In stopping a flurry of quality chances out of gate, Miller bought his teammates the time they needed to exert control over the proceedings.
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When the Vancouver Canucks acquired Linden Vey from the Los Angeles Kings last summer for a second-round pick, they had high hopes for him. The Canucks were slow, tentative, and couldn’t handle the heavy forecheck of the exuberant Flames in those Saddledome playoff encounters. They lost size when free agent Shawn Matthias left for Toronto and Zack Kassian was shipped to Montreal in the Prust deal. A lot of it comes from your desire to win games.
Read between the lines and you get an essence of what’s at play here. Ortio allowed a combined five goals in four wins over division rivals.
Derek Dorsett and Brandon Prust were two of the NHL’s most frequent fighters a year ago.
Virtanen’s face absorbed the blow while the puck was redirected off his cheekbone and over the shoulder of Edmonton goalie Cam Talbot.
Not that the Canucks don’t have their own concerns and objectives. It marked the fastest fighting majors to start a season in the history of both franchises.NOTES: RW Brandon Sutter made his Canucks debut and started on the top line with C Henrik Sedin and LW Daniel Sedin….
In addition to the rookies, there’s also Sven Baertschi (23 years old) and Bo Horvat (20 years old), who will start the year on the second line together. But is the always-smiling Hutton really that good, or will he wilt when the regular-season heat is cranked up?
Then the penalty minutes started piling up as the game got out of hand in the third period. Daniel led the way with three points.
“It’s special to play with those guys (Sedins) and they haven’t slowed down one bit”, said Sutter.
“I mean, I’d take a couple of those a year”, chuckled Virtanen, happily re-living the tale.
The hardest transition is supposed on defence. “Maybe they handle it and are here for the year”. Hutton didn’t get the memo. With the departure of Kevin Bieksa, the gritty defenceman is now Luca Sbisa.
“You saw how the pressure relieved when (Hutton) and Bart and Tan Man and Edler skated the puck out of trouble”.
The Flames are looking to build on the success of last season as they reached the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. “We turned over a lot of pucks”.
“Heavy game, playing physical, that’s what it’s all about in the West. I know that”, said Cracknell. “Hopefully, he can carry his composure and confidence through the whole season”. But Hutton’s camp was so strong that the Canucks were forced to place Frank Corrado on waivers and watch him be claimed by the Toronto Maple Leafs. “But yeah, I’m very excited for tonight”.
There’s nothing surprising about Horvat.
Five of the top six point producers from last season are north of 30.
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“Our culture is that we’re a hard-working team that (sticks) up for one another, ” he said. Ramo needs to get better at deflecting; personally, I find humour works well. I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen, but I guess who plays well is going to play.
