Well there was no Jonathon Quick in net for the Phildadelphia Flyers Saturday night at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.
Philadelphia carried the run of the play all night long outshooting Vancouver 32 - 24. It was Phildadelphia that looked like the fresher team despite playing Chicago last week in Europe then flying back to play New Jersey in Philadelphia then getting on a plane and heading to Vancouver.
A ridiculous schedule for Philadelphia but they looked good against a slow Vancouver squad that feasted on Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jonathon Quick for 8 goals the game before. Quick was disastrous. Flyers Carter Hart in net was not disastrous and Vancouver found scoring much harder.
Vancouver is now averaging less than 2 goals per game when not playing Quick through 3 games.
The much ballyhooed Quinton Hughes "driving the offense" has clearly not happened.
And in fact the PP is not happening, it was blanked again against an NHL goalie.
The Canucks are now 1 win, 2 losses, 1 tie. (We don't count anything past 60 minutes because you can't have a different series of scoring in the NHL between the regular season and the playoffs - that's bush league garbage.)
So the Canucks skated away with a tie between their legs after the Flyers embarrassed them on a Saturday night in front of the hockey nation on the CBC.
(If you care - the Canucks won the circus and got the extra point).
But it was the Flyers who missed a series of high-percentage chances during the 3rd period and who tied it up late to get the point.
Canucks forward Brock Boeser seemed to shake off some of his pre-season rust with a neat goal to get the Canucks started. Tanner Pearson got a garbage goal in front of the net deflecting a puck high over Hart.
Jake Virtanen, despite making plays on every single shift, got a ridiculous 12 minutes of ice time.
Canucks coach Travis Green just is not learning his lessons. A 1-2-1 record out of the gate might have been mitigated by playing Jake Virtanen - as it could have been last year and the year before etc. etc. etc.
But instead you see the same garbage run out on the PP by "PP coach" Newell Brown - in any event Green could actually coach and waive off the garbage PP and send Virtanen out to do what he does best - score goals.
But nope.
Same slugs out there over and over again to no avail.
Green just doesn't get it. And it's probably time for him to go.
For the 1st PP unit -- which isn't scoring (nor is the 2nd unit) it's time to go old school.
Boeser, Gaudette, Virtanen
Edler, Myers
Keep It Simple Stupid !!
Gaudette in front, Boeser and Virtanen on the wings - back to the point - blast away !! Get a rebound.
Enough with the artsy fartsy crap with Hughes and Elias Pettersson passing back and forth and back and forth.
And what on God's green Earth is Bo Horvat doing on the PP unit at all ???
2nd PP unit - same as the first
Ferland, Miller, Schaller
Tanev, Stecher
Grind it out - muck it up - make something happen.
You don't have the center ice for the Artsy Fartsy power play.
Dump it in, bang and crash, make it happen - just like the Flyers made it happen Saturday night.
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