Kevin Woodley – CanucksBanter

VANCOUVER, CANADA – FEBRUARY 25: Matt Grzelcyk #48 of the Boston Bruins checks Brock Boeser #6 of the Vancouver Canucks during their NHL game at Rogers Arena. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)

by Kevin Woodley / NHL.com Independent Correspondent

February 25th, 2023

VANCOUVER — Brad Marchand and Hampus Lindholm scored for the Bruins (45-8-5), who have won at least six consecutive games four different times this season, defeating Canucks 3-1.

Brock Boeser scored, and Arturs Silovs made 33 saves for the Canucks (23-31-5), who lost in regulation for the first time in four games (2-1-1).

“They had a couple of shifts where they had us hemmed in and then after that I thought we outplayed them,” Canucks forward J.T. Miller said. “They sit on the lead and they’re one of the better defending teams, but I still think we had plenty of looks. We’re really starting to get an identity, like a hard-work, no quit team.”

Lindholm put Boston ahead 1-0 at 17:08 of the first period with a one-timer from the point through traffic on a power play.

Marchand made it 2-0 with 25 seconds left in the period. He cut to the middle around defenseman Kyle Burroughs before shooting back across the grain past Silov’s glove as the goalie moved right.

“I just got a little bit of open ice and it looked like there was a little bit of room in the middle,” Marchand said. “When I cut, he kind of lost speed and just tried to get a shot on net, tried to get it under the defenseman’s stick because he kind of reached, and in that situation, it always has an opportunity to go in.”

Boeser cut it to 2-1 at 7:24 of the third period, 10 seconds after Marchand hit the post at the other end. He shoveled a backhand past Ullmark from just above the crease after Conor Garland passed it out from below the goal line.

Ullmark gets 1st goalie goal in NHL since 2020

Goalie Linus Ullmark scored into an empty net with 48 seconds left.

Ullmark knocked down a dump-in near the left post, squared up and launched the puck up and over everyone, having it land flat just above the hash marks before sliding into the center of the net.

“As soon as I shot I see three guys jumping towards me, and I had no idea where it was,” Ullmark said. “I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t see anything, and then you become a little bit more aware of what’s happening, that the guys are starting to look up ice and then I see it going towards the net, and the rest is history.”

Ullmark is the 13th goalie to score a goal in the NHL in the regular season, and the eighth to do so by shooting the puck into the net. He is the first since Pekka Rinne of the Nashville Predators did it on Jan. 9, 2020, at the Chicago Blackhawks.

“That’s pretty cool. The guys that have scored a goal in this League are terrific goaltenders,” Ullmark said. “It’s hard to describe what I’m feeling right now. I have to kind of digest it all. I’m just so bloody happy.”

Ullmark also made 26 saves to reach 30 wins (30-4-1) for the first time in his eight NHL seasons.

“He’s just doing it all this year,” Brad Marchand said of Ullmark. “It doesn’t happen often and just tops off an incredible season for him.”

“Vancouver played well and they caused us some problems,” Boston coach Jim Montgomery said. “We usually protect the front of our net really well. We didn’t do that in the second and third. Linus had to be good.”

Defenseman Dmitri Orlov and forward Garnet Hathaway made their Bruins debuts after joining the team in Vancouver late on Friday following a trade from the Washington Capitals on Thursday.

Orlov was minus-1 in 20:04 of ice time playing on his off side on the third defense pair with Derek Forbort, and Hathaway had two hits in 11:40 of ice time on the fourth line.

“Really good,” Montgomery said. “Really impressed with Hathaway’s details and penalty killing and seems like he understands our D-zone coverage already, and Orlov made some special plays, special passes on breakouts, in neutral zone and in the offensive zone.”

The Canucks played most of the game with five defensemen after Ethan Bear left 37 seconds into the first period after getting hit in the face by a deflected Matt Grzelcyk point shot. There was no update postgame.

“I was proud of the guys tonight,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “We had five [defensemen] right from the start, that’s a Stanley Cup winning type of team, and we hung in there.”

NOTES: Bruins center Tomas Nosek returned after missing 12 games with a lower-body injury. He played 11:21 on the fourth line with Hathaway and Nick Foligno, winning nine of 10 face-offs. … Marchand has six points (three goals, three assists) on a five-game point streak.

Goalie selected in 2022 NHL Draft, worked with Sedin brothers, Ian Clark at development camp

by Kevin Woodley / NHL.com Independent Correspondent

VANCOUVER — Ty Young may have grown up in Calgary, Alberta, but thanks to a summer spent with his grandparents on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, his favorite team was the Vancouver Canucks, making his selection by them in the fifth round (No. 144) of the 2022 NHL Draft all the more special.

The 17-year-old goalie still has the jerseys of his favorite Canucks growing up: Daniel Sedin and Roberto Luongo. So, it was a little surreal for him to be on the ice with Daniel Sedin, his twin brother Henrik and Ian Clark, the goaltending coach who worked with Luongo for four seasons from 2006-10, at Canucks development camp last month.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Young said. “I feel like I’m living in a dream. It’s a crazy feeling to be able to just look across the ice and there they are, or when they sat and had dinner with us. It’s not like they’re like so far away anymore on the TV screen. You’re actually talking to them.”

The Sedin brothers provided the star power — and the obvious temptation to ask for an autograph — but it was Clark who gave the biggest ego boost to the 6-foot-3 goalie, who did not attend the draft in Montreal because he was worried that he wouldn’t be selected despite rising from No. 21 on NHL Central Scouting’s midseason ranking of North American goalies to No. 6 when the final rankings were released.

Clark said the Canucks ranked Young atop their list of available goalies, with the one caveat being that they look more for raw skill and other physical, competitive and coachable attributes. Translation: There’s still work to do on his game.

“He’s one of the rare Canadian wild horses,” Clark said. “I’ve used that term before referring to Eastern European goalies that have underlying talent, but aren’t yet over-programed structurally, and I think he falls into that category.

“He has a lot of those underlying elements we believe are the crown jewels of [that] position and now that he’s in our stable we have an opportunity to really get to work on some of those other more tangible elements.”

Last season, Young started with Calgary — aptly named the Canucks — in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, going 4-10-3 with a .918 save percentage and one shutout. He finished the season with Prince George of the Western Hockey League and was 6-9-3 with a .899 save percentage in 23 regular-season games.

As he continues his development, Young is embracing what he has already learned from Clark, who along with Luongo has worked with two-time Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky, then with the Columbus Blue Jackets (2011-19), and both current Calgary Flames goalie Jacob Markstrom in 2019-20 and Thatcher Demko in Vancouver.

“When I first got here, he brought up my ego a little but once we got on the ice it kind of went back down,” said Young, who studied footage of Demko last season to try and incorporate some of his technique. “He’s a crazy good goalie coach and he’s got an awesome pedigree, so I’m just trying to take everything in and hopefully I can become a better goalie.”