Canucks handle Wild for fourth win in a row
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Ten games into the season, the Vancouver Canucks have a good problem and the Minnesota Wild a bad one. Both were on display Thursday night.
Cory Schneider stopped 22 shots, Mason Raymond had a goal and assist, and Vancouver beat Minnesota 4-1 at Xcel Energy Center.
Daniel Sedin, Chris Higgins and Jannik Hansen also scored for the Canucks, who won their fourth straight.
Tom Gilbert scored for the Wild, who lost their third straight. Minnesota has scored just three goals in those games.
Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault has a luxury at the moment that most coaches could only wish for: two hot goaltenders.
Schneider, who was penciled as the team's top netminder entering the season, has spent the past four games on the bench as Roberto Luongo has been outstanding with a 3-0-1 record, a 1.18 goals-against average and .952 save percentage. However, Luongo has struggled in St. Paul, being pulled in his last three starts.
"We've always pushed each other," Schneider said. "It's great knowing there's another guy who can go in there and put up those kind of numbers. It just motivates you to be that good and to chase him. ... I think the team enjoys knowing that whenever either guy's in the net we can win."
Even though Schneider hadn't seen game action in 11 days, he looked confident throughout, squaring up shooters, moving well side to side and not giving up big rebounds.
"That's what we expect of him," Vigneault said.
The Canucks (6-2-2) have given up just four goals during the current winning streak.
"Our goalies are doing a (heck) of a job and our defensemen are moving the puck and goalies are seeing the puck well," right winger Alex Burrows said. "As long as they're the backbone of our team and they're going well, we'll be fine."
Vancouver dominated the first period, scoring twice, which was one fewer goal than Minnesota had shots.
Sedin scored midway through the period when he charged down the slot just in time to put a rebound of a backhand by Burrows into an open net.
Five minutes later, just as a Wild penalty expired, Higgins netted his first goal of the year by tipping a shot from Maxim Lapierre between the pads of Niklas Backstrom and into the Wild net. Backstrom finished with 12 saves and was replaced by Josh Harding for the third period.
In an effort to wake up a slumbering offense -- the Wild have just 21 goals in 10 games -- Minnesota mixed up its top lines for the game with Charlie Coyle joining Zach Parise and Mikko Koivu on the team's top line, and Dany Heatley dropping to the second line with Matt Cullen and Pierre-Marc Bouchard. Neither line played particularly well.
"We're just not executing," Parise said in an extremely quiet locker room. "It's no secret; they played better than us."
The Wild picked up its intensity in the second period, but Schneider was at his best. He slid across to stop Parise low in the slot about eight minutes in and got a right pad on a slap shot from Devin Setoguchi on a power play about three minutes later.
"We have to do what we did in the second period in the first and for all 60 minutes," Koivu said.
With such high expectations entering the season, Wild head coach Mike Yeo wouldn't say his team is in crisis mode even though it is 4-5-1.
"We're facing our adversity now, and I don't think that's a terrible thing," he said. "This is a group I have full confidence in that we'll pull out of this."
The Canucks, now 4-0-1 against division opponents, put the game away before the second period was done by scoring twice in 95 seconds.
After a scramble in front, the puck came out to Raymond, who scored on a slap shot from the left circle at 17:17. A pass from Raymond in his own end then sprung Hansen for a breakaway at 18:52. It was Hansen's second goal in as many games.
Gilbert scored a power-play goal 7:25 into the third period to ruin Schneider's bid for a second shutout in three games.
NOTES: Center Mike Rupp, acquired Monday from the New York Rangers, played his first game as a member of the Wild. The 6-foot-5, 243-pounder should add some toughness in the offensive zone. ... Luongo has a shutout streak of 195:23 against the Wild, with all that action occurring in British Columbia. His last start in Minnesota was Oct. 19, 2010. ... The game was just Minnesota's second against a division opponent and begins a stretch where seven of nine games are against teams in the Northwest Division. ... Both teams are home Saturday. Vancouver plays Calgary and Minnesota faces Nashville.
