Canucks – NHL potpourri:
With lots of recent travel, some of it not too far away, as in trips to the Seattle Kraken press box, a portion of this Canucks collection is a wee bit tardy. Yet it’s all somewhat delightful …
Enjoy the Hockey Action!
1) I agree wholeheartedly with Kevin Bieksa’s comments a little while back on Hockey Night in Canada.
“There are very few untouchables in the league. I think Quinn Hughes should be an untouchable like Connor (McDavid), to Vancouver. So I don’t care who you are on the Canucks, when your guy, your captain is being treated like that, you drop whatever you’re doing and you gang tackle whoever that guy is going after him.”
With enforcers/”policemen” having vanished for the most part, as in a Dave Semenko or a Marty McSorley riding shotgun to Wayne Gretzky, there’s really no other option. Team effort, no excuses.
2) Mark February 17th on your calendar at the Four Nations Face0ff. That’s when Sweden and Team USA square off in the final game of the round robin in Boston. It also means Elias Pettersson versus J.T. Miller.
Earlier in the day, Canada plays Finland.
We’ll be there covering both.
3) Victor Mancini; who is this guy? Aside from being Vancouver’s acquisition on February 1st from the New York Rangers along with centre Filip Chytil and a conditional 1st-round draft pick that was flipped a bit later to the Penguins, Mancini is presently an American Hockey League blueliner.
Canucks management in recent times has had a propensity for collecting big D-men. Mancini qualifies. The 22-year-old Michigander stands 6-foor-3 and weighs about 230-pounds. He was a 5th-round pick of the Blueshirts back in 2022 out of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He previously played junior hockey in the USHL and in Sweden.
The big boy is right-handed and solid in his own end, while needing work on his overall game. The AHL fans in Abbotsford will get a chance to know him first.
4) The Canadian Women’s National Team defeated Team USA 3-1 in the 5th and deciding game of the Rivalry Series on Saturday night in Summerside, P.E.I. Jennifer Gardiner scored the game winner in the 3rd period as the Canadian gals outshot the Americans 43-29 for the game.
It’s all just one big preview of the Winter Olympics which take place in Italy a year from now.
5) Canucks (that would be Van and Abby) forward Nils Aman turned 25 on Friday. Born in 2000, it’s pretty easy to count up and keep track of his age.
New Vancouver D-man Marcus Pettersson and yours truly share a birthday, May 8. We also share it with former Canucks and longtime Bruins forward, the late Vancouver native Peter McNab, and with current Canucks TV commentator Dave Tomlinson.
6) Canucks Trivia Time: Who is the last Vancouver Canucks player to score a game winning goal in the playoffs? (answer at bottom, below number-9)
7) Tom McVie was hilarious. And a hockey lifer. The 89-year-old Trail, BC native passed away a couple of weeks ago. He played 21 seasons in the minor leagues and later coached for four different NHL clubs; three as a head coach and one as an assistant.
I met him in Boston where he finished his NHL coaching career and spent the rest of his life as an ambassador. I recall having the delight of conversing with him twice. He was interested, energetic, full of compliments and funny as hell.
From the NHL. com remembrance and comments from his former player Rick Green:
“And Tommy was the first man I ever knew who could put two pucks in his mouth at the same time. That’s a talent. I guess his nickname was ‘The Clown’ back in the day when he played in the International league, so you needed a sense of humor back then.
“Someone told me about the puck trick so I went up to him and told him I didn’t believe it. Tommy just took his teeth out, grabbed two pucks and in they went.”
I never saw him do that, but I’ll never forget briefly making his acquaintance.
8) Vancouver’s neighbours to the south did the Canucks a favour on Saturday night by defeating the Calgary Flames in overtime 3-2. Third-year centre Matty Beniers scored the game winner for the Kraken with a wrist shot through traffic on the power play.
Despite their habitual tendency to fall behind early in games and try to come back late, this time what normally fails actually worked. The Kraken trailed 2-0 after two periods.
The OT loss puts the Flames three points behind the Canucks for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference with both teams having played 55 games heading into the Fours Nations Faceoff break.
Overall, Seattle simply isn’t a playoff team. If it wasn’t clear awhile ago, they’re now 11 points behind Vancouver for the final spot. Kraken General Manager Ron Francis enters the last year of his deal this summer, if he makes it that far. Most believe he will.
9) We’ll have some special podcast interviews for you coming up during this break, and as mentioned, some in-depth coverage from Boston.
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Trivia Answer: J.T. Miller scored the game winner with 33-seconds remaining in Game-5 of the 2024 Western Conference semi-final against the Edmonton Oilers.
