Well, in reality the Vancouver Canucks need a mid to long-term fix, but for the good of the club, the fans and the coaching staff, they need a quickie fix as well, as in a victory over the visiting Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night.
“I don’t understand it, it is frustrating,” Canucks Head Coach Bruce Boudreau said after the loss at home to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night. “I don’t have an answer, it’s frustrating, we injected a few new guys into the line-up and I thought that would bring energy, but it we didn’t win nearly as many battles you would have liked to.”
Boudreau said the Devils had the advantage in terms of speed and tenacity. He said newcomer defenceman Ethan Bear was fine while new forward Jack Studnicka seemed nervous. Both are righties and the Canucks can definitely used D-depth on the right side and a right-handed centre.
The Canucks are 2-6-and-2 on the season while the Ducks are 3-6-and-1. Anaheim is heating up a little bit; they’re coming off a 6-5 shoot-out win over San Jose on Tuesday night that was preceded by an overtime victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday. Previous to that their only other win was also in overtime against the Seattle Kraken on opening night.
Let’s Skate …
The Buffalo Sabres have been known to get off to hot starts in recent years, even during ones that turned out to be pretty lean, but this season feels different. The Sabres are 7-and-3 on the season, a 5-1 decision over the Vancouver Canucks back on October 22nd among the wins, and the club features some young scoring stars.
Wednesday night they handed the Pittsburgh Penguins their sixth loss in a row.
The Sabres have two players on the NHL scoring leader board, with both defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and forward Tage Thompson tied for eight place with 14 points.
Like their 1970 expansion brethren, the Canucks, the Sabres have never won a Stanley Cup. This won’t be the year, but maybe after a long stretch of misery, the fans in Buffalo will see some gradual prosperity.
Oh Really …
Oh yes, by the way, the top two leading scorers are Connor McDavid (22 points) and Leon Draisaitl (21) of the Edmonton Oilers, both for the most part playing center on separate lines. (See our Pacific Division centre rankings)
Next is winger David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins with 18 points.
Hockey Fights Cancer
It’s the 24th year of the campaign and the league is stepping it up, as is NHL.com with its daily Hockey Fights Cancer digest. There were a couple of cool entries for November 2nd including one from McDavid and also from rookie forward Jakob Lauko of the Boston Bruins who scored his first NHL goal the other night.
Lauko said he’s sending the puck to the family of his friend Ondrej Buchtela, who died from cancer two years ago.
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