Up until the third period, this was a close, hard-fought, one-goal game between the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers.
Shots on goal after two periods were just about even at 15-to-14 for the Oilers and they also had the edge on the scoreboard, 3-to-2, but the Canucks had the last two goals and arguably had momentum on their side.
Then the third period happened.
It was one of the worst periods of hockey the Canucks have played in years. The shots on goal were lopsided at 16-to-6 as it felt like the puck never left the Canucks’ zone. It took heroics, including a save-of-the-year candidate, from Kevin Lankinen to keep it a one-goal game for even a few minutes but Lankinen doesn't have an endless supply of heroics and he eventually ran out.
The Oilers scored four goals in five minutes to take a 7-2 lead before the Canucks got a consolation prize in the final minute for a 7-3 final score.
It was ugly.
But, according to Canucks captain Quinn Hughes, the whole game was ugly. As much as the chickens came home to roost in the third period, those chickens hatched in the first.
“It’s not just the third,” said Hughes. “We probably didn’t play where we need to play to beat a team like that. I think we’ve been playing some pretty good hockey and we didn’t play that way tonight.
“We’re just going to have to move forward and focus on practice tomorrow and getting better tomorrow — just have a day-by-day attitude.”
The Canucks have now given up the first goal in seven straight games, so head coach Rick Tocchet seemed to agree with his captain; the trouble started long before the third period.
“We just looked at some video — we’re not getting to our game early enough,” said Tocchet. “We’ve got a couple of guys who have got to understand how we’ve got to play more predictable. I think we’re taking the puck back too much. We survived it after the first but we’ve got to make sure we stick to the game plan.”
Even when the Canucks had a good stretch in the second period, Hughes still wasn’t impressed.
“I think we just had spurts where guys were making plays,” said Hughes. “We’re a good enough team where even when we’re not playing our best to have a little pushback but obviously, not where we need to be.”
For some perspective, even after the loss the Canucks are still kind of where they need to be: still two points ahead of the Oilers in the standings with two fewer games played. This was an ugly loss — and the Canucks really need to start winning on home ice — but it’s also not the end of the world.
No, the end of the world is coming for entirely different reasons. I distracted myself from that inevitability when I watched this game.
- Oddly enough, despite calling up a couple of extra forwards with Brock Boeser out indefinitely, Rick Tocchet chose to dress 11 forwards and 7 defencemen against the Oilers. Reading between the lines of Tocchet’s post-game comments, it seemed that one of their defencemen might have been a game-time decision and even when he was ready to play, they decided to use 7 defencemen anyway to help out the penalty kill.
- Dressing an extra defenceman for the penalty kill worked really well, he said sarcastically. Technically, the Oilers’ power play went 1-for-3, but it was really more like 2-for-3, as one of their goals was scored directly after a power play ended.
- That goal happened to open the scoring. The Canucks’ penalty kill made it too easy for Connor McDavid to drive to the net, creating a mad scramble in the crease. The puck eventually popped out to Leon Draisaitl for the easy finish over the out-stretched Kevin Lankinen.
- The biggest positive for the Canucks in this game was the play of Elias Pettersson. He had a two-point night but, more than that, he just looked far more dynamic and dangerous. He hammered a 93 mph slapshot early in the second period that seemed to catch everyone off guard, as if no one knew he could still do that. Maybe he couldn’t until then; maybe at some point he got hit in the back like Aang to unblock his seventh chakra so he could enter the Avatar State again.
- Sorry, finally finished binging Avatar: The Last Airbender for the first time and it’s very much at the top of my mind.
- You can’t really blame the officials for a 7-3 loss but there were two crucial calls that proved costly for the Canucks. One was a bogus icing call in the second period, as Ty Emberson clearly could have reached the puck before it got to the goal line. Off the ensuing faceoff, a clearance off the glass by Erik Brännström hit a stanchion and bounced right to Derek Ryan. Two quick passes later and Corey Perry had a tap-in goal.
- The Oilers made it 3-0 just over a minute later. Quinn Hughes led the rush up ice and dropped the puck to J.T. Miller, who tried an overly ambitious cross-ice pass through two Oilers that was picked off. Worse, Miller stopped skating on the backcheck, leaving Pius Suter dealing with a 2-on-1. That meant Suter was too late getting to Viktor Arvidsson, who fired a wicked wristshot past Lankinen’s blocker.
- It was part of a very rough night for Miller, who seemed to be dearly missing his constant companion, Brock Boeser. Shot attempts were 15-to-3 for the Oilers when Miller was on the ice at 5-on-5. Shots on goal were 8-to-0 and goals were 3-to-0. It was the kind of performance that makes you wonder just how bad those injuries are that he’s been nursing since training camp.
