As the Vancouver Canucks came to the close of their six-game road trip in St. Paul, MN, they were battered, bruised, and bleary-eyed.
The road trip had cost them a top-pairing defenceman, as Filip Hronek suffered a presumed shoulder injury that will keep him out for the next eight weeks. Exacerbated by Hronek’s injury, Quinn Hughes’ minutes spiked, with him leading the NHL in ice time in his past five games, including a 31-minutes night against the Detroit Red Wings. The Canucks, as a team, had blocked 86 shots in the five games of the road trip, with Noah Juulsen getting the bulk of the bruises.
And let’s not forget that they were missing J.T. Miller, Thatcher Demko, and Derek Forbort and only just got Brock Boeser back from a concussion, with the sniper still getting back up to speed.
Despite the difficult circumstances, the Canucks had prevailed against all odds on the road trip, winning four of their five games to take 8 of a possible 10 points, featuring some phenomenal performances by Hughes, Elias Pettersson, Jake DeBrusk, and Conor Garland, not to mention goaltender Kevin Lankinen.
Their reward for their heroic efforts? The first-place team in the NHL: the Minnesota Wild.
The Wild are the stingiest team in the NHL, allowing the fewest goals against of any team, but they’re not the boring, trapping team that used to infuriate Canucks fans in the past. Instead, they feature the NHL’s leading scorer, Kirill Kaprizov, and play a fast-paced, heavy, and yes, entertaining game.
Tuesday night was no different, as the Wild were flying right from puck drop. Thanks to some hands-off officiating, the game got downright nasty at times, with the Wild attempting to impose their will on the scoreboard and along the boards.
But the Canucks kept pace with the Wild in what turned out to be one of the most entertaining games of the season. The Canucks took the game to overtime, earning their ninth point of the road trip, and nearly won the game a couple of times in the frantic, back-and-forth extra frame.
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet summed it up in one sentence: “They’re in first place and it came down to one shot.”
In other words, there’s no shame in coming out on the losing end of this game, especially with the difficult circumstances they’re facing right now.
“Great game,” said Rick Tocchet. “The guys played really hard tonight. It was a helluva road trip. Could’ve easily won the game, so the guys should feel good about themselves.”
You know what: we should all feel good about ourselves. Let’s head into this Christmas season with some positive affirmations. I told myself, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me,” after I watched this game.
- The Canucks were clearly trying to get Quinn Hughes out against Kirill Kaprizov. When the Wild didn’t choose to send Kaprizov’s line out for the opening faceoff, Hughes got one touch of the puck and then immediately jumped off the ice for his shortest shift of the night: seven seconds. Then, as soon as Kaprizov came on the ice, out came Hughes to match him.
- To their credit, the Canucks managed to keep Kaprizov off the board through regulation, but the Hughes matchup didn’t really work. While Hughes and partner Tyler Myers protected the slot well enough, the Wild out-shot the Canucks 9-to-2 when Hughes and Kaprizov were matched up at 5-on-5. Ironically, Carson Soucy and Noah Juulsen, who Tocchet initially tried to avoid sending out against Kaprizov, had more success: the Canucks out-shot the Wild 10-to-1 when Soucy was matched up against Kaprizov at 5-on-5.
- Despite allowing the fewest goals against in the NHL, the Wild also have one of the worst penalty kills. They make up for their lousy PK by staying out of the box, so Nils Höglander drawing an early tripping penalty on Jon Merrill was a significant play. That seemed to help Höglander get back in Rick Tocchet’s good books: his 13:34 in ice time was his highest since October 26.
- Höglander’s ability to fall down when a stick takes out his skates helped the Canucks open the scoring. After some confident work by the top power play unit, Pettersson fed Hughes at the point and his wrist shot ticked off Zach Bogosian’s stick to beat Filip Gustavsson for the 1-0 goal.
- I enjoyed the brief conference the power play held after the goal to determine who would skate to the bench first to celebrate. Hughes thought Boeser tipped it, Boeser thought DeBrusk tipped it, and DeBrusk probably thought the score was still tied. Eventually, Hughes accepted that he did, in fact, score his sixth goal of the season, probably after Pettersson said something like, “No, Quinn, I didn’t tip it; I was fifty feet away from the puck.”
- While Hughes may not have had the clear edge in puck possession he usually has, he still played some great defence in this game. I especially enjoyed the way he deftly defended a shorthanded rush from Joel Eriksson Ek. The Wild centre tried to turn Hughes inside out with a quick cut but Hughes just calmly pivoted, stepped in front of Eriksson Ek, and divested him of the puck before immediately attacking the other way and setting up a chance for Conor Garland.
- Pettersson and Hughes unfortunately got their wires crossed later in the second period. Pettersson thought Hughes was going to skate down the right wall and rotated to cover him at the point just as Hughes stopped up and tried to pass it down the wall instead for a turnover. Pettersson then exacerbated the issue by stepping up in the neutral zone and getting beat, leading to a 3-on-1. Marcus Foligno then set up Freddy Gaudreau, who sniped past Kevin Lankinen.
- Of course, Foligno wouldn’t have been able to set up Gaudreau if the referees had called a penalty on him for interfering with Hughes away from the puck and preventing him from backchecking. But hey, that was neither the first nor the last time the referees ignored a blatant penalty for both teams, so there’s no use crying over spilled Canucks.
