The Vancouver Canucks and San Jose Sharks have yet to get on a serious roll this season. Neither team has won more than three games in a row.
Vancouver has shown some recent signs of positivity, however, and the Canucks will try to build on that success when they visit the Sharks on Wednesday night.
Vancouver is coming off back-to-back overtime home wins against the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday and the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. The last three victories for the Canucks have come in the extra five-minute period.
The Canucks fell behind 4-0 to Montreal before rallying for the 7-6 win 13 seconds into overtime.
“At the end of the day, I don’t care how we did it, we got it done,” Vancouver forward Bo Horvat said. “Obviously, it was not pretty. We made it pretty hard on ourselves, but we showed a lot of resilience (Monday) night. … It was a fun one.”
The Sharks, meanwhile, have lost three in a row and six of seven (1-5-1).
San Jose is coming off a 6-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday to complete a 1-3-0 road trip.
Sharks coach David Quinn was not kind with his assessment after the game.
“I just thought (the Sabres) were out-everything us,” Quinn said. “I thought they were outskating us, they were out-hitting us, they were doing everything better than we were. At some point in time, you’ve got to say enough is enough and there’s got to be pushback.”
A recent area of concern for San Jose has been the penalty kill. The Sharks have gone 4-for-9 the past two games after killing 65 of 71 penalties in their first 26 games.
San Jose thought it was on track when it won three in a row in the middle of last month, including a 5-2 win at the Vegas Golden Knights on Nov. 15, but the Sharks haven’t strung together back-to-back wins since then.
“We’ve just got to have more pushback in our game,” Quinn said. “I thought we had that for an extended period of time, but we’ve lost that along the way here, and we’ve got to get back to playing like that.”
Vancouver coach Bruce Boudreau, who had his one-year anniversary as head coach of the Canucks on Monday, sent a message to right winger Brock Boeser on Saturday, listing him as a healthy scratch going into the morning skate.
Boeser, who has scored at least 23 goals in four of the past five seasons with the Canucks, was re-entered into the lineup after center Dakota Joshua felt discomfort following the morning skate.
Boeser scored a goal against the Coyotes and contributed an assist against the Canadiens.
“Stuff happens in this game and it’s a business and I’ve got to learn from it and be better for our team,” Boeser told reporters after the morning skate on Monday. “I’ve processed it and it took a while and I’m moving forward now.”
Boudreau said he believes he got his message across to Boeser, who has four goals and 12 assists this season.
“I think he’s ready to play,” Boudreau said. “I scratched Teemu Selanne and that wasn’t fun. You do whatever you have to do.”
–Field Level Media
