Vey is just too soft.
His defensive warts are as bad, or worse, than Kassian's. He plays zero physical game, and is easily rubbed off of the puck.
Comparing a soft, weakish, defensively poor, center to a physical, strong, defensively below-average, winger.....can't really see why you would want to, but if you must then you go with the guy who isn't pushed around in every area of the ice.
Great effort from around the middle mark of the 1st period.
It was interesting to watch the ebb and flow of momentum in this one. The Canucks took the reigns late in the first and held onto them for the majority of time between then and Dank's tying goal in the 3rd. Then it went back and forth slightly with the Kings pressing a bit more until the final horn. OT was a wash.
With about 5 minutes left it was obvious that the Canucks were going to play for the single point. The game within the game. They absolutely had to get a single point in this one, and it is the one time that I actually endorsed the conservative approach. Had we blown it and given the a clear 2 points they would be but a point behind us, ensuring the single point meant keeping a full game of separation where we hold the tie breaker. We have a penchant for coughing the puck up at the point and giving up odd-man rushes (or breakaways) to teams with aggressive forwards who pressure our d-men up high, and we aren't the strongest puck handling team when it comes to the blueline corps. The Kings are a team that thrives on those kind of turnovers, we did a decent job of negating that and keeping them to the outside.
Lack played his best in a while.
Despite what Topper and a few others have said, I think Hamhuis is looking closer to being 100% now than he has in about 2 seasons. The poor defensive plays at times is more a mental thing, I think. He's more physical than I've seen since 2011, and has stepped up with some big hits. Maybe Torts nailed it with him, he's a cerebral player and when that's not clicking he makes mistakes. Physically I think he's as good as we've seen since before his run-in with Lucic in the finals.
The Sedins played like they wanted it. I wonder if they saw Wid's comment about the mirror, Nazzy, and choking?
Burrows is becoming a factor again.....and at just the right time. He's the of the stuff that gets up for the post-season. That first line might just have figured out that they don't have many chances left and are ready to leave it all on the ice. Nothing would be sweeter than seeing that trio lead us deep into the playoffs again.
I saw Matthias actually play the body a few times too.
To be honest though, the true stars of this game were Blobcat and RD.....kudos to them for a rather entertaining GDT. LOL!
