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GAME RECAP #41: NUCKS WIN! Nothing But The Blues - Lose 3-1

Good Effort. Good 1st period. And a semi-solid loss

By jimmi.cynic
/ new
NHL: St. Louis Blues at Vancouver Canucks
Don’t Look Up Now, But Mikey Gets Beat
Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports

After last game’s feisty performance against the best team in the league, we had to feel confident against the lowly 5th best team. Martini’s permitting.

As legendary as the NM Game Thread Drinking Team is, the Covidian Faeries Drafting Team is better - faster, sneakier and never takes a morning off.

What might have been a Fairy Tale story for Spencer Martin, was just another Covid Faery Protocol and Spenser was scratched. How many goalies do the spiked proteins need?!

We don’t know. What we do know is the Nucks need to carry 8 goalies.

Next goalie up is, Mighty Mikey. Backed up by UBC tender, Ryan Toth.

I’m no roster strategy guru, but I’d be building Nucking goalie bubbles from anti-virus mandolarian armour. Especially since goalies tend to be aloof, keep them away from other players humans.

Doesn’t matter.

What matters is the Nucks had a great start. Impressive even.

Out shot the Blues 21-10 in the 1st. 11-4 in the 2nd. And for all that shooting, Hussie only let in one goal - just as the Nucks 5-on-3 expired in the 1st. He’s a really good goalie - hello C-Faeries - why not take him - yesterday?

Pete with his 1000th 100th NHL point. Pearson with the finish.

In the 2nd, we thought that Hoagie had scored the go ahead goal. While he did score, it was after the whistle - a whistle for a Nucking too many men penalty. How can that be? We don’t have enough NHL players on the roster!

Worse, the Blues scored on 2 of their 4 shots. Poolman picked the wrong guy to cover on the PK and Schenn’s evil brother scored.

And even worse, Mikey let in a softie from the point to make it 3-1 Blues and the end of the game - while still in the 2nd.

Oh no. DiPietro gives up the softy goal on a long floating wrister.

No bueno — Gwailoh

Still... Game Thread was confident going into the 3rd, even if the Nucks were not.

Now all the Blues have to do is play a little D in the 3rd to close it out. The promising start has fizzled, and DiPi looks unlikely to ever win a game at the NHL level. — copey2

Shot attempts were 70 - 30 for the Nucks, but there’s no loser points for attempts. Dammit.

Huggie again was the D-force on the Nucks with 5 shots on 9 attempts with 28:55 of ice hugging time. Seemed like he won every puck battle and our NM slightly tainted 1st star.

Struggle Diaries

The Nucking PK has reverted to the passive strategy that worked so well, 66% of the time.

The Nucking PP without JT and Bo, looks like the old PP with JT and Bo, but worse. Went 0 for 4. To be fair, 2 of the power plays were at the same time - which the Nucks took too much time to look for the perfect play.

Being without the highest scoring players, Brock and Pete had the chance to step up and be clutch. Slipped the clutch a bit much.

Brock was whiffing and missing and Pete was double-clutching on plays that used to be automatic. Pete did get an apple, but had no shots. Could be I’m being petty, but even Bruce thought Pete was too pretty - too reluctant to shoot on the PP.

Still... the game thread was handing out the full participation prizes.

Well. There was some effort there. The Nucks get an L for effort. — copey2

HIGHLIGHT PLAYER

Highmore was a force - a speedy winger force all night. Drew 2 penalties. At the same time. He was buzzing and creating chances chaos - unfortunately hockey chaos math doesn’t often equal goals.

ROG Video Replay

2 Johns feeling at home, at home.

Check out OEL’s astounding bank pass at the 6:43 mark on the timeline. If only the pass was received by a known scorer, not Diki. Oh well...

GAME STATS (Lopsided stats - Lopsided loss)

SOG FO% PP PIM HITS BLKS GVA
Blues
STL
 17 59% 1/3 8 24 20 3
Canucks
VAN
 39 42% 0/4 6 23 8 9

SHOTS (Lotsa Nucking Shots - Not So Many Goals)

Period STL VAN
1st 10 21
2nd 4 11
3rd 3 7
Total 17 39

PLAYER STATS (Good Effort - Not So Good Finish)

# Forwards GP G A P P +/- S PIM PIM SOG HITS BLKS GVA TKA FO% TOI PP TOI SH TOI PP GW
6 B. Boeser 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 6 0 0 1 0 0 21:59 4:57 --:-- 0
15 M. Highmore 0 0 0 0 -1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 14:48 --:-- 1:04 0
18 J. Dickinson 0 0 0 0 -1 2 2 2 3 1 0 1 36 13:05 --:-- 1:27 0
21 N. Hoglander 0 0 0 0 -1 5 0 5 0 0 1 1 12:16 1:25 --:-- 0
39 A. Chiasson 0 1 1 1 1 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 17:05 5:01 --:-- 0
40 E. Pettersson 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 55 20:44 4:35 0:37 0
51 S. Dries 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 50 9:41 1:10 --:-- 0
64 T. Motte 0 0 0 0 -1 3 0 3 0 1 0 1 18:32 --:-- 3:20 0
70 T. Pearson 1 0 1 1 1 2 0 2 2 0 0 1 18:08 4:32 0:28 0
91 J. Lammikko 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 1 0 0 1 27 16:12 --:-- 2:27 0
92 V. Podkolzin 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 12:14 1:17 0:07 0
95 J. Bailey 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 4 1 0 0 0 7:32 --:-- 0:28 0
# Defense GP G A P P +/- S PIM PIM SOG HITS BLKS GVA TKA FO% TOI PP TOI SH TOI PP GW
2 L. Schenn 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 4 0 15:32 --:-- 1:37 0
5 T. Poolman 0 0 0 0 -1 1 0 1 1 2 1 0 19:19 --:-- 1:59 0
23 O. Ekman-Larsson 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 2 3 0 0 21:14 1:17 3:25 0
43 Q. Hughes 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 5 0 0 0 1 28:55 4:43 1:34 0
44 K. Burroughs 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 12:00 --:-- --:-- 0
57 T. Myers 0 0 0 0 -1 4 2 4 1 0 1 0 18:20 1:03 1:23 0
# Goalies GP REC GA SV SA S EV PP SH SAVE-SHOTS SV% PIM TOI GAA
65 M. Dipietro -- 14 17 14–16 0–1 0–0 14–17 .824 0 57:21

REPRESSERS

Same place, different game, different goalie. Mikey gets on mic.

Huggie gives us the goods, except for that PP thing.

It was Bruce’s 1000th NHL game as coach. Despite the Covid roster depletion, woulda been nice to win this one for Bruce. Maybe 1001 will be.

No Fairy Tale ending for Bruce and Mikey.

Oh well... Tuesday, Nucks get a visit from the world’s best player and his not-world’s-best-team.

We might get Demmers back for it. And Bo could be good to go. Not at home, of course, because Winterpeg is not our home.

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