The Vancouver Canucks had lost six of their last seven games heading into their three-game road trip in early March. It was becoming legitimately concerning.
When they ground out a 2-1 win against the Anaheim Ducks, it was a good start not just to the road trip but also to turning things around. Still, it was just the Ducks, a cellar-dwelling team in the hunt for the first-overall pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, not the playoffs.
Then they did it again against a much tougher opponent, working their way to a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings. Still, it required overtime and some goaltending brilliance from Thatcher Demko.
On Thursday, the Canucks finished off the road trip with a win over another tough Pacific Division rival, the Vegas Golden Knights, that requires no caveats.
The Canucks took hold of the game early and never relinquished control. They out-shot the Golden Knights 16-to-7 in the first period, 15-to-10 in the second period, and then shut the game down in the third period, giving Vegas nothing to work with as they pushed for the comeback.
It was calm, clinical, and cold-blooded. It was exactly what head coach Rick Tocchet wanted to see.
“This is Canucks hockey,” said Tocchet. “I think we got back to our identity the last three games here. We took one penalty each game, which is nice. All the areas that we wanted to shore up, I’ve gotta give the guys credit: they shored them up.”
It wasn’t a perfect performance, by any means, but what set this game apart was how they avoided compounding errors. Even in their win over the Kings, they let a series of mistakes snowball into the Kings’ lone goal of the game. Against the Golden Knights, they arrested their faults at one.
“When we did make a mistake, I saw us hold the fort,” said Tocchet. “I saw some guys really buckle down and we didn’t make that duplicated mistake. I think that was a big thing.”
Just like that, the Canucks look like they’re back on track as they head into the home stretch of the season — literally a home stretch for the Canucks, as their next nine games are all at home. They’re in the driver’s seat of the Western Conference and giving every other team in the West plenty of motivation to avoid finishing in the second Wild Card spot to have to face them in the first round of the playoffs.
The Canucks looked like a problem for the rest of the league when I watched this game.
- Nils Höglander had a scare early in the first period when Anthony Mantha’s stick came up under his visor and cut him just beneath his right eye. The upshot is the Canucks got a four-minute power play and chicks dig scars, but that was still a scary moment.
- It’s a good thing it was a four-minute double minor, because the Canucks’ power play looked awful to start and took nearly three full minutes to get their first shot on goal. It was starting to look like the Canucks’ PP had lost its mojo.
- Fortunately for the Canucks, the Golden Knights lost all sense of propriety and took two more penalties in a scrum to the Canucks’ one, extending the power play and giving the Canucks a brief 5-on-3. The Canucks could have very easily evened out those penalties, but Keegan Kolesar came in late and grabbed Suter by the visor, which is very much frowned upon by the NHL as being conduct unbecoming of a sportsman.
- The Canucks came just short of scoring on the 14-second 5-on-3, scoring exactly one second of the initial penalty expired. The key was a quick retrieval by Filip Hronek after Quinn Hughes’ initial shot was saved, allowing Hughes to get another kick at the can. Can he kick it? Yes he can: he sent his second attempt slicing past Adin Hill’s glove to open the scoring.
- Höglander drew another penalty less than a minute later. He cheekily passed the puck to himself off the boards to create a 2-on-1, then got tripped as tried to cut to the middle of the ice. Phil Di Giuseppe picked up the loose puck and looked like he was about to pass the puck to Elias Pettersson — a pretty good player to pass the puck to — but instead caught Hill completely off-guard with a no-look pass through his five-hole into the back of the net.
- Demko was solid in the Canucks net, making 27 saves on 28 shots, including a great glove save on Jack Eichel on a rare odd-man rush for the Golden Knights late in the first period. For the most part, the Canucks’ skaters made things easy for Demko, limiting the grade-A scoring chances. Really, the Golden Knights’ chances were the worst grade imaginable: an A-minus-minus.
- “Just our tracking back, I thought was really good,” said a grateful Demko. “Our F3 stayed in a really good spot, helping our D out. It limited odd-man rushes. And just good communication and really strong play in our own end to limit the chances they got from the middle of the rink. Our D have been doing a really good job boxing guys out and letting me see the puck.”
- The Canucks made it a nightmare for the Golden Knights to get through the neutral zone all night. Even a stay-at-home defenceman like Noah Juulsen was making great reads to step up in the neutral zone to pick off passes and create opportunities on the counter-attack.
- The Golden Knights did get a goal back in the second period. Ian Cole had his stick knocked out of his hands, then Sam Lafferty accidentally kicked it away from Cole. That left him unable to defend effectively against Michael Amadio, who sent an unhindered point shot past a screened Demko to make it 2-1.
- This was Ilya “Ouroboros” Mikheyev’s best game in a long time but he still couldn’t get on the scoreboard. He set up Brock Boeser for a couple of grade-A chances and had one himself, pulling the puck to his backhand to tuck it around Hill, only for the puck to hit Hill’s skate blade and skitter just wide of the net. It’s starting to feel like Mikheyev will never score again.
- “I thought [Mikheyev] played hard,” said Tocchet. “I thought he was on pucks, using his speed. He’s a little frustrated he didn’t score that one but he’s gotta keep digging away. That’s all you can do.”
- The Canucks restored the two-goal lead before the end of the second period. Elias Lindholm held the line like Toto, brilliantly swinging his stick out with one hand to knock the puck down just before it exited the zone. He immediately attacked with a high shot that Hill spilled out to a rebound-hunting Conor Garland, who tucked it in like Gretzky...tucked in his jersey.
- As a sign of how little the Canucks gave the Golden Knights in the third period, the NHL devoted just 28 seconds of their 8:44-long highlight video of the game to the third. Seven seconds of that was just the clock winding down to the final horn. The Canucks decided that there would be no highlights in the third period and it was so.
- Conor Garland was arguably the Canucks’ best player in this game, contributing at both ends of the ice. His best moment was this slippery bank pass off the back of the net to spin free of Nicolas Hague. Garland must be such a nightmare to defend: like a diabolical ironclad beetle, he’s almost impossible to pin down.
- Vasily Podkolzin has been a solid addition to the lineup since getting called up from the AHL. While he had the lowest ice time on the team against the Golden Knights, he contributed some heavy forechecking with five hits, had three shots on goal, and — most importantly — was smart with the puck.
- “I liked [Podkolzin], especially his last five shifts,” said Tocchet. “There was some composure there when he had it, actually held it, skated out of our zone, got to the red, and got it in. Sometimes, you usually just throw it out or ice it or whatever and I saw some composure there. He’s getting some reps, he’s starting to play in some tight games, and that’s how you’re going to get the experience.”
- This game saw Thatcher Demko’s career-high 33rd win of the season — the most by any goaltender in the NHL. While wins are more of a team statistic than an individual statistic, you can bet that it’s the one Demko is most proud of this season.
