The Vancouver Canucks are winning the games they’re supposed to win.
Games against teams in the basement of the NHL can sometimes be traps, as even the worst team in the NHL can win on any given night, especially if a team takes them too lightly. That hasn’t been a problem for the Canucks this season: this was their fifth game against a team in the bottom quarter of the NHL standings and they’ve won all five.
But the Canucks are supposed to be able to beat the likes of the Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and Chicago Blackhawks. After all, some were hyping the Canucks as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender heading into the season.
It was great that the Canucks bounced back from a to beat the Blackhawks but, well, it’s the Blackhawks. Sure, they have Connor Bedard, but even with him they’re tied for last place in the Central Division with a 6-11-1 record and have some of the worst underlying statistics in the league.
So, yeah, the Canucks absolutely should beat the Blackhawks. And it probably shouldn’t have been quite as close as it was — a 2-1 game until the final minutes when the Canucks scored two empty-net goals.
But winning the games you’re supposed to win is preferable to losing them.
“We’ve still got to clean things up and it’s a work in progress,” said head coach Rick Tocchet. “But it’s nice to win when you have this work in progress.”
That’s perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the start of the Canucks’ season. They have yet to truly play their game for any significant length of time and yet they’re still second in the Pacific Division by points percentage and have sparkling underlying numbers that suggest once they do figure out their game, they’ll be a nightmare for the rest of the league.
It’ll be a lot easier to believe in their nightmarishness if they can start stringing some wins together, though, especially on home ice. Too often, they’re like a pleasant daydream.
“We were not happy with the game against the Islanders,” said Elias Pettersson. “So, good response, but now we’ve got to make it two games in a row and make it our identity.”
They made it one game in a row when I watched this game.
- Conor Bedard played his first NHL game in his hometown of Vancouver in front of all of his family and friends and it went very poorly. He went 0-for-8 on faceoffs and managed just one shot on goal. At 5-on-5, his line was out-shot 11-to-6 and he was on the ice for two of the Canucks’ four goals. That’s not the Rogers Arena debut he dreamed about when he was a kid but, to be fair, in those dreams he was probably wearing a Canucks jersey, so at least the right team won.
- After a rough performance against the Islanders, Danton Heinen was bumped down to the fourth line, where he thrived with Aatu Räty and Nils Höglander. Heinen had three quality chances in the first period alone off passes from Quinn Hughes, Ilya Mikheyev, and Connor Bedard: one current Canuck, one former Canuck, and one future Canuck.
- “Rats had a bunch of hits, I think he was 6-and-0 on faceoffs early. That was big,” said Tocchet about the fourth line. “I thought Heinen was good on the walls. Höggy had some good possession time. I just thought they all did the right thing in the sense that they were connected and they had some really good possession time.”
- Overall, however, the Blackhawks carried the play in the first period, out-shooting the Canucks 14-to-9. Yet again, the Canucks failed to start the game on time. I blame daylight savings time.
- “When we play our game, we’re a pretty scary team,” said Kiefer Sherwood. “But that’s on us to be ready and to really focus…When that puck drops, we’ve got to be ready and we can’t wait to be a goal down. It starts right away.”
- The Blackhawks opened the scoring on an ugly moment for the Canucks’ third defence pairing. Nick Foligno beat Erik Brännström wide and outmuscled him to the net but Arturs Silovs made the stop. Unfortunately, Noah Juulsen decided that he’d try spinning — — and spun around wildly at the top of the crease looking for the puck instead of boxing out Ilya Mikheyev, who scored on the rebound.
- Yes, Ilya Mikheyev, who couldn’t score a single goal in the playoffs for the Canucks scored against the Canucks in his very first game against them after being traded. Elias Pettersson must have just been seething on the bench.
- Brännström seemed to take the goal as a personal insult, because he had an outstanding game the rest of the way, starting with a big, open-ice hit on Lukas Reichel that had the building buzzing. The undersized Brännström isn’t exactly known for his hits and even this one sent him flying as much as it did Reichel but it halted a Blackhawks rush in its tracks.
- The Canucks were miles better in the second period, as if they had flipped a switch during the first intermission. All I’m asking is why is that switch ever turned off? Slap some duct tape on that switch with a note saying, “Do not touch!” We shouldn’t have to be second-guessing ahead of every game to make sure the switch is on.
- Brännström continued his redemption arc by drawing a penalty. He drove to the net off the rush and jabbed at a loose puck in Arvid Soderblom’s pads, to which Wyatt Kaiser took exception. Kaiser didn’t and body-slammed Brännström to the ice, which is generally frowned upon in hockey.
