they pinned themselves into a corner by signing Miller, they are going for the playoffs and you need Horvat for that goal. We had to clean house and rebuild, move Miller, Horvat and Boeser but yet we we re-sign 2 of the 3, went shopping for yet another 2nd line winger and not fixing our major holes.
There is still a possibility but harder now. I really like Miller's demeanour, I think it is good to be pissed off losing but I wonder how long that can last in the room, it could get old real fast.
That was a f***ing strange game. We were easily the better team at ES for basically the whole night, outshot and outchanced them badly. But we caught a terrible break - we probably won't get a worse blown call than that all year - and our special teams were rancid. And their goalie was really good including stopping two breakaways that would have sealed the game.
Hmm, alot like the 80's, the Nucks could dominate for 40 minutes, create hope for the fans then the Oilers would decide to play and poof, another loss.
Hughes was our worst defensman last night.
He is more a rover than dman, Pearson plays better defence than him
Yeah. The start of the game was really encouraging. They were all over the puck and really controlling most of the play. Lots of jump and some great work down low. But Draisaitl and McDavey are entirely capable of just taking over a game all by themselves, flipping the tables on a game. Hardly the first time that's happened to a team, and certainly won't be the last. Still frustrating and disappointing to let such a promising start to the game slip away from them like that though.
The top players for the Canucks all played on the PP and it tired them out. Might as well use that as an excuse.
I thought it was a good effort overall. They skated hard and put a lot of pressure on the Oilers, especially in the first half of the game. The Oilers just have a crazy good PP and our PK is bad. If Miller or Hoglander bury those great looks they got it's probably enough to get the win. It was nice to see the Canucks getting breakaway chances rather than the Oilers for a change. Campbell played really well once he got over the rough first few minutes. I thought we had more structure in our game than Edmonton.
Demko slipped a bit it was not his normal insane game, that is troubling because he was better than the backup. As Demko goes, so goes this team. They need ALL the defencemen they have to be healthy. If Myers was playing they don't score on one of the PK's
Every game I've seen him in this year seems to contain a hit against him that leaves him looking dead on the ice after which he is often useless. At least Petey can flop to the ice as if garroted and, once the penalty is assessed, jump back to life and score a goal (like the other night). Problem is that while this sort of thing often works in October it doesn't work in April. An old Canuck tradition...
Hughes is a little guy that came up through the ranks in low hitting leagues, it is easy to be a star in a glorified beer league, not saying it is easy but in the NHL there is hitting and really fast players. Hughes has lots of offensive weapons and skill, IMO he could be a very good winger or maybe even a center but he just can't do everything an NHL defenceman should be able to do. Hit, clear the front of the net, win board battles, push players off the puck, pin players to the boards, have a good to great point shot, skate backwards.
He's not even close to being fast enough. Far too often he is beaten on the outside by even the mid level players.
I still insist he can't skate backwards very well, he turns and tries to out muscle guys
This game looked great at first, I was impressed with them, they had a team that was asleep and took it to them.
AND then the Oilers woke up. Gaps closed, outlet passes got smaller and the stars came out. BTW McD only played 23 minutes, less than 2 minutes more than Petey
This was much like the old Oilers, they played really really bad for half the game, their goalie kept them close. It was like when the Canucks were really good, most often they won games where they were badly out played.
Really good teams, contenders, win ugly games and this was an ugly win for the Oilers and maybe a wake up call.
I figured the score would be 7 - 3 Oilers, After the first period I thought "this could be 7 - 3 Canucks" I thought the last change would have McD and Dras vs the weakest defencemen but instead they went head to head with the top guys and just out skilled them.
Like past years when most of the masses were so sure the team was winning a playoff spot, "Oh well, it is only one game"
If body contact was an issue tonight, wait until Tortorella's team next game, it will be an all out high pressure game, no passengers on his team they could grind them down
