittently demoted to the fourth line during the third period, replaced by Joseph Cramarossa on the second. While Goldobin has experience playing alongside fourth-liner Reid Boucher from their days as linemates with the Sarnia Sting, he was back playing with Horvat and Baertschi late in the third as the Canucks struggled to tie the game.
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When they finally did tie it up in the third period, the goal came courtesy of Michael Chaput, who was perfectly positioned to redirect an Alex Edler wrist shot past Price for what proved to be the Canucks’ only goal versus Price in the 2016–17 season, ending a 121:53 Vancouver scoreless streak versus the Montreal goalie.
“Obviously it was a great feeling,” Chaput said of his fourth goal of the season. “I thought we had chances after that, too, to maybe get another one and win the game. Just an unfortunate bounce at the end there.”
“It’s tough coming off the road,” Vancouver coach Willie Desjardins said. “But our guys are resilient. I thought we had a good first period. I thought we skated well in the first period. Got away a little in the second on us but I thought we came back with a good effort in the third.”
The Canucks will try to bounce back from the loss when they host the New York Islanders on Thursday in the second game of their five-game homestand—the longest of their season.
Tuesday’s loss was disappointing for Vancouver — “big-time” disappointing, if you ask Chaput — but there’s no time to dwell.
“It would have been huge for us, for the standings,” he said of nearly picking up a third consecutive win. “But we’ve just got to think about Thursday’s game and get back to it.”
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