- For instance, there was this uncalled elbow by Eriksson Ek on Kiefer Sherwood, which seemed pretty penalty-worthy. On the other side, Myers gave Eriksson Ek a sharp crosscheck in the ribs from behind that seemed to cause him a great deal of pain, which seems like the kind of thing that could have been avoided by having the officials maybe call some of the other blatant penalties that preceded those incidents.
- “Both the teams were kind of assholes out there, but it was good,” said Wild defenceman Jake Middleton. “That was a fun hockey game.”
- Höglander has now gone 19 games without a goal but he came close in the second period as he deked between Marat Khusnutdinov and Declan Chisholm for a great scoring chance but couldn’t elevate the puck over Gustavsson’s glove, which is nicknamed “Glovetavsson,” I’ve just decided.
- Also, shout out to Aatu Räty for putting everything he had into tying up Jared Spurgeon’s stick to ensure Höglander had a clear path to the net. That’s a teammate who’s got your back.
- The Canucks took the lead near the end of the second period after a strong shift by the Pettersson line. Carson Soucy floated a shot toward the net where Pettersson was locked in single combat with Merrill. The shot was blocked but Pettersson won the battle to get to the loose puck to sweep a backhand on net, where DeBrusk, as he so often does, gained inside position on his man and was first to the rebound to chip it in like Larry Mize.
- That was DeBrusk’s eighth goal of the six-game road trip, as the notoriously streaky winger is streaking like Frank the Tank. So far, every single goal he’s scored this season has been on the road, so hopefully he keeps streaking at home. Er…you know what I mean.
- The third period started off poorly for the Canucks, as they got pinned in their own zone for the first two shifts. That led to a scramble where Pettersson cleared the puck from the front of the net, only for it to get picked off by Middleton. Pettersson charged out to try to block the shot but it got over his leg and pinged off the post and in.
- “We have a 2-1 lead and then their goal, I missed a block, and then when I missed my block, I screened Lankinen to see the puck,” said a disappointed Pettersson. “Just small details.”
- After the tying goal, the Canucks had a very strong third period, out-shooting the Wild 17-to-9. They just couldn’t get another puck past Gustavsson, who maintained his league-leading .929 save percentage.
- “We had a really strong third period,” said Soucy. “We again showed our grit, showed we’re not going to back down.”
- Here’s a further sign that Höglander had a strong game and might be working his way out of Tocchet’s doghouse: he was on the ice in the final minute of a tie game. It was a smart shift too, as he was very aware of the score and situation: he got a safe zone exit after a defensive zone faceoff, then tipped the puck in and got on the forecheck without getting caught deep. When the Wild gained possession, he reloaded and got above his man in the neutral zone. Those are simple details but it’s what he needs to do to regain Tocchet’s trust.
- Overtime was about as thrilling as overtime can get, with breakaways and 2-on-1s and all sorts of other grade-A chances that make coaches go prematurely bald. The Wild got the first of those chances, with Lankinen coming up with a huge glove save on an Eriksson Ek breakaway. To be clear, the save was huge, not Lankinen’s glove — he didn’t sneak a bigger glove out on the ice for overtime.
- I know I said not to cry over spilled Canucks but it was absolutely flabbergasting to see Kaprizov blatantly trip Garland to prevent a 2-on-1 and not see either referee raise his arm. Canucks fans on social media were quick to point the finger at Kelly Sutherland, who doesn’t have a great reputation around these parts, but his fellow referee TJ Luxmore also refrained from calling a penalty.
- The Canucks still had two golden opportunities to win the game. First, Erik Brännström snuck unnoticed to the backdoor where Boeser set up for a point-blank chance, only for Gustavsson to rob his former Belleville and Ottawa Senators teammate. Perhaps Brännström should have picked up the check for dinner on Monday night.
- After Brännström was robbed, the Wild broke back the other way 2-on-1 with Kiefer Sherwood as the lone man back. Shockingly, Sherwood defended the 2-on-1 better than most defencemen by taking the phrase “active stick” to its most extreme. His stick was so active that it looked like a snake that Sherwood had caught by the tail and was desperately trying to keep it from biting him.
- Boeser had one last chance to win the game, as Pius Suter stole the puck in the neutral zone and sent the sniper in on a breakaway. The Minnesotan Marksman had Gustavsson at his mercy but rung the puck off the post, an inch away from winning the game.
- The Wild burst the other way for yet another 2-on-1. Boeser backchecked hard but couldn’t get to Marco Rossi’s stick to disrupt his possession. In retrospect, he probably should have hooked Rossi to the ice, taking the penalty to prevent the scoring chance, especially with just 25 seconds remaining in overtime. Heck, with these officials, they might not have even called the penalty. Instead, Rossi set up Kaprizov and the NHL’s leading scorer rocketed the one-timer past Lankinen.
- The Canucks still went 4-1-1 on their six-game road trip, earning 9 out of a possible 12 points, a road trip that culminated in taking the first-place team in the NHL to overtime, where it was a coin flip for the win. That’s a successful road trip. Now, if they could only bring some of that energy home.
- “We were solid,” said Tocchet. “We just played a solid, solid game. The guys are doing a good job blocking out noise and we’re just moving along every game.”
