LOWEST PEAK

There exists an entire subsection of film centred around repetition.

They have had varying degrees of success but generally, movies like Vantage Point, Memento, Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow are pretty enjoyable.

Turns out when it happens in real life, it actually sucks.

There was Daniel Sedin after another loss trying to explain the inexplicable. The Canucks PP.

Suddenly, four games seems like four weeks. Tonight just looked like so many of the losses last year.

And tonight was peak Canucks power play.

Nearly half the first period, the Canucks rolled with a man advantage, 8:39 in all. They managed one shot while giving up two. Oh, and they coughed up a ridiculous shorthanded goal which was totally preventable.

A new coach hasn’t mattered. In fact, so far, Newell Brown is making things worse and looks in need of a calendar displayed by a dude yelling in his ear “It ain’t 2011, guy.”

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Newell actually had the Sedins on the ice for 2:12 straight power play minutes.

Anyone who thinks that’s a good idea hasn’t watching enough Canucks games in the past five years.

They had multiple chances to make a change too, but Newell just watched as the twins figuratively lost one limb after another before there was nothing there.

Their game essentially collapsed right there on the ice, Henrik making an uncharacteristically awful pass and Daniel compounding it by losing a halfhearted battled along the boards.

The new players haven’t made a difference. None of MDZ, Vanek or Gagner has mattered. And they will be challenged to change that because none of them give the Canucks what they need most: A great shot.

Boeser has that, and he was a shining light for his second straight game.

But the fact he wasn’t on a 1:11-long two man advantage looks as bizarre right now as him not playing the first two games. That’s saying something.

I guess that’s because in 2011 he was just starting high school.

BEST QUOTE

There stood Marky after a pretty big disappointment in net in front of Vancouver’s media throng.

Silence. Wait, no questions?

Say what? Is a mad Marky that intimidating?

Just as Markstrom announced he was going to leave, JPat stepped up and earned another medal, asking the goalie — who is quickly losing his grip on the No. 1 spot — what went wrong.

His answers were unexpectedly fantastic.

“Like you said, JPat, five is way too many.”

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OK, I added the JPat part, but he was the only brave soul to ask Sir Mark-a-lot a Q.

“It’s a tough one to go through. We’re playing good hockey. (I’m) killing the momentum. It’s been bad timing to let in goals.

“It’s not just that I let in goals, it’s bad timing.

“I don’t know if I have to work harder in practice to get some bounces my way.”

That’s a Marky joke, btw.

JPAT: What’s up with that 2-1 goal?

(Remember that one? Sir Mark-a-lot saw it all the way. The one that drifted right through him. The one that wasn’t even a decent shot.)

Marky: “I don’t know. It was just one of those shitty days. A terrible time for it. It was a huge game for us and I’m not too satisfied from my part.”

He may have been a bad goalie tonight, but he sure was accountable and authentic.

BEST BACK AND FORTH

Check yourself. The real question is what would WE do without JPat?

The guy dropped this beautifully crafted question right on Green’s lap:

“When you look at that 5-on-3 set, who do you see as the shooter, or the trigger man? Or maybe is that part of the problem?”

Oh boy, that’s good.

Green: “I think Vanek has a good shot (Green’s gears start turning).

“Obviously you’re asking me if Brock should have been on the 5-on-3.”

You’re goddamn right he is.

Who ordered the code red, Green?

“That’s something were going to have to consider, for sure.”

Damn right.

BEST NEW REALITY

Life moves fast when you start making $5.5 million.

Suddenly, two shots on net, four attempts, dominating in the face-off circle (winning 10-of-13) and crushing possession at evens (CF 63.16%) isn’t enough.

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Bo Horvat, this is your life.

You have to make a difference. A big, impactful difference. And when you don’t, they’re coming for you.

Heck, the coach came for you today. Horvat missed a couple shifts and didn’t get a ringing endorsement post-game.

“I wasn’t crazy about his game,” Green said.

“But I was trying some different line combos. Trying to get a spark.

“I thought Bo was average tonight.”

BEST SHOT/CHASER

Shot:

Chaser:

BEST SCREEN GRAB

BEST CAPTION

BEST SUMMARY

BEST ARE WE SURE?

BEST MAKES YOU THINK

Didn’t even think how odd it sounded at the time and I was there to confirm this happened.

BEST DID YOU NOTICE?

Marky dropped that right knee again on the Flames’ first chance. Wasn’t a good sign.

BEST IRONING

Millsy’s biggest fan doesn’t know why the backup isn’t playing?

Oh, caman now, that’s rich.

BEST LAST WORD

Ol’ Millsy gave up five goals in his fourth game here too, and at least four goals in five of his first 15 games in Vancouver.

Let Marky breathe here for a minute. His transition to starter is a much bigger ask than Miller’s transition to Van.

