The Vancouver Canucks shutout the St. Louis Blues 2-0 Thursday night to earn their 90th point of the season and move three points ahead of St. Louis and Detroit for the Western Conference lead.
Alex Burrows scored his 23rd goal of the season early in the third period and Roberto Luongo made 29 saves to record his third shutout of the year.
Chris Higgins scored an empty-netter with 38 seconds left to seal the victory for the home team.
Vancouver's fourth line of Manny Malhotra, Maxime Lapierre and the newly acquired Zack Kassian were easily the Canucks most affective unit of the night. They generated a few scoring chances and Lapierre and Kassian were hitting everything in sight. Lapierre finished with an unbelievable 10 hits while Kassian finished with four hits and four shots. Kassian showed Vancouver fans what he brings to the table and likely made some people forget about the guy he was traded for - Cody Hodgson.
Speaking of Hodgson, ironically enough Vancouver's next game is Saturday against Hodgson's new team, the Buffalo Sabres. You can see that game at 7:00 pacific time on CBC's Hockey Night In Canada.
Canuck fans should expect low scoring games from here on out as the trade deadline deals have made them a less offensive team. With that said, they have only allowed one goal against in two games since Monday, so if they can continue to allow very few goals, no-one will care if they aren't scoring in abundance.
Marc-Andre Gragnani played in his Canuck's debut and finished with 15:38 of ice time. He had a couple of turnovers but made a few good passes while finishing even on the night.
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