VANCOUVER—It was a night of highs and lows for Vancouver Canucks goaltender Ryan Miller.
On Tuesday evening, at home versus the Nashville Predators, Vancouver ended a four-game skid with a 1–0 victory. Miller picked up his 353rd win, tying Evgeni Nabokov for 20th-most in NHL history. Undefeated in regulation since December 28, Miller is now 6-0-2 in that period, picking up his second shutout in that span. With the Canucks now ranked 29th in the league in shots on goal per game, Miller’s recent dominance has been critical to their success.
After the game, Miller was all smiles in the Canucks’ dressing room, though earlier in the night he’d looked nothing short of livid.
In the first period, the Predators celebrated what appeared to be the first goal of the game. The puck had crossed the line, but Miller immediately turned to protest to the officials camped behind the net. Visibly upset, he hurled the puck down the ice like a kid angrily skipping stones on a lake.
“I probably snapped a little bit too soon,” Miller said afterwards of his reaction to the referee. “I told him I would apologize for that after the first period.”
After a lengthy review, during which Miller kneeled in his crease, shaking his head, the goal was waved off because the referee had intended to blow the whistle. (Had it not been called back, the goal would have been the first of Derek Grant’s career. An Abbotsford, B.C., native, Grant’s goalless streak now stands at 78 games.)
“Well, I am out of the net, playing the puck,” Miller said, walking through the controversial no-goal. “No one touched me there. But I got myself back inside the crease, and the puck’s under my blocker hand, the crook of my foot. But I get jammed through my knee area, by [Nashville winger Cody] McLeod, I think, so for me that puts me—it’s not a play on the puck in my mind, by him, and it puts me out of position. And then I’m scrambling and I can’t collect the puck.”
Miller said he saw it as goalie interference, though he also acknowledged that there would likely be multiple interpretations to the scramble in front of the net.
“It made a difference in the game, so I’m sure they’re not gonna be happy about it,” he said.
For all the drama of the no-goal, Miller said his focus right now is on enjoying himself. Asked about reaching a milestone win, he said it was “just kind of a number in a way” and insisted that he’s just trying to “have fun and savour these moments.”
In a tightly played game, Miller said he was pleased with the job his teammates had done in keeping Nashville’s chances to a minimum.
“I think odd-man rushes were very limited,” he said. “I don’t remember anything—even the three-on-twos didn’t really materialize for them. I think they got a wide shot in the second. That’s a big part of why we were able to find success in a game like this. It’s tight.”
With the win on Tuesday, the Canucks leapfrogged the Predators in the standings and now sit one back of the second wild-card spot in the West—a spot currently held by the Kings, who match Vancouver’s 48 points while holding two games in hand. The Stars also won on Tuesday, and five teams are now within five points of one another as they look to secure a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
GP | W | L | OT | PTS | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Calgary | 47 | 24 | 20 | 3 | 51 |
2 Los Angeles | 44 | 22 | 18 | 4 | 48 |
3 Vancouver | 46 | 21 | 19 | 6 | 48 |
4 Nashville | 44 | 20 | 17 | 7 | 47 |
5 Dallas | 46 | 19 | 19 | 8 | 46 |
Despite scoring the lone goal in a game that represented a four-point swing in the wild-card standings, Henrik Sedin was quick to credit his team’s defensive performance.
“We know the skill they have up front, so for us it was a lot of focus on our defensive play,” he said. “We did a great job of keeping them to the outside for the most part, and when they got their chances, Millsy was there for us.”
Sedin snapped an eight-game goalless streak for his 999th career point. He now has a chance to reach the 1,000-point mark on Friday, when the Canucks face the Florida Panthers—and possibly former Canuck Roberto Luongo in net—before heading on the road.
“Mostly against Lou it would mean a lot,” Sedin joked about the possibility of hitting the milestone on Friday. “No, it would be a big deal for me, for sure, to get it at home. It’s a special place to play and to get it here—maybe even on Friday—would be big.”