The Vancouver Canucks are a conundrum.
There was the team we saw in the first period — sloppy and disorganized, with poor execution on their passes. Then there’s the team that we saw in the second period — overly dependent on Thatcher Demko to bail them out.
But then there’s the team we saw in the third period — fiery and unstoppable, playing with pace and aggression, executing every pass and attacking the net with confidence that they are going to score every single time.
On the plus side, the combination of the two made for a thrilling game on Friday night against the Washington Capitals. The Canucks got down early, partly because of their poor play and partly because of some incredibly unlucky bounces, but then Demko kept them in it in the second period, setting the stage for comeback in the third.
The building was electric. The Canucks were electric. This is when sports are at their best, when the unexpected and unpredictable come to pass. Nobody watching the first and second periods of this game could have seen it coming. The Canucks were outright dominant, scoring three quick goals in five minutes to start the third.
It wasn’t just that they scored; it’s that the goals seemed inevitable, a natural offshoot of how they were playing. They didn’t need bounces or luck. They just imposed their will on the game.
How is it possible for one team to have such split personalities?
“I don't know what it was. I wish I knew the answer to those things — why you're bad in the first and good and the second or good in the third. I always just liken it to being ready to play,” said head coach Bruce Boudreau. “Once we started to get into it, we started to get better.”
Here’s the thing: the Canucks know how important these games are. They know where they sit in the standings and how good they need to be down the stretch to claw their way into playoff position. How can they not be ready to play?
According to Quinn Hughes, however, the culture of the Canucks is changing. Maybe it didn’t show up in how they started the game but it showed up in how they reacted to falling just short of the two points in overtime.
“It feels like we're building something, as I look around the locker room and guys are really pissed off about the loss, as they should be,” said Hughes. “We want to win so badly right now and we expect to win.”
“I noticed it after the game — it’s a good thing — we’re building something where it’s unacceptable to lose,” he added. “Maybe a year ago, we're a little bit more happy about getting a point but right now it doesn't feel too good.”
The Canucks have been making believers out of doubters with their gutsy play of late. If their anger at losing can translate to stronger starts, they’ll make believers of even the most cynical fans. I waited for the Canucks to blind me on the road to Damascus as I watched this game.
- The Canucks wore their gorgeous Pride Night jerseys for warm-up, designed by the very talented Mio. I spoke to her earlier in the day about the story behind the design and why she’s got the Canucks going to the 2022 Stanley Cup Final.
- “I think it's pretty special jersey. I mean, the detail in the crest is pretty incredible,” said Bo Horvat, who is also a spokesperson for inclusion in hockey as part of the #MakeTheCall campaign, urging people to call out homophobic language in sports.
- The Capitals opened the scoring on one of the most bizarre goals you’ll ever see. It was a routine play: Nick Jensen rung the puck around the boards but it hit a stanchion behind the net and ricocheted out front, hitting an oblivious Evgeny Kuznetsov in the arm and going in. It was the worst bounce for the Canucks since every single draft lottery in their history.
- Less than a minute later it was 2-0. Alex Ovechkin came into the game tied with Jaromir Jagr for third all-time in goals and he thought he had the tiebreaker on the power play, blasting the puck past Thatcher Demko with a classic Ovechkin one-timer but the puck hit the post, then went off Demko’s back. It was spinning towards the line and probably would have gone in but Kuznetsov made sure, taking away the history-making goal.
- “I think we did a decent job of keeping our composure,” said Horvat about the bad bounces in the first. “I think maybe in games past, we would have let that get to us and we kind of learned from that and didn't let it bother us and kept fighting.”
- Maybe the game would have spiraled out of control but Demko kept things thoroughly unspiralled. He kept the Canucks in the game in the second period, stopping all 12 shots he faced, including robbing Ovechkin on a partial breakaway. I’ll refrain from any distasteful jokes about that.
- Demko’s best save — or at least my favourite of the night — was also one of his most understated. It came on a wild shift in the defensive zone, where the puck was at its most difficult to track. Dmitri Orlov had the puck in the slot and made an unexpected pass to Garnet Hathaway for a one-timer — unexpected to everyone except Demko, who read the play like he was everyone’s understudy and took Hathaway’s shot directly to the logo.
- The Capitals played a heavy, physical game, but Luke Schenn gave as good as he got. His best of his five hits on the night was a crushing blow on Axel Jonsson-Fjallby that knocked him flat onto his ludicrously-long namebar.
