Five days ago, the Los Angeles Kings ruled Rogers Arena, running the Vancouver Canucks out of their home rink.
In that game, the Canucks tried to force plays through the Kings’ smothering 1-3-1 neutral zone trap and tight defensive structure, leading to turnovers and other mistakes that head coach Rick Tocchet repeatedly called “egregious.” The Kings won every battle and it allowed them to dictate the way the game was played.
On Tuesday night in Los Angeles, the Canucks were far more patient and methodical, refusing to be baited into the same mistakes. And, when they did make mistakes, Thatcher Demko was there to clean up the resultant mess. As a result, the Canucks had the edge in puck possession, shots, scoring chances, and — eventually — the score.
“I mean, you have to [stay patient], otherwise it’ll bite you in the ass,” said Elias Pettersson. “They’re a well-structured team.”
It wasn’t the prettiest game because the way the Kings play doesn’t allow for pretty games. But the Canucks showed that they can find the beauty in even the ugliest things, with a gorgeous goal from Pettersson and a lovely save by Demko the reason they got the game to overtime.
Then J.T. Miller got the game-winner in the extra frame on a setup from Brock Boeser. The team’s stars stepped up in a crucial game.
It was a win the Canucks needed, not only in the standings, where the Edmonton Oilers are doing their darnedest to reel them in, but also mentally. They needed to prove that their grinding 2-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday could be repeated against a much tougher opponent and that they could bounce back from a frustrating loss to the Kings.
“I don’t think we liked our effort at home five days ago,” said Demko. “We knew it was going to be a committed game from us and I thought we did a really good job. They’re a hard team to play against sometimes.”
As much as it might pain fans, who would love to see the Canucks rack up goals for big wins like they did earlier in the season, the truth is that wins down the stretch and into the playoffs are more likely to be like what you’ll see on Friday nights at The Roxy: grinding affairs.
“I feel like we scored at a very high clip at the beginning of the year and now it’s a little hard to come by,” said J.T. Miller. “Teams are tightening it up defensively, goals are grittier and harder to get to. I just think our group’s doing a good job of trying to navigate being patient. I thought we were spoiled at the beginning of the year, scoring four, five, or six goals a game, but it’s hard to score and we’ve got to do it the hard way.”
I refused to make a joke about “doing it the hard way” after I watched this game.
- Carson Soucy returned to the lineup after missing what is known in hockey, technically speaking, as a butt-ton of games. He hadn’t played since January 20 but, like the kids on the street, he never missed a beat. He and Ian Cole primarily matched up against the Anze Kopitar line and neutralized them with quick retrievals, blue-line break-ups, and clean zone exits.
- “[Soucy was] really good. Calm. A calming influence back there on the defence,” said Tocchet. “When he’s on the bench and when he’s on the ice, he calms things down. When things get hectic, he makes that little, subtle play to get the puck or to make a play to somebody. You can tell, we’ve been missing that from him…It’s like trading for a defenceman.”
- It started right from Soucy’s first shift, as he navigated Alex Laferriere skating in on him with a tricky bouncing puck. Soucy got his stick on the puck to disrupt the entry, then calmly lifted Laferriere’s stick and turned up ice for an easy zone exit that led to a shot on goal at the other end of the ice. It was a nice reminder of what the Canucks have been missing from their non-Hughes defencemen.
- Elias Pettersson’s line with Nils Höglander and Pius Suter was the best line against the Kings since “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” They got the assignment of matching up against the Kopitar line and soundly outplayed them.
- Here’s an example of how they made life hard for the Kopitar line all game. Elias Pettersson threw a solid check, but when that didn’t prevent the breakout, Nils Höglander chased Kopitar down with great back pressure and hounded his stick to free up the puck.
- The straw that really stirred the Canucks' drink was, of course, Quinn Hughes. Heck, it was probably his signature drink that he was stirring. He played a whopping 28:39 in ice time and assisted on both Canucks goals. Shot attempts were 34-to-17 for the Canucks when Hughes was on the ice at 5-on-5, while shots on goal were 14-to-7. The most ludicrous statistic, however, is that high-danger chances were 10-to-1 for the Canucks with Hughes on the ice at 5-on-5 according to Natural Stat Trick. That’s bonkers.
- Of course, that one high-danger chance against when Hughes was on the ice went in the Canucks' net. The world isn’t fair and it’s rarely unfair in your favour.
- A comedy of errors led to the Kings’ opening goal, starting with an off-the-mark pass by J.T. Miller that Hronek couldn’t reach. Then Ilya Mikheyev was too slow getting back to the puck when Hughes threw it up the boards, allowing Kevin Fiala to step in and steal the puck. Hronek picked off his centring pass, but then bobbled the puck, allowing Philip Danault to steal it back. Meanwhile, Miller had skated right past Trevor Moore in front of the net and he was wide open to finish off Danault’s pass.
