^{Utah wins their second in a row thanks to revitalized goaltending}

The Mammoth came into Vancouver riding a high from a thrashing of the Ducks on Wednesday. They looked to stay hot against a struggling Canucks squad, who find themselves at the bottom of the league a third of the way through the season.

Vancouver, who has been marred for years over personnel problems, continue to be in disarray with many question marks and uncertainty all up and down their roster. Could Utah start a win streak and aim for a potential point split this road trip?

FIRST PERIOD:
The Mammoth found themselves starting out on their heels a bit, as Vancouver game out strong over the first minute. The Canucks had early O-zone time against the kid line, as Daniil But, Dylan Guenther, and Logan Cooley were forced to showcase their defensive prowess. Once Utah stabilized, both teams skated and tested the other’s zone and defense with light pressure for the next minute or so.

The first real chance for either team came into play about the 16 minute mark. As I mentioned pre-game, the Canucks offense lives from tips and redirects in front, and Kiefer Sherwood did just that. His redirect just barely missed, hitting the crossbar but keeping the game scoreless. Vancouver, however, kept up the pressure and nearly got the ice breaker when Elias Pettersson had two attempts in the paint that Karel Vejmelka was forced to save in tight. Linus Karlsson got a cross-ice pass 2 feet outside the paint from Quinn Hughes, but a sprawling Vejmelka shut the door. Jake DeBrusk got the rebound from the slot, but again Utah denied them Canucks what they needed most. Within 90 seconds, 4 high danger chances were saved by Vejmelka (along with some steel pipe) keeping the game scoreless.

Utah didn’t seem to find any footing until 5 minutes into the game when JJ Peterka finally got a shot off on Kevin Lankinen and allowing Utah to get an offensive zone draw for the first time. However, Vancouver turned back and pushed again from some sloppy play. Giveaways by Clayton Keller and the Canucks back and forth in the neutral zone ended up with more offensive zone time for Vancouver, but again when tested, Vejmelka stood tall.

Again, Vancouver pressed. With 11 to go, a near odd-man rush allowed the Canucks to get a solid zone entry. Two attempts up front to DeBrusk missed – one through his legs, and the other forced wide from Vejmelka – and Utah escaped the first 10 minutes of the game scoreless somehow, bending but not breaking and relying on the big Czech in net to bail them out multiple times.

The first unit with Keller and Peterka got a good look for Utah’s first chance, but Peterka’s centering feed to a wide-open Keller was forced wide, and on a rush from the same unit, Lankinen – 4 feet out of his crease – got a big pad save on a Keller backhand. The Mammoth didn’t score on either of these chances, but they seemed to be momentum breakers for Vancouver. Neither team would get a shot or a dangerous chance, even though both teams saw several sloppy plays and turnovers in their respective zones.

Utah’s best chance of the period to that point came from the kid line. Cooley and Guenther on the rush took the two Canuck defensemen deep in the zone, and a drop pass to Daniil But let the rookie get off a blistering shot that was stopped by Lankinen. But got his own rebound, which was saved, but the puck squirted to Cooley on the near boards. Somehow, from a seated position, Lankinen was able to grab Logan Cooley’s attempt, rescuing Vancouver from their first challenge.

The Canucks mounted some counter pressure, and Vejmelka was forced to save a blast from the blue line, as well as another centering attempt deflection from the top of the crease.

Finally, Utah’s fortuned would change. Max Sasson tripped Jack McBain in the defensive zone, forcing the Canucks to be shorthanded. Utah’s power play has already scored once in December, and against the leakiest team in the league they had a chance to do something they couldn’t in November – get 2 power play goals at 5v4. Their success was quick – a wrister from Mikhail Sergachev was deflected at least once on the way to the net, and Utah had an unlikely lead late in the period. 1-0 Utah

Neither team had any pressure of note through the rest of the period. Some simple saves by Vejmelka closed the period out. Despite being massively outplayed the entire period, Utah escaped with a lead.

Somehow, shots were only 10 – 8 in favor of Vancouver, even though about 5-6 shots against in the first 5 minutes only seemed to “officially” record one or two of the chances.