BEST THAT TIME

That time Dorsett tried to fight Hamilton, got tripped by Bennett and then got up, and scored when his shot went off another Hamilton’s face and in the net.

Yeah. That happened.

BEST NO LOVE

Oh man, on Loui getting hurt:

BEST REVISIT

It was the push heard round the hockey world.

OK, maybe not. But loads of The Provies consumers took notice.

I missed it during the game, so nods galore to the handful of people who dug it up.

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It was The Flow’s first game of the season and on his first power play he launched Daniel Sedin with his stick like he was helping a little kid get a head of steam at a skate park.

And it totally worked.

It’s one thing for Jagr to do it, and he did it the next day, but Boeser? The rookie?

Now, this is something worth revisiting.

That’s the fastest I’ve seen 22 move in years and it absolutely helped disrupt what was a 2-on-1.

“I used to do it in college,” Boeser said. “I realized Danny was going to beat me on the backcheck so why not help him?

“I learned it from one of the older guys in college. Someone pushed me before. I realized it actually works.”

It sure does.

Enough to make you wonder why we don’t see it all the time.

BEST OF THE RADIO WARS

Good times, amirite?

The sports media gold rush has been some fun. Everyone is getting a piece, something I realized when I saw this lineup:

What’s next? Canucks Army gonna get a show?

There’s been some, uhm, changes I haven’t liked, but I’ll keep those to myself for now. People need time.

What have I enjoyed?

I like the Friday roundtable with Walks and Rinty. I’m a sucker for roundtables. I could hate your guts, but if you’re sitting in a roundtable and talking sports I’m in. The other day, I listened to those guys talk about soccer for 90 minutes. I barely like soccer. I follow it like you follow Phish. But … There I was.

Of it all, the best new thing, and it’s not close, is Gilman with the Boat Capt and Baby Dragon. I’d be packaging that up as a podcast and selling it to sponsors for all the monies.

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LG is such an annoyingly effortless storyteller, he makes it sound easy on air and it’s just not.

The Burrows return game happening in the first week of the season was a coincidental gift from the gods for the trio.

Gilman was riveting and detailed as he went down memory lane, all the way to 2009, explaining how Gilly and LG were trying to sign Burrow and working to trade him at the same time, right before he signed an extension.

Whatever you think of that management group, it was a fascinating reveal and one fans are almost never privy to.

I remember those days well. In the week before, Burrows — behind the scenes — was convincingly telling some of us there was no chance he would sign before the March 3 trade deadline.

You can understand why too, considering what we know now — the Canucks offer was four years, $8 million and the Burrows side wanted north of $3 million per year.

The sides weren’t close.

But Lebrun went on HNIC’s hot stove three days before the deadline and reported the possibility the Canucks could trade him.

The urban legend has long been the Canucks had no intention to deal 14 — it was believed there was no real offer — and Gilly used Lebrun as a pressure tactic, understanding how deeply Burr wanted to stay.

But, and these details were new, LG explained they had a sitting offer for Burrows, and the package was a first-round pick and a bonafide third-liner. That had to be tempting because this was right before Burrows exploded in goal scoring (he had 15 at the time of the Lebrun report) and he was still perceived as a 3L winger.

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The whole thing was killer, must-listen radio. And it was just one more reason 1040 believes it has a clear home run winner with LG on Wednesdays.

Of course, it’s not just the old war stories. LG has been fair, balanced and informative on an array of topics.

Enough so, plenty of media biz higher ups, all the way back to TO, are wondering how TSN ended up with LG.

And this brings me to the kicker.

SNET was essentially given right of first refusal for Gilman. But after meeting with him, SNET passed.

In fact, they never even called him back.

Maybe it’s me, but thinking they may regret this one.

BEST ATTENDANCE

There are two wildly different perspectives when it comes to Canucks attendance.

The team contends there’s been momentum with ticket sales.

They are saying single game sales are 33 per cent higher than what they projected.

They said season ticket renewals were five per cent higher than a year ago.

(They claim to have the second-highest season ticket renewal of any NHL team that didn’t make the playoffs.

That particular list is not exactly a murderer’s row of hockey markets: Arizona, Florida, Carolina, Jersey, Buffalo, Detroit, L.A., Dallas, NYI, Philly, Tampa and Colorado. The Jets don’t really count because season ticket buyers signed 3-5 year deals so many wouldn’t need to renew).

OK, all that said, the place looks empty. We see it here. You see it on TV if you’re not. It was mentioned on the broadcast.

Yes, even with all the scarves.

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Jon wasn’t wrong.

This was at the end of the first to make room for late arrivals:

The question, obviously, is what gives?

If ticket sales are better than they thought, why the heck does the place look cleaned out?

I don’t have an easy answer to that.

But I had heard in the week leading into the first game, there was an element of papering the house.

