Vancouver Canucks' Nick Bonino is mobbed by his teammates after scoring against the Calgary Flames during the second period of game 5 of an NHL Western Conference first round playoff hockey series in Vancouver, B.C., on Thursday April 23, 2015.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Last summer, the Vancouver Canucks made one principal bet in a swirl of moves to revive the team after the ugly-yet-short John Tortorella era: sign veteran goaltender Ryan Miller to a big-money deal.
Jim Benning, the Canucks new general manager, had been in charge of scouting in Buffalo when Miller was drafted in the fifth round in 1999. Miller was the safe bet. Benning was not willing to entrust Vancouver's 2014-15 season to the goaltender who was coming off his rookie season, Eddie Lack.
When the 2014-15 was on the line, on Thursday night down 3-1 in a first-round playoff series to the Calgary Flames, the Vancouver Canucks made one principal bet to extend their campaign at least one more game: bench the starter of the past two months, Lack, and start Miller – even if the veteran was not fully himself, not fully healthy.
Both bets paid off. Miller, last fall, helped propel the Canucks to a swift start, and on Thursday, 34-year-old Miller did the job again. It was an electric night at Rogers Arena, a rapid pulse of action up and down the ice. Vancouver won 2-1, staving off the humiliation of a five-game defeat, and a loss in a deciding contest at home, to the upstart, youthful Flames.
The final tally of shots on goal was 43-21 Vancouver, and shot attempts were 66-50. Henrik Sedin, the Canucks captain, credited a consistent push from Vancouver, one that was rewarded on Thursday night.
"We did the same things we did in this series," said Sedin after the game. "The difference is we scored more than they did." A problem remains: the Canucks aren't scoring much, something that stretches back four years in the playoffs -- but on Thursday, two was enough.
Calgary this year and this series has regularly been able to win even as they are outplayed. Thursday, the magic trick didn't work. "We didn't shoot enough," said Mikael Backlund, who had a solid chance early in the third period. "It wasn't a terrible game. It was a tight game."
The Canucks survive for another game of hockey, set for Saturday night in Calgary at the Saddledome. Vancouver has, in the distant past, come back from 3-1 series deficits three times before, one of those against Calgary, back in 1994, when three consecutive overtime wins upended the favoured Flames.
On Thursday, Calgary scored first, quickly, a turnover on a strong fore-check – a theme of this series. Miller wasn't at major fault and held steady throughout. Calgary pinged an early post, and rookie Sam Bennett had a great chance to slam one home from in close to make it 2-0. But Miller delivered.
"It's going to be about battling," said Miller the day before Game 5, "competing, get some fight – and, you know, kind of will the puck out of the net."
There wasn't all that much willing necessary. There were some punctuating threats, but Vancouver dominated puck possession – and for much of the game it had more than double the shots on goal. The Canucks tied it in the second, on a cracker of a goal from Nick Bonino, and Daniel Sedin poked in the winner past Calgary's Jonas Hiller early in the third, after Miller turned aside two Calgary chances.
"I can still battle," said Miller after the win. I cited veteran focus, some luck, solid reads on Calgary's attacks. "We got the win when it really mattered."
Jonas Hiller, the man at the other end of the rink, Calgary's goaltender, was the Flames best player, as he has been much of the series. It was small fractions, between winning and losing. "We knew they would not go away easy," said Hiller after the loss. "We were not able to match that tonight." Calgary, he said, is set to end it in Game 6
The Canucks had felt on the verge, especially the Sedins, who had been controlled play against the Flames this series but failed to capitalize. Henrik Sedin, the Canucks captain, was wry-bordering-on-sarcastic before Game 5, when asked what he and his team needed to change.
"You try to shoot the puck past Hiller over the goal line," said Sedin. Asked if he had a rousing, rallying speech for his team, Sedin joked: "You want me to cry?" He did say he had addressed his teammates on a we-can-do-it-we-have-done-it-before theme.
"It's there for us," said Sedin of this series.
Calgary closing out the series becomes a new frisson. This series has always had the fated feeling of seven games, that it would take the full allotment to decide the winner between these two, just as it had the last three times, in 2004, 1994, and 1989.
"Go out there: don't be afraid," said veteran Calgary coach Bob Hartley midday Thursday, of his long-standing message to his young team. "Don't be hesitant. Go. Go. We have no fear."
The Flames rode a sea of red at the Saddledome in Games 3 and 4 – and will enjoy the same in Game 6. The dynamic of youth and veterans may become more prominent, in a way it has not yet been, a steadier sense from the Canucks, having smothered at least some of the Flames momentum, and the stress on Calgary at home.
The franchise history isn't good, either: a record of 3-13 in playoff games in which they had a shot to end a series, since Calgary hoisted the Cup back in old '89.
Hartley, before Game 5, evoked Calgary's nadir and the moment of its ascent this season, after eight straight losses, and then a comeback in Los Angeles before Christmas. "There's no quit," said Hartley, "in the Calgary Flames."
David Ebner