NUCKS WIN! (Low Shot Count) Lose Game 2-1 in near OT to Yotes

We’re still in grieving. Not just us. The Nucks are missing Brock already. And his shot. His lots of shots.

Marky played well. Well enough to win the game. Held the Nucks in the game until the last minute. The rest of the team, weren’t keen to be held - especially by Marky and his temperamental stickwork.

As Green said: “Chasing your tail all game”. So...an introspective effort served on a bed of bad passes and worse decisions.

Or was it? I know it’s been weeks since I furtively revealed the dark hockey ops group

- but it’s the best tinfoiled [redacted] explanation. Let’s just say it was very convenient to lose a 4 point game to the division’s basement squatter.

And really inconvenient to instil losing cultural artefacts because we’re going to pick 5th - if we’re lucky.

1st Period

Sutter opened the scoring on the PK.

Or not.

Maybe everyone was dispirited after the, probable, winning goal from Sutter was disavowed. Disallowed. Goal post disses are the worst.

No matter. The Nucks can recover from that huuuge disappointment and just go pepper Kuemper with lots of shots - he’s no King of Saves.

Or they could conserve their crisp passes, scoring plays and dangerous shots for when Brock gets back to finish them.

And they could let the penalty killers let the Yotes rookie look really good by having his half-blocked shot trickle agonisingly slowly through Eddie while Eddie laid on the ice staring down the puck.

1-0 Yotes on the power play.

Not to worry. The Nucks get a power play too. Almost. They were so keen to get a goal they squandered the 2 minute opportunity with some 6-on-5 tape-to-tape passes that get Jokinen his first goal as a Canuck! Leipsic and Gags with assists.

And that’s the highlight goal of the night. And highlight of the night. Other than Marky’s pretty great stops. Although he was flopping around more than he’d like.

The period ends with a 1-1 tie, despite the Yotes outshooting the Nucks 16-7. Only outshot 2 to 1...that’s not so bad.

2nd Period

Nothing happened. No, really. No pushback from the Nucks.

Period ends still locked at 1 goal each with the Yotes slacking on the shot meter with only 8. But the Nucks can out-slack them with only 4 shots.

Only outshot 2 to 1, that’s not so bad.

3rd Period

The Nucks record when tied going into the 3rd is pretty good. No need to worry.

Half way through the period, the game is still tied. No need to worry.

One minute before the pre-destined OT, still tied. No need to worry.

Lose a defensive zone faceoff. Stepan gets time and space to snap a shot over Marky’s glove for the winning goal. No need to worry.

Oh wait! Time to worry! Pull the goalie! Pull the refs! Pull them all!

OT

OT home streak was cancelled due to lack of interest and execution. As per the game trend, the Yotes outshot the Nucks 10-6 in the period. That’s not so bad. That Nucks could barely muster one shot in the final 5 minutes...means...uh...they were trying to preserve the tie.

Enjoy the video highlights - or at least one of them.

It might seem that the Nucks of mid-December were called up from the IR Faery Time Machine. The Nucks managed to tie their season low shot count with 17 shots versus the Yotes 35. The last time they dipped into that sad shot range was on the Dec. 17th vs Cowtown in the ROG - the one they lost 6-1. So, that’s an improvement - an anti-blowout loss shows the consistent improvement in inconsistent improvements.

The one stat the Nucks surpassed the Yotes was on the hit counter. 35-19 advantage Nucks. Virt and Stetch had 6 each. Since they were sloppy with puck and couldn’t sustain offensive zone pressure, the extra hitting didn’t give the Nucks the extra spark needed to get extra shots.

Hank was disappointed. As per usual this season...

Marky made 32 saves on 34 shots for a stat-padding .941 SV%, but he wasn’t cheered by it.

Let’s Jussi put this here

Over in the Green room, the stern coach Travis talks about execution.

Speaking of executions, is this it for Goldy? He looks a little lost and while we know he can handle the puck very well, it’s like he doesn’t want to grab this chance to boost his sniper status. Had 0 shots and 1 hit in his 7:50 of ice-time. Only had one shift in the 3rd.

Speaking of low shooting, Bo had no shots, but the lines weren’t clicking even after the T-blender was set to spin in the last period. Neither of the Twins had any shots on goal either. Danny’s 5 game goal streak is feeling so last month. But, Gags had 5 shots recorded - led the team. Go figure. The new kid, Leipsic, kept his point streak going and had 2 shots to go with his assist.

We knew that some of the garbage-time games would be pretty trashy. But, this was a garbage game that there for the winning. For at least 45 minutes. Hard to believe it was the same team that put 17 shots on King H. In the 1st period of that burnt barn game. Ok, it wasn’t the same team. Thanks to the never-sated Injury Faeries.

No matter. It was a game to forget. There is no game. Or spoon. Or hats.

So, the Nucks can work out the breakout tomorrow and rediscover that elusive hockey axiom about spending more time offending than defending leading to more shots and goals.

Enjoy the tedium of Thursday and have a tremendous day after.