You want a 1 game win streak? This is how you get it.
Exciting tilt. Jilted and traded player plays his 1st game on his new team against his old team. Records his 1st goal - the GWG - on his new team against his old team. Too happy a narrative? NHL High Command assigns the goal to Pete on an unseen tip. Welcome to the Nucks, Zav!
The Zadorov trade made Vancouver all a titter the past few days. A tall titter it was. As ever, NM gamethread weighed in on the beefed up Nucking D.
Fess says the best feeling on joining a new team was beating the old team that traded you away
Hopefully Zadorov beats his former team on the scoreboard and beats them into boards
Flames fans hate Zadorov
Instant Zadorov luv from me
82wino
Fortunately for us, Huggie is still our best Nucking D in Nucking history. 2 minutes into the 1st, Quinn skates in on Marky puts a laser over Marky's infamous shoulder.
Looky, looky....there was space over the left shoulder of Marky
Westy
1-0 Nucks.
Just 5 mins later, new top line forward, Lafferty cleans up the garbage in front of Marky.
2-0 Nucks after 1. Pretty good road start. Or would have been if Demmers hadn't let in a goal from Backlund on the cowboy power play.
Fine. The Nucks PK sucks. We know that. No need to demonstrate so early in the game.
2-1 Nucks after 1. Almost decent road start. Just stay out of the box.
In the 2nd, the game was a bit scrappy. Not fire drill scrappy, but neither team was looking like a top team in division that owns the middle period.
Nucks had their chance to close it out. Got almost a minute of 5-on-3 time. Didn't score. Didn't score on the 5-on-4 time, And, because in-game consistency requirements, didn't score on their PP late in the period.
However, Miki did score in the last minute, a weak shot from the point causes chaos - the good kind - chaos in front of Marky. Pete, Laff and Miki follow the bouncing puck and Miki swipes it home.
Nucks lead 3-1 after 2. That's a commanding lead.
In the 3rd, HNIC pumps up the cowtown stat line - lead the league in 3rd period comebacks. However, the Nucks are playing for Taco - who's mantra is meet pressure with pressure.
And through most of the period looked like the Tough Taco method was more effective than HNIC narratives.
Until about 4 mins left in the game... Nucks get hemmed in their end and something we rarely see...
Not often someone makes Hughes look like a pylon.
Twitch
Worse, Demmers is way out of position and Lingerholme pots a goal. 3-2 Nucks with 3 nail-biting minutes to go.
No worries. Our new 6 foot 6 D-tower is cleaning up behind the net when Cowtown is pressing 6-on-5. He launches a clearing shot - allegedly tipped by Pete - right into the empty net. Nucks lead 4-2.
And just when we thought the game was won, some Canucklehead puts the puck over the glass. Now it's 6-on-4 with a minute to go. And worse, a totally homer bounce off the back boards bounces out front and despite the best efforts of Alternate Goalie, Myers, to stop the puck, only stops Demmers from stopping the puck.
It's 4-3 Nucks on a fluke goal. We're not worried.
I will not allow a loss
82wino
And thanks to stickless Demko making a save at the buzzer, the Nucks win, 4-3!
Wooooooooo!!! Beating Cowtown in the Cattledome is as good as winning a 4 point game against a division rival.
ROAD SIGHTS
Karlsson was on the ice late in the 3rd. Taco has confidence in him? Or JR/Alvin shopping him? We don't know.
With the new tall D on the ice, Taco could reduce Huggie's and Ronnie's ice time to 22 mins or less. Foote won't require the forehead bulging vein surgery after all. However, Chaos Myers also logged 22 mins of time... and despite our warnings/tantrums and stuff, Taco and his D coaches don't seem to mind.
Weird fancy stat: Juuls was the best Nucking D. Huggie was the worst. Sometimes fancy is too fancy.
Nucks PP was totally and utterly ineffective. Zero for 4. And wasted the 5-on-3. Not liking the 2D 1st unit. Not as unpredictable as 4 forwards + Huggie. But Kuz is still on the Taco bench of stapled horrors. Worse, having Myers on the 2nd unit is a recipe for shorthanded breakaways and no goals for.
Nucks road PK hit the benchmark 60% figure of merit that we know so well from last year's stellar PK stats.
Still... overall a decent road game. Beautiful low event (mostly) road game that results in a win and another 2 points.
The Bright Side from the Gamethread:
Zav/Zaz gwg !
4 pts game won !
Add +1 to our Diff
16 wins ties for 1st in the league
Back into 4th in the league standings
82wino
REEL HNIC HIGHLIGHTS?
As is our preference watch with sound muted.
STATS
PLAYER STATS
| GOALS | ASSISTS | +/- | |
| BOESER | 1 | +1 | |
| LAFFERTY | 1 | 1 | +1 |
| PETERSSON | 1 | 1 | +3 |
| HUGHES | 1 | 0 | |
| HRONEK | 2 | +2 | |
| MIKHEYEV | 1 | 1 | +2 |
| MYERS | 1 | +1 | |
| ZADOROV | 1 | +2 | |
| EV | PP | SV% | |
| DEMKO | 14/15 | 6/8 | .870 |
TACO TALK
Short talk because Taco doesn't want to hang around the Cattledome.
Good road win. Any win on the road against a division opponent is a very good win.
Back home to continue the Nucks uninterrupted homestand. Tuesday is Hughes day in the ROG. Jersey and the younger Hughes boys visit their older, wiser, better brother. Also expect the Nucks to play like a 1 game win streak is not a big deal. Nor is a 2 game W-streak. But that's the next streak that counts.
Enjoy your weekend away from HNIC.
