BEST QUESTIONS

How do you get shutout by the Sens at home?

Sven Baertschi and Bo Horvat had zero o-zone starts. Is this team good enough to not put those guys in positions to score, you know, goals, when it’s down?

Without Dorsett, Tanev and Burrows, are the Canucks the softest team in the West?

If Stecher goes from the AHL to the top defensive pairing, shouldn’t Stecher be on the team?

Is Philip Larsen an NHL defenceman?

Did the Doug Jarvis honeymoon just officially end?

If so, we’ll always have St. Louis.

The Canucks are now last in the league in goals-per-game, will they ever be higher than 25th again?

Was the fourth line the best line?

Are the Canucks worn out in just their second week of the season?

This is an interesting concept.

Willie suggested earlier in the day there was a correlation between the schedule and the injuries the Canucks suffered on the weekend.

The captain doubled down on the blaming the schedule when this one was over.

“There’s different things (wrong),” Henrik said. “We’ve played a lot of games.

“We want to try to have as many guys playing as many minutes as they can.

“Other teams maybe didn’t have the schedule we do, and maybe coach a little bit tougher.”

Now, that’s pretty fascinating, as the captain is pointing to the fact that the team was “rolling four” instead of double shifting, say, the Sedins, for example, even though they were down the entire game.

Henrik quickly said he didn’t disagree with the process.

“That’s the way we need to do it. That’s what we see in the third period and why we come back in a lot of games.”

BEST GAME

It seemed an impossible ask.

Troy Stecher, for your first game, replace Chris Tanev.

No sheltering. No limitations. No protection.

On an island? Don’t care. Against the top line? Doesn’t matter. Had a brutal travel day yesterday? Shut up, make it happen and don’t screw it up.

This team is trying to make the playoffs and needs all the points it can get early.

For all of the thrills Stecher provided in the preseason, tonight, on paper, looked unreasonably steep, the odds unimaginably long he could walk into this environment, onto NHL ice, and be one of the Canucks best defenceman.

He was just that.

He played high-event hockey, helped create chances, made a couple of sick defensive plays and didn’t lose many, if any, one-on-one battles.

There was concern. He’s 5-foot-freaking-9. There were stomach-turning reports drifting around the web that he struggled in Utica.

Was it true? Were all of our dreams about to be crushed?

Can we have any nice things?

But Stecher wasn’t exposed.

He thrived.

Willie was a big part of this. The only defenceman he played Stecher with in preseason was Edler.

It doesn’t make much sense if you think about it. Why not try him with different pairings?

“What happened was the first game he played well with Edler so after that, that’s where he played, just because it seemed like a good match,” Willie said.

“Eddie’s pretty strong defensively, and Stecher is a smaller guy who can move the puck.

“It wasn’t that that was the plan, it was just they played good the first game and in the second, they went out and played good again.”

It paid off tonight.

BEST PLAY

There wasn’t a lot to choose from. Miller was pretty great.. This wasn’t on him. He had at least two sensational stops.

Hoping L.A. was watching?

You could pick one of the Miller saves. But who are we kidding? This is Stech City, and damn if he didn’t make a beautiful play on what looked like a Hoffman breakaway.

Mike Hoffman is fast. Really freaking fast. He’s won Ottawa’s fastest skating comp at least once.

When a guy like that has this kind of jump on you off the rush, you should be done.

Stecher, as the legend grows, wasn’t even close to being done and in fact broke this up with Hoffman even getting a shot on net.

Mentioned this before. Stecher has great recall. Ask a play, he breaks it down.

“I did an under stick deke,” Stecher said. “It’s a triangle move. I was able to get some body on him and the puck went in the corner.

“He’s quick. But that’s what I pride myself on, my speed. It was difficult, he was coming full bore down the wing.

“You poke the puck and try to pull it back underneath your two feet. It kind of creates a triangle, and you try and pull it through the triangle.”

BEST HAVE YOU EVER