Hughes and Demko big parts of shutout victory as Canucks improve to 5-2
The Vancouver Canucks won their third straight game Friday night blanking the St. Louis Blues 5-0 at Rogers Arena.
There is a lot to like in the way the Canucks are going about their business these days. Here are some thoughts and observations as the Canucks won for the fifth time in seven starts:
*The Canucks clearly game-planned to get a jump on the Blues who had played in Calgary on Thursday. And aided by a power play just 17 seconds into the hockey game, the Canucks smothered St. Louis in the first period. The shots were 9-0 when the Canucks opened the scoring, they got to 11-0 at one point and the Blues didn't test Thatcher Demko until the 8:58 mark. The final numbers after 20 minutes were downright silly everywhere but on the scoreboard. The Canucks outshot the Blues 19-3 and the attempts were 35-4. Give Jordan Binnington credit for holding his hockey club in the game as long as he could.
*Quinn Hughes continues to astound on a nightly basis. On Friday, he opened the scoring midway through the first period and then made it 2-0 early in the second. He finished the night with four shots on eight attempts. Last season, it took Hughes until mid-January to score three goals. He has three in his last three games after scoring in Florida last Saturday. Brock Boeser in the only player on the Canucks roster that has more goals than Hughes in the early going this season.
*Thatcher Demko was not busy, but he was excellent recording his first shutout of the season and fourth of his career. He blanked Chicago late last season to post his lone clean slate a year ago. On Friday, he faced only three shots in the first period, but 11 in the second and five more in the third. His best stop came off Blues captain Brayden Schenn early in third as he got in behind the Canucks defense and tried to move to his left to change the angle on Demko. However, the Canucks netminder stayed with him the entire way and made the stop look rather routine. Demko is now 3-2 on the season with a 1.91 GAA and a .936 save percentage.
*It took the Canucks until the final week of November last season to string three straight wins together. That's just one of many ways to know that things seem different this time around. The team's longest win streak all of last season was five games. That happened in March. On Saturday, the Canucks have a chance to go 3-0 on home ice with a fourth straight win overall.
*The return of Ilya Mikheyev has given the Canucks two balanced top lines. Mikheyev scored for a second straight game and now has points in all three of his games since his return to the line-up. On Friday against St. Louis he led the Canucks with six shots on goal and did so in just 13:45 of ice time. Mikheyev had just one shift past the midway mark of the third period. It was a good call on the part of the coaching staff. With his first set of back to backs to test his surgically repaired knee this weekend, why force the issue with a 5-0 lead? So the Canucks played it prudently and left Mikheyev to rest up for Saturday's game with the Rangers
*JT Miller had three points on Friday and now has 2+5=7 in the Canucks two home games so far this season. It's hard to call a guy that is one off the team lead with 11 points quiet. But that's meant as a compliment. There has been almost no noise around Miller from the outset of the season. And yet a quiet Miller is letting his play speak volumes. He had a goal and two assists against the Blues. He's tied for seventh in overall league scoring and is the only player in the top 15 of the NHL's scoring derby with at least a point at even-strength, on the power play and while short-handed.