SECOND PERIOD:
The Canucks started the second period as they did the first; with more than a minute of sustained offensive zone time, hemming Utah in deep. A minute in, a wrister from the blue line was tracked by Vejmelka, as was another attempt moments later, but Utah was finally able to get the puck out and blunt Vancouver’s momentum for a minute. Vancouver led an odd-man rush that saw Quinn Hughes all alone in the top of the slot, but a desperation kick save by Vejmelka kept Utah ahead.

Over the next few minutes, neither team was able to build much momentum. The kid line had a good look and shift, the 1st line had a little struggle with turnovers, but ultimately the most dangerous chance was from Aatu Raty in the slot, denied by Vejmelka.

After a lengthy bout of blocked shots, disrupted passes, and sloppy turnovers, by both teams, a chance at the 12 minute mark saw a Canuck 2 on 1 rush, which was stopped by Veggie. Play completely opened up from here for a bit, with a Utah rush stopped with a turnover, a Canucks rush leading to a 2 on 1 that saw a wide open net missed, an open shot from the top of the circle by Max Sasson that was saved by Vejmelka, and a bit of a scrum in front of the Vancouver netminder.

The 10 minute mark saw another tremendous push by the Canucks. With offensive zone pressure mounting, the Mammoth troubles compounded as, unlike earlier in the game, Dylan Guenther got called for a “high stick” against Hughes (from a stick inches from his face). Apparently, a legitimate high stick doesn’t warrant the same call when Hughes does it to Guenther though…

Vancouver is not a great goal scoring team, but even so their power play is one of their brighter spots. They’re not in the bottom 5 of the league for that part of special teams – in fact, they’re actually better than average at 13th overall. It’s because the extra ice allows them to get in low for where they score most of their goals, and that’s exactly the pressure they put on Utah’s PK.

In the first 30 seconds, Utah was able to block several shots, with Ian Cole sacrificing the body down low, and Vejmelka able to clean up what got through. Utah’s PK was able to keep almost all opportunities out towards the perimeter, except for a fantastic defensive play by Lawson Crouse to disrupt a cross-ice chance and an open net right as the penalty expired.

Utah, who had no high danger chances – or medium danger ones – through the first 14 minutes of the period changed the trajectory of the game after the PK. With a smart unit change, Utah was able to get about 20 seconds of offensive time, which saw a Mikhail Sergachev point shot deflected in front by Nick Schmaltz. The tip in close was a dose of their own medicine for Vancouver, though unlike Utah, they didn’t have a wall in net. Despite being massively outplayed, out chanced, and outmatched, Utah, unbelievably, doubled their lead. 2-0 Utah

14 minutes of unrewarded hockey in the 2nd period took it’s toll on Vancouver, who struggled to mount a comeback for several minutes. Utah had a couple of shots, including a tip in close by Maveric Lamoureux in the low slot, but Vancouver’s counter attack saw a near goal as a puck got by Vejmelka and pinballed in the crease for a moment. However, luck remained on Utah’s side.

Kevin Stenlund and Linus Karlsson got matching roughing minors with less than 2 minutes to play. Why someone would try and punch a guy wearing a bubble helmet I’ll never know, but how smart can you be if you willingly play for the Canucks?

4 on 4 was mostly uneventful, and the period came to a close.

Are we dreaming? Two second periods where Utah won them against the opposition? Utah was dominated this period, but came out doubling their lead – the only stat that really matters. Shot counts don’t even hint at the disparity in play, but we ended the period 14 shots for Vancouver, 7 for Utah. For the game, Utah trailed 24-15 in shots.

THIRD PERIOD:
The penalty carried over into the third period, and McBain and Crouse started off with a great early push on the 4 on 4. Once the penalty ended, Utah tilted the ice in their favor, with some good offensive zone time. There wasn’t significant pressure for either team over the next 4 minutes, aside from a shot that hit the outside of the net by Liam O’Brien.

