  San Jose Sharks Ryane Clowe celebrates his goal next to Vancouver Canucks goaltender Andrew Raycroft Thursday at the HP Pavilion. (REUTERS/Kim White) |
Featuring a depleted blueline, the Canucks took until the third period Thursday to show some life, but it was too little too late in a 4-2 loss to the West-best San Jose Sharks at the HP Pavilion. The Canucks finish the year with a 19-20-2 record on the road and is still one win away from tying the franchise record for most overall wins (49) in a single season.
With nowhere to go in the standings, the Canucks gave defenceman Sami Salo a game off, replacing him with Nolan Baumgartner, who finished with a plus-one. The team then lost Shane O'Brien after the first period to a possible injury, leaving the Canucks with five (Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler, Aaron Rome, Andrew Alberts, and Baumgartner) on the blueline.
Joe Pavelski scored his 25th goal of the season late in the opening frame to give San Jose the first lead of the game. The Sharks added another early in the second to make it 2-0 when Logan Couture tipped in Marc-Edouard Vlasic's point shot for his fifth of the year.
The home team scored twice more in the second, getting goals from Joe Thornton and Manny Malhotra to extend their lead to four goals. Despite the offensive outburst, the Sharks went 0-for-six on the powerplay.
With an assist on Pavol Demitra's tally in the third, Henrik Sedin improved his point total to 108, just two points ahead of Alex Ovechkin and four more than Sidney Crosby. The Canucks added another goal 1:37 later as Andrew Alberts scored his first as a Canuck.
In possibly his last start in a Canucks uniform, Andrew Raycroft allowed four goals on 31 shots to drop his record to 9-5-1. At the other end of the ice, Evgeni Nabokov made 30 saves to improve to 43-16-10.
Vancouver closes out their regular season Saturday at GM Place against the non-playoff-bound Calgary Flames.
