Canucks take commanding lead in Pacific Division with big win in Edmonton

Posted on

The Vancouver Canucks have taken a commanding five-point lead in the race for the Pacific Division title, after a 3-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers Saturday night at Rogers Place.

They’ll get a chance to clinch first place in the final week of the season.

Canucks goaltender Casey DeSmith, who sat in favour of Arturs Silovs in three of the last four games, was excellent for the visitors. DeSmith stopped 32 of 33 shots he faced, and had to be especially good early on.

The Oilers dominated the start of this game, outshooting Vancouver 9-2 through the first 11 minutes of the first period. Edmonton would have grabbed the lead too, if not for the excellent play of DeSmith.

But the Canucks weathered the storm, then began to apply some pressure of their own.

They put together three straight dominant shifts in the last five minutes of the period, and then got a clutch goal from Sam Lafferty. Lafferty scored his career-high 13th goal of the season with just 16 seconds left in the first period to open the scoring.

The Canucks doubled their lead 11 minutes into the second period, when Pius Suter redirected a Tyler Myers wrist shot.

The Oilers finally beat DeSmith with 2:12 left in the second period, on a double deflection, as both Connor Brown and Evander Kane got a stick on a Darnell Nurse point shot. Kane got credit for the goal.

Dakota Joshua added an empty netter late to seal the deal.

“They always come out hard here,” DeSmith told Scott Oake during his post-game interview on Hockey Night in Canada. “Thankfully I was up to the task early, and then the guys really carried it the second two periods. We really used our speed, used our legs, and I thought we played great.”

When asked if the battle for first place was a topic of conversation among his team prior to the game, DeSmith admitted it was.

“Yeah, no doubt. Obviously it’s not our ultimate goal, but we knew that’s something we could do tonight by putting out a good performance against a really good team we’re in a fight with for the top of the division. We still have some work to do, but tonight’s win was really big towards that goal that we had.”

The Canucks swept the season series against Edmonton this season, winning all four matchups. This was their first win over the Oilers since November, before Edmonton turned their season around.

Both teams were without key players tonight due to injury, as both Oilers captain Connor McDavid and Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko were out of the lineup. Demko is expected to return on Tuesday when the Canucks host the Calgary Flames.

The Canucks will get a chance to clinch first place in the Pacific Division on Tuesday, assuming the Oilers beat the San Jose Sharks on Monday.

Vancouver’s magic number to clinch the Pacific Division is now one, meaning they can guarantee first place with just a single point earned in their final two games. The Canucks can also clinch first place if the Oilers lose any of their remaining three games.

The Canucks are guaranteed to play one of Nashville, Los Angeles, or Vegas in the first round of the playoffs, though Nashville is looking like the most likely scenario.

Source

Related Posts