Vancouver pretended to be Utah for a minute with about 5 minutes gone in the period. After being outplayed, their rush attempt ended up breaking Karel Vejmelka’s scoreless streak. A rush into the zone by Aatu Raty saw Michael Carcone and Sean Durzi get their skates tangled up. Carcone fell, and Durzi was out of position to protect against a Arshdeep Bains redirect. Veggie had no chance, and Vancouver made this a one goal game. 2-1 Utah

Encouraged and energized by the goal, Vancouver continued to press. Utah was able to disrupt passes and block shots, but was unable to make much of a dent in the offensive zone. However, the Mammoth clogged up the neutral zone expertly, not allowing much penetration by the Vancouver forwards. Utah got the first shot of the period at the 13:30 mark from Stenlund. This is noteworthy for later.

Following the Stenlund shot, Vancouver found itself getting zone pressure and a few shot attempts that went wide or high. Utah wasn’t turtling, as they did get about 90 seconds of pressure at one point, but they kept enough back to make sure they kept the Canucks from generating anything significant.

About the 10 minute mark, Stenlund got called for a slash. This was a retaliation for a boarding against him that didn’t get called just seconds earlier. Naturally, a Utah player getting hit from behind, in the numbers, facing the boards was a clean play to the referees that have been kind to Utah all year. So, again, Utah was a man down.

With one of their best killers in the box, again, the Mammoth PK did all they could to block shots from and disrupt plays, forcing Vancouver offside at one point. With about 45 seconds left, a Hughes shot left a juicy rebound to the right of Vejmelka. However, as I mentioned in the pre-game, Vancouver just doesn’t know how to score from the right side of the net… and were unable to capitalize from this great rebound chance. The last, greatest chance, came when Brock Boeser was all alone at the low dot, and centered for DeBrusk standing right at Veggie’s doorstep. Denying Vancouver yet again, Vejmelka closed the pads in time (with a little Sergachev help), and the penalty mercifully expired.

With 6 minutes to play, Daniil But seemed to seal the deal with a wrister from the blue line that was intercepted from a Lankinen clearing attempt, but it was ruled that Dylan Guenther interfered with Lankinen behind the net. So, Butsky was denied his first official goal, though he did get his first fist bump line in.

That disallowed goal was motivation for the Canucks, who came back hard. Three fantastic saves by Vejmelka in the next 30 seconds – two slap shots by Hughes, and a tight-in rebound chance by Boeser were the difference between a tie game and retaining the lead.

With less than 5 to play, Utah looked to seal the game as Guenther collected the puck from an errant shot, and passed to Cooley who was on a partial breakaway. However, he was pulled down Hughes, preventing a goal. However, Cooley went into the goaltender, and knee first into the net. On the ice for several tense seconds, Utah was able to breathe a sigh of relief when Cooley was able to take the ice for the power play that ensued.

The late power play saw the team generate no shots, though Guenther did rush and attempt between 4 Canucks, but had his attempt blocked. He also went high on the best opportunity, and Vancouver cleared the puck often to kill most of the time shorthanded.

With 2 minutes to go, Kailer Yamamoto entered the zone on a semi-fast rush. He was able to slide a back-pass to Stenlund. Stenny, victimized by several penalties and no love from the stripes, went backhand around Lankinen’s right pad. This was the second shot of the period, 18 minutes into the period. 3-1 Utah

The Canucks pulled their goalie with 2 minutes to go, and immediately Sergachev took a puck over the glass penalty. This put Utah’s penalty killers in a 6 on 4 position. The PK unit was helped out massively, though, because the Vancouver power play thought they were the Utah PP unit. For about 40 seconds, the Canucks just passed around the perimeter, looking for an open shot, but Utah’s killers either blocked passes or clogged lanes to frustrate them.

With 36 seconds to go, after a faceoff win, John Marino sent a bullseye into the open net from 200 feet away. Insanely accurate, it was just the third shot of the period for Utah, but it doesn’t matter how many, it matters how many or something. The how many that mattered, though, was 4. 4-1 Utah

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3 GOALS (THE GOOD):

Czech him out After a shaky first third of the season, Karel Vejmelka has put up back to back fantastic games for the Mammoth. Stopping 31 of 32 tonight, he’s given up just one goal in two games. That’s 58 of the last 59, a .983 save percentage.