- It seemed like the Canucks had told themselves, “Look, we’re going to make some mistakes in this game, so what if we just make all of those mistakes all at once on the same play and get them out of the way?”
- Despite going into the first intermission down 1-0, the Canucks were mostly fine in the first period. They were more than fine in the second period, however, as they took advantage of the long change to put the Kings on their heels and take over the game, for certain values of "taking over."
- “I think inevitably, when they can’t get in their structure, we have a little bit of an advantage,” said Miller. “They’re so well-structured through the neutral zone and how they break the puck out. The second period is a period where we can take advantage of teams like that and not let them get off…They’ve got a longer change, so we want a quick up as much as we can and we played very fast and held onto pucks and had a lot of good looks, so we took advantage of that.”
- “I just like the resolve and I think our second period really, it was one of our best second periods of the month,” said Tocchet, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was including February and wasn’t just saying that it was one of their best second periods in the two games they’ve played in March.
- The game-tying goal may have looked like a brilliant individual effort by Elias Pettersson — and it was — but it was also a team effort. It started with a great shift by the line of Conor Garland, Elias Lindholm, and Vasily Podkolzin, along with Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek, to hem the Kings in with offensive zone pressure and a couple of quick regroups in the neutral zone. With the long change, several of the Kings couldn’t get to the bench, while the Canucks were able to start a line change while holding possession in the offensive zone.
- Garland made a crucial play to keep the play alive in the offensive zone just before the goal, diving out to swat the puck to Hronek at the point. I haven’t seen that much high effort since Chester Greenburg and Jesse Montgomery III tried to figure out where they left their car.
- A fresh Höglander came onto the ice and held off Kopitar along the boards long enough for Pettersson to join him. Pettersson took the pass from Höglander and reminded Drew Doughty that he’s an old man with hard deke that also fooled goaltender Cam Talbot, leaving him with just defenceman Jacob Moverare between him and the net. You could say Pettersson beat Moverare with a rare move but you’d be wrong: it was just a normal shot.
- “I got a good puck from Högs and then I saw I had a lot of time, so I was thinking of shooting it, but Doughty was standing still, so I just tried to go around him and shoot it,” said Pettersson. “I missed my shot, but lucky there was no goalie in the net at that moment.”
- The Canucks got a little careless in the third period and gave up some odd-man rushes, but Demko came up with one of his best saves of the year to rob Alex Turcotte on a 2-on-1. Demko stretched across like Mr. Fantastic to snag Turcotte’s shot with his glove, leaving Turcotte wondering whether he even wants to play hockey anymore or if he should go back to his first passion: professional cornhole.
- “It’s almost like a get-out-of-jail-free type of situation on a breakdown,” said Miller about Demko’s save. “He’s been unreal for us.”
- “That was an unreal save. That’s a ten-beller,” said Tocchet. “That’s a highlight one, it’ll be on tonight and probably all month. That’s a big-time save for us at a crucial time.”
- That save could have been all for naught if not for some good luck immediately after. About a minute after Demko’s save, Trevor Lewis had an open net on a cross-seam pass and hit the side of the net. A moment later, Doughty drilled a slap shot off the post. Fortunately for the Canucks, finishing those chances would have required the Kings to do something exciting, which is anathema to them.
- With the Kings sitting back in their 1-3-1 trap, the Canucks — particularly Hughes — started just sitting and waiting with the puck, refusing to attack until everything was set up just right for the Canucks’ breakout. That led to a chorus of boos from Kings fans but really, it was their own team’s fault for refusing to forecheck. The Canucks were just taking advantage of it.
- The Canucks’ overtime game-winner won’t go down as a power play goal but it essentially was one. On a delayed penalty, the Canucks got their four-man power play unit of Pettersson, Miller, Boeser, and Hughes on the ice, while the Kings were stuck with Kevin Fiala on the ice, who has played fewer than two minutes on the penalty kill all season. The Canucks were more than happy to prey on his discomfort.
- It was a simple play: with Fiala and Kopitar on one side of the ice marking Pettersson and Hughes, Doughty was left alone to deal with Boeser and Miller. They took advantage with a quick back-and-forth passing play to set up a Miller hammer of a one-timer that went right through Cam Talbot like Haribo’s sugar-free gummy bears.
- “We have a handful of plays against the 4-on-3,” said Miller. “We scored in overtime a couple of weeks ago on one of them. On the first time I rolled, it’s kind of just to see which way they’re positioned and they were out pretty far, so we have another option and we yelled the other option and got lucky. Nice to see it work out.”
- With the win, the Canucks maintain their hold on first place in the Western Conference, though they’re now tied for second in the overall NHL standings behind the surging Florida Panthers. But none of that really matters. All that matters is that the Canucks finish wherever they need to in the standings so that they don’t have to play the Kings in the playoffs because I don’t know if I can take an entire playoff series of Kings hockey. I don’t have the strength.
