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It could have also meant Chris Tanev playing the left side with Tyler Myers and Quinn Hughes switching to the right side, which he has played, in a possible pairing with Fantenberg. That’s all moot now.

As for the Edler injury, it first looked like the 236-pound Alex Ovechkin had wreaked some havoc with a heavy-but-clean end boards check to inflict some pain, perhaps a stinger or something even worse.

Then there was footage of Edler in a collision with Travis Boyd. The centre’s skate rode up and Edler appeared to have suffered a cut to the upper body.

Edler lasted just five shifts and 3:32 and not only were the Canucks reduced to five defencemen, they also needed some extra efforts to keep a game close before prevailing 2-1 in a shootout.

Early in the second period, Myers raced back just in time to sweep a trickling puck off the goal-line as a Jakub Vrana wrist shot got between the body and arm of goalie Jacob Markstrom and was slowly heading for back of the net. Without Edler, the five reaming blueliners had to play additional minutes and did an admirable job.

Canucks assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner excelled in deploying his defencemen as Tanev finished with 25:41 of ice time followed by Myers (25:21), Hughes (25:13), Jamie Benn (22:37) and Troy Stecher (17:26).

“He’s running the defence,” said Canucks coach Travis Green. “I don’t tell him who to put out. He makes his own decisions and we talked about the matches and he did a great job managing the bench and the back side. It was one of our best defensive games, maybe the best of the year.”

As for Edler, Green is more buoyed by how hard he plays as opposed to the minor penalties. He took a slashing penalty in the opening period Thursday in Nashville to increase his total to 16 and then made it 17 in the third period when he was whistled for a holding-the-stick infraction.

“He plays aggressive and he’s going to take some minors,” reasoned Green. “I’m not asking him to take penalties.”

Edler also blocked seven shots Thursday.

bkuzma@postmedia.com

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