While it’s hard to “steal” a game when you win 7-0, this was absolutely a game he stole. Vancouver had an expected 4+ goals against tonight. Veggie let up 1. His 3.04 saves above expected was his best outing of the year. Without Veggie in net, this game would have been a blowout.

Futurama? Bender was the name of the game tonight. Utah bent, and bent, and bent, but didn’t break. Like their cartoon robot counterpart, everything that needed to break their way did.

Granted, they were bailed out significantly by a solid goaltending performance. They were able to take advantage of terrible luck from Vancouver shooters either missing pucks wide, or missing passes on open nets. They were able to overcome late penalties and even saw a period with just 3 shots tally 2 goals.

It wasn’t pretty. It was downright ugly. Doesn’t matter how tarnished a W is, it’s still two points.

The Invisible Man act disappeared today. A number of players who haven’t been performing showed up tonight when needed most. An unlikely power play goal by Sergachev, a rare but welcome net-front tip goal by Schmaltz, and even a point from Stenlund were great to see. These three struggled a lot in November, so getting some sort of monkey off their back was desperately, desperately needed.

3 CHIRPS (THE BAD):

Spelunking isn’t great consistently getting caved in by the statistically worst team in the league isn’t a good look. The Canucks can’t score often, but man they were right there at least 5 times in the first 7 minutes. Stats are flawed a bit; those chances against were all high danger chances.

Vejmelka was the first, second, and third star of this game. A game against a cellar dweller shouldn’t be one that you have your goalie steal, but that’s what this was.

The kid and third lines were terrible at giving up tight in chances. This is simply due to the size issues on the kid line (But is 6 foot 6 but weights less than I do at 5 foot 8), and the third line just looked overmatched when Quinn Hughes was on the ice. Don’t get me wrong, Hughes is the best player on the Canucks by far, so he’s gonna do damage, but man what a rough night.

But anyway… Daniil But has had two really good games for Utah. This is not an indictment of him.

But scored his first almost goal in the NHL, and learned firsthand how great the NHL refereeing is. In the KHL, they have a rule that required all goals to be reviewed before confirmed, so he probably is used to needing to wait to celebrate, but the NHL decided he needed to wait to celebrate a little more.

As a goalie, I believe that if you leave the crease to play behind your net, you’re fair game to be bumped. But, that’s not how the rule works. I’m in agreement that the G should be protected at all costs, but when you decide to put yourself in the game other than as a tendy, other than clutching and grabbing or knocking you down, you should be able to put your big boy pants on.

I’m the Statman listen, I love stats. I love numbers and making things work out in my head and writing them down for you to read. But I also like numbers being right and a story fully being told. Hockey is a dynamic sport – it’s not baseball where you can easily count balls, strikes, stolen bases, etc. Shots are hard to measure sometimes. If it’s an inch wide, it’s technically not a shot but can be counted as one.

High Danger Chances are measured in a specific way. A shot that’s from a specific area, or a specific way, can be either high, medium, or low. Veggie’s expected goals against this year have looked awful. This is because he’s faced dozens of odd-man rushes. When a shot is taken from outside of the dots, on the far side of play, these are not considered high danger generally. Depending on the play, these could even be considered low danger, giving a goaltender awful metrics even when he’s completely free of blame.

Additionally, it doesn’t give credit for when a goaltender’s positioning forces a shot wide, or pushes a player into an untenable position during a rush chance. These are simply not counted, despite whether or not the play by the goalie was the sole factor in preventing that goal against because it wasn’t technically a save.

So, tonight, Vejmelka had at least a dozen opportunities against him from within 4 feet of the crease. Shots that he was able to do splits on and force the shot to hit the outside of the net? Not counted for him. Shots that went around him wide? Nope. He, effectively, either directly or indirectly saved about 8 high danger shots, as well as disrupted 2 more. Three of those came from the side of the net… low danger shots. How in the world is a shot low danger from 4 feet out if it’s just “at a bad angle” when an NHL player can hit a plate from 90 feet away?

I wish there were better stats for games.

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Next up:

We heard you like back-to-backs, so we’re back to back-to-back games. Baby that’s got a lot of back.

Tomorrow night, Calgary, 5PM local.