I didn’t entirely believe it because it was Edmonton, McDavid and, hell, it was opening night. But, if you tracked it, there was an odd spike in tickets moving on one of the days in the week before the game. That was definitely enough to make me hmmm.

For the Burrows game, the Canucks got a nice walkup crowd and he moved seats. But people at Rogers even that night were warning some of us: “Wait till the Jets game.”

The rumour making the rounds was that the organization was moving away from comp’ing tickets to sponsors as a way of filling seats.

There are two key reasons why comps are a bad practice. One, no ticket buyer who actually pays money wants to sit beside someone who didn’t.

Two, once you start doing it in significant numbers, sponsors start waiting on comps and there’s no urgency felt in the market to go out and actually pay real money for tickets.

Think you know the results by now:

The Canucks really believe that game will be the low-water mark for the season.

Official attendance tonight was 17,074.

BEST HE’S NOT WRONG

BEST REALITY

The Canucks have recently added Hutton, Stecher, MDZ and Pouliot. They STILL need a defenceman who can work a power play.

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I like Hutton. I think Hutton is good and can help a PP.

I hated this shot. Look at all the time and space he has, and the only player in front of him is Tanner Freakin’ Glass.

Make a move. Outskate him. Shoot quicker. Do better than this.

BEST BOOM

When it comes to JV18, I have a lot of time for Travis Green.

You should too.

Just listen to Virtanen. He wants tough love. Says bring it on. On Saturday, oh it was brought.

Even though he was benched in Thursday’s third period, Green’s decision to sit JV18 against the Flames packed a punch when it dropped.

Green levelled the boom when he explained that it was just as much about getting a message to Virtanen as it was about his icing his optimal lineup.

“He’ll be the first to admit it, he wasn’t very good the other night,” Green said.

Tough love, indeed.

Runs counter to the post-game, however, when Green said he just wanted to go three lines.

“He needs to … I just thought his intensity level, his assertiveness wasn’t where it had to be. I know Jake well. Am I worried about taking him out? Is it going to impact our speed?

“Meh, a little bit. I’m not just going to keep a guy in because he’s fast.

“Part of this is making sure Jake knows how he has to play. Getting him to play the way he needs to.”

BEST REVIEW

I didn’t think Virtanen had a poor game Saturday, and it’s game freaking four. You really going to bench the best story of the preseason and one of the hopes of the franchise in game four?

It all seems particularly odd when you consider the big picture and underlying data, which suggests JV18 has been legitimately good.

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A couple of tweets from John Garrett’s Muzzy drove this point home with authority:

Strong.

But I was conflicted. I lean toward giving Green the benefit of the doubt when it comes to JV18.

I went back, re-watched the film, every shift he played Thursday. I hope I can do some justice at trying to point out Green’s reasoning.

There was some good. For one, the Jets didn’t sniff the net when JV18 was on the ice. They had one shot attempt, and I’ll get to that later.

In Virtanen’s NHL career, this is a trend. Opposing offences regularly struggle to maintain pressure and possession when he’s on the ice.

A significant reason here is his skating. Even Thursday, when he only played seven minutes, you could see how his speed fits perfectly with the way Green wants to play.

His skating creates tons of space on the following play and if the puck doesn’t wobble on him, he’s in on net with the Canucks’ best scoring chance of the game:

Even on the first shift, you saw the potential. If he picks up this pass from Eriksson, he’s a one-on-one away from another really good scoring opportunity:

He played smart too, and found this clearing in the slot. He was ridiculously wide open, positioned perfectly and a decent Granny pass away from scoring:

Even in his final shift, which encompassed all seven seconds of third-period ice time he got, JV18 made something happen.

But, alas, it wasn’t all rainbows and there were obvious plays that backed Green’s concerns about JV18.

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There were times when I was hoping he’d be physical and he appeared to pass on his opportunity.

There’s a chance in this next one for him to lay the body on Poolman early. He appears to stop short:

Later he seemed to have Myers lined up for some contact and it just didn’t happen:

And he maybe could have done more to pressure and contact Kulikov while forechecking on this one:

Now, in his last real shift of the game late in the second period, the Jets get their only shot attempt with him on the ice.

They nearly scored, too. A tipped point shot went off the post.

JV18 was at the centre of the sequence and it’s probably a contributing factor to his third-period deployment, or lack thereof.

The Jets had just scored and a few seconds later were pressing when JV18 couldn’t handle a clearing attempt.

I don’t think the real issue here is that he couldn’t handle the puck. Green is always on him about moving his feet. And if he did that on this play, he disrupts that point shot.

But after losing the puck, he glides toward Kulikov.

It’s a small thing, but it’s the type of thing Green would pick out and many of us missed during the game.

I’d still play him.

But again, no one has got through to Jake quite like Green, and he’s clearly playing the long game with him.