The Morning After The Night Before, 19 December 2016

So the Canucks lost, and gave John Tortorella his 500th career win. I see the game as a point won rather than a point lost - look at the shot totals after 35mins, and you’re lucky to get out of a game with anything after that.

Some positives? Troy Stecher continues to make himself the #1 D on this team. Which isn’t all that difficult, but coming from the NCAA and becoming a critical player so quickly is a seriously impressive achievement.

Other positives include, but are not limited to: Bo and Baer picking up assists; Hansen scoring his first goal since returning from injury; Brandon Sutter putting up a goal in his 3rd straight game; and of course those beautiful twins each getting a point. Henrik moves to 990 for the career, just 10pts shy of the 1,000 mark.

And we got a point. Hurray!

Now, what else is happening around the league?

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• After struggling to ice an NHL-calibre team all season, some good news: dark horse Anton Rodin will join the team after Christmas.

• How Alex Burrows made us all eat our words. And hats, shorts and probably faeces too. [Province]
• Is this for real?

• You’d have to have a sense of humor, backing up Cam Ward in Carolina.

• A small snippet in Bruce Garrioch’s latest piece: Willie’s not going anywhere, at least not until the team is healthy. That actually does sound fair. [Ottawa Sun]
• Henrik Lundqvist is just as good as Dominik Hasek. Not opinion, a stats-based fact: Lundqvist joined Hasek on 389 career wins last night. [NHL]
• If he could stay healthy, he’d break Brodeur’s records. But he’s Carey Price, so he won’t. In the meantime, he’s reached 250 wins rather quickly. [NHL]
• Looking at a potential Anaheim D-for-Leafs F trade. I’d hate to see the Leafs nab Vatanen of Lindholm. [Sportsnet]
• Hahahahahahahahahahaha...

• Mr Glass was a healthy scratch last night. Everyone said the Kings would regret signing him to that stupid contract.

• Poor Dan Boyle. Retired in the summer, and already consigned to the garbage cans of NHL history. His positions as highest-scoring D in both Tampa’s and San Jose’s history have been usurped, by Victor Hedman and Brent Burns. Boyle was a good D man, but those two are going to set proper franchise records. [The Score]

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Question of the day: Where the hell does Anton Rodin fit on this team?