- My favourite physical sequence of the game came later in the same shift. Tyler Motte tracked John Carlson across the top of the zone to block his shot attempt, then laid the body into Carlson to win the puck battle. More than that, he chipped the puck free to Schenn, then burst up the ice for a zone exit, got through the neutral zone with speed, and got a shot off to get a faceoff in the offensive zone. That’s good hockey.
- The best moment of the second period came off the ice. Sportsnet 650 host Jason Brough was spotted in the stands doing the tiniest of claps. It was delightful.
- Boudreau shook up the lines heading into the third period, going down to three lines in the comeback bid. That meant no ice time in the third for Alex Chiasson and Nils Höglander and just one shift for Vasily Podkolzin.
- “I didn't see us having any chemistry together in some of those lines and some of the guys weren't going,” said Boudreau. “I can either keep it going and hope they get it or move it around and maybe you catch lightning in a bottle a little bit.”
- Lightning: caught. The Canucks scored three goals in the opening five minutes of the third period to take the lead.
- Quinn Hughes got the Canucks’ first goal of the game a minute into the third period with assists to J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. It was some brilliant patience by Hughes, who weaved his way around the top of the zone, looking for a shooting lane, then struck as soon as one opened up, threading a shot through traffic that took a tiny deflection off Nicklas Backstrom to beat Vitek Vanecek.
- Then Pettersson drew a penalty and the power play went to work. With the Capitals’ penalty kill playing high on Hughes and cheating towards Pettersson, Horvat had space in the middle. That’s where Miller found him with a sneaky no-look pass and Horvat accepted the pass and whipped the puck past Vanecek all in one motion.
- “He's so good at it,” raved Horvat about Miller’s pass. “He kind of baits guys in and almost mesmerizes them. I know that it could be coming at any time, so I gotta be ready for it and he did a heck of a job finding me.”
- Less than two minutes later, Horvat gave the Canucks the lead and nearly caused the crowd to pop the roof off the building. The Canucks were buzzing around the offensive zone when Hughes set up Travis Hamonic for a one-timer that Vanecek couldn’t kick into the corner, leaving the puck on the doorstep for Horvat to calmly take to his backhand and tuck in.
- Hamonic has quietly been playing some pretty good hockey of late, aside from a few eye-catching mistakes. Boudreau bumped him up to play with Hughes and it seemed like a smart decision, making that pairing a little bit more dynamic than when Schenn is paired with Hughes.
- Everything was going so well until Tyler “Minors” Myers took a penalty late in the third period — a check to the head penalty on Kuznetsov. Some Canucks fans might not like the call, suggesting that Kuznetsov embellished by clutching his face and falling to the ice, but the simple fact is that Myers did hit Kuznetsov in the head. It was absolutely the right call.
- Here’s the problem: Kuznetsov got hit in the head, fell to the ice and stayed there, with a trainer coming out to tend to him. At that point, Kuznetsov should immediately go into concussion protocol — removed to a quiet room to undergo evaluation and testing. There are supposed to be concussion spotters in every rink, notifying the bench when a player exhibits visible signs of a concussion, such as kneeling on the ice in a daze. It should be automatic.
- Instead, Kuznetsov stayed in the game and was immediately back on the ice for the power play. Predictably, he scored the game-tying goal, completing the hat trick, but jamming in a puck at the side of the net after a wild scrum in front of the net. He shouldn’t have been on the ice at all.
- In overtime, Hughes tried to use his superlative skating to create something offensively, the same way he did during regulation, but Tom Wilson stayed right with him. Wilson eventually got the puck and sprung Carlson and Lars Eller on a 2-on-1. Hughes played Carlson aggressively at the blue line, but he snuck the pass through to Eller, who beat Demko five-hole.
- “[Wilson] stayed with me. He's got that long reach too, which helps him,” said Hughes. “I probably should have taken it out of the zone there, just knowing that he had a really good foot on me but I didn't want to do that — I don't want to say I rushed it but I just didn't want to do that and restart. He did a really good job defending me there.”
- Even if the Canucks don’t feel like it’s a good thing now, getting a point out of this game after heading into the third period down 2-0 is a win of sorts. The Canucks need every point they can get right now. This was a gutsy effort and hopefully one they can build on, knowing that they need to start playing with that third-period energy right from puck drop. Sure, it’s a lesson they should have already learned by now, but some students are more stubborn than others.