- The Canucks got a bounce on the subsequent power play to tie things up. J.T. Miller got a piece of a clearing attempt around the boards and Quinn Hughes kept the puck in at the line, then sent it back to Miller. He fired a pass down low to Elias Pettersson, who tried to tip the puck to Conor Garland at the backdoor. Instead, the puck banked in off Connor Murphy’s skate, as if sending the puck towards the net on the power play sometimes leads to goals. What a novel thought.
- “I just tried to tip it to Garland because I saw he was far post,” said Pettersson. “Yeah, a lucky bounce, but I’ll take it.”
- At one point in the game, Quinn Hughes showed a little leg, which was pretty risque. Hey, when you're aiming for a second-straight Norris Trophy, sometimes you have to defy societal standards.
- With his fifth hit of the game in the third period, Kiefer Sherwood reached 100 hits for the season after just 16 games, which is kind of insane. Sherwood is now on pace for 513 hits this season. The NHL record is 383 and Sherwood said he’s “certainly trying to shoot for the record now.”
- “Keep them coming. I’m just getting started,” said Sherwood. “I want to impose my physicality and be hard to play against for our team, so just on to the next hundred, I guess.”
- Arturs Silovs has struggled but was solid against the Blackhawks for his first win of the season. He made 28 saves on 29 shots, none bigger than his stop on a Nick Foligno breakaway after a Conor Garland turnover late in the second period. The Canucks had played so well in the middle frame that it would have been a massive letdown to give up the go-ahead goal against the grain.
- “He needed that,” said Sherwood of Silovs’ performance. “We tried to really dig in once we got that lead because he works his tail off in practice.”
- Murphy’s Law states that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” and it definitely seemed to apply to Connor Murphy in this game. He already had the Canucks’ first goal bank in off his skate, then their second goal took a slight deflection off his skate to slide through Soderblom’s legs. I recommend that he avoid walking under ladders for the next few days.
- The shot came from Brännström to complete his redemption arc. After Pettersson couldn’t connect on a Sherwood centring pass — probably because it was knee high — the puck banked back to Brännström, who wasted no time hammering a hard and low slap shot through traffic for his second goal of the season.
- “I thought [Brännström] was feisty, jumping up,” said Tocchet. “He’s shooting the puck a lot, which I like. He was getting off that blue line, he was changing the angle. Sometimes we get our shots blocked a little bit and I think he’s one of the guys that he’s so quick, he can get that shot around some people. Tonight, a couple of times — obviously, the goal — but a couple of other times he had good shots on net with people in front.”
- The line of Sherwood, Pettersson, and Jake DeBrusk was the Canucks’ best in this game. Shot attempts were 23-to-6 for the Canucks when that line was on the ice at 5-on-5, as they outright dominated puck possession. Sherwood’s forechecking was key but DeBrusk was also strong along the walls, while Pettersson continues to heat up. The only trouble was how many of their shot attempts got blocked. DeBrusk had 8 shot attempts but just one actually made it to the net to force a save.
- Pettersson is still looking off his shot a little too often. He made a brilliant play midway through the third to collected a deflected pass in mid-air to burst past Murphy down the right wing but, instead of shooting, he made a drop pass to Sherwood, whose shot hit Murphy and somehow didn’t deflect into the net. If the pass had worked, it would have looked like a brilliant bit of playmaking; since it didn’t, it looked like Pettersson is still a little reluctant to shoot.
- Poor Connor Bedard. He probably dreamed of assisting on a Canucks goal when he was a kid and that dream came true in the ugliest way possible in the final minutes of the third. With Soderblom pulled for the extra attacker, Bedard completely fanned on a dump-in at centre ice. Miller ended up with the puck and shot it into the empty net for the insurance goal.
- Actually, watching it again, Bedard wouldn’t have even gotten an assist in this made-up world where you get assists for the opposing team’s goals. Tyler Bertuzzi and Pius Suter both got touches on the puck before Miller shot it. Sorry, Connor, you’ll have to wait a little longer for your first ever assist on a Canucks goal.
- The Canucks added another empty-netter to make the game look like a rout. Heinen made a strong play on the boards to win a battle and send Garland out of the defensive zone. Garland drew in a couple of defenders and slid the puck to Teddy Blueger for a breakaway to make it 4-1.
- “The important thing is we got a win,” said Sherwood. “We found a way — kind of weathered the storm in the first but once we got to our game, I felt we kind of imposed our will.”