- Pettersson responded quickly after the Oilers’ third goal, getting the Canucks on the board just 18 seconds later. A hit by Tyler Myers at the blue line kept the puck in the Oilers’ zone, then Jake DeBrusk picked off a clearing attempt and sent the puck sailing towards the goal. Pettersson timed his cut to the net just right to neatly tip the puck down and it went between Stuart Skinner’s legs like Nate Robinson.
- The Canucks’ third line followed that up two minutes later with a fantastic shift. After a Danton Heinen chance was stopped, Conor Garland forced a poor clearing attempt that Heinen picked off along the boards. He fed Teddy Blueger, who patiently waited for Filip Hronek to jump up in the play and put the puck on a platter for the Hronekian One, who made like a millennial digitizing his CD collection and ripped it.
- The two quick goals made it 3-2 for the Oilers, who called a timeout to staunch the bleeding or, more accurately, put a halt to the Canucks’ momentum. It seemed to work, as the Canucks couldn’t get the tying goal, though Pettersson hit the crossbar on a laser of a wristshot on the power play. More importantly, Pettersson had a laser of a wristshot on the power play. Remember those?
- Conor Garland remains amazing. I’ve seen players deke out a player so hard that they fell down but Garland deked out Ryan Nugent-Hopkins so badly that he flung his stick a good 20 feet, aka. four of Garland’s body lengths.
- The second crucial call — or, rather, non-call — that hurt the Canucks came in the final minute of the second period, when Nugent-Hopkins blatantly tripped Quinn Hughes. It was about as obvious as a trip gets, as Hughes stepped directly on the blade of Nugent-Hopkins’ stick and wiped out, but it went uncalled.
- It’s not just that they missed the call but what then happened at the start of the third period. Instead of the Canucks’ starting the final frame on the power play, Tyler Myers tripped Connor McDavid in the opening minute of the third period to put the Oilers on the power play. You could even see Rick Tocchet, clearly still frustrated by the missed call in the second, say to one of the referees, “I knew that was going to happen.” He’s finally been here long enough to understand Canucks luck.
- The Oilers didn’t even score on that power play but it was still a huge shift in momentum as Pettersson and Miller both got stuck on the ice for the entire two-minute penalty kill. It essentially delayed the Canucks’ two top lines getting going in the third period by about 5 or 6 minutes as they caught their breath at the bench, grinding the momentum the Canucks had gained in the second period to a complete halt.
- “We got the job done by killing the penalty but it definitely took some energy off me,” said Pettersson. “But I got a good rest and I was ready.”
- At least the penalty kill led to two amazing moments. Lankinen made a desperation save with his stick to rob Nugent-Hopkins like he was Prince John. It was an absolutely incredible stop that should have been a turning point in the game but it very much was not.
- Then Pettersson saved a goal with a timely pokecheck on Connor McDavid as he had a wide open net at the backdoor. Again, a brilliant play that really ought to have been the PITB Transformative Moment of the Game™, which is legally distinct from the phrase “TSN Turning Point.” Instead, it didn’t matter at all. All those moments lost, like tears in rain.
- Everything fell apart. Connor Brown scored when Vincent Desharnais went looking for the puck instead of boxing out his man during a goalmouth scramble. McDavid banged in a Zach Hyman rebound on the power play. Lankinen let a stinker through the five-hole from Brett Kulak, then allowed another questionable goal when Noah Juulsen gave Brown too much room to shoot. In a five-minute span, it went from 3-2 to 7-2. It was dumb and bad.
- Lankinen was pulled after the seventh goal — the first time Tocchet has ever pulled his goaltender for something other than an injury as head coach of the Canucks. While Lankinen let in a couple of ugly goals, that’s when the game was already getting away from the Canucks; it’s hard to put much blame on him at all.
- “[Lankinen] has been so good for us and I thought he was good tonight still,” said Hughes. “I mean, we didn’t really help him too much.”
- The Canucks finally got a second power play with less than two minutes remaining in regulation, which felt a little like adding insult to injury. At least they scored on the power play: Pettersson’s tip from the bumper was blocked, but he jumped on the loose puck and alertly found Pius Suter with a no-look pass. Suter, who was filling in for Boeser on PP1, swept the puck in for his fifth goal of the season.
- With the loss, the Canucks now have a 1-2-3 record on home ice — just one win in six games. That’s obviously less than ideal, especially given how expensive Canucks tickets can be.
- “It was a great road trip with our most complete game coming at the end,” said Carson Soucy. “But I think we’re kind of just growing as a team in consistency game-in, game-out. I don’t know if home or away has anything to do with it — obviously, we want to bring that energy at home. It was a great crowd in here tonight; we let them down with the slow start.”
- I mean, I’d say the slow end was a bigger letdown than the slow start, personally, but I get where Soucy is coming from. Whatever the issue is on home ice, the Canucks need to figure it out. They can’t count entirely on their road record to get them to the playoffs.
