The Los Angeles Kings had the Vancouver Canucks’ number last season. The Kings won three of their four meetings and the only game the Canucks took from them came by the skin of their teeth in overtime.
The Kings’ 1-3-1 neutral zone trap seemed to be the Canucks’ kryptonite, stymying all of their attempts move the puck up ice, leading to frustrating, boring games.
Thankfully, the Kings don’t play that same system anymore, though Thursday night’s game between the Canucks and Kings might make them go back to it. The Canucks controlled the pace of play for the vast majority of the game and were smothering defensively, giving the Kings nothing in the middle of the ice.
Don’t get me wrong, it was still a close game, but it was night and day from last season where the Canucks couldn’t seem to solve the Kings. This time around, it was the Kings who couldn’t solve the Canucks.
Or, more accurately, the Kings couldn’t solve Quinn Hughes.
It’s one thing to dominate against the bottom-of-the-Pacific Anaheim Ducks. It’s quite another to do it against the Kings. Hughes was just as dominant against both teams.
Shot attempts were 21-to-10 for the Canucks when Hughes was on the ice at even strength. According to Natural Stat Trick, scoring chances were 9-to-2 for the Canucks in those minutes and high-danger chances were 5-to-0.
Hughes was outstanding defensively in this game, repeatedly ending Kings offensive zone possessions with a quick pokecheck or a sticklift and immediately moving the puck up ice.
And, of course, he was a wizard in the offensive zone, with a goal and an assist on plays that he created ex nihilo. He was a nightmare for the Kings all night long.
“He’s pretty elite. Especially when we’re playing man-on-man teams, I feel bad — it would suck trying to cover him out there,” said J.T. Miller, who added with an impish grin, “He won the Norris last year, so we have a high expectation for him.”
Miller is right. Hughes is so good that he makes an entire style of playing defence — man-to-man — obsolete. It’s enough to make a team want to entirely change their system.
But seriously, Kings, you can keep playing man-to-man defence and you definitely don’t need to go back to the 1-3-1. Don’t do it. It’s the death of hockey. Without it, it was actually entertaining when I watched this game.
- As much as the win was nice, it was tarnished by Brock Boeser getting a blindside hit to the head by Tanner Jeannot. It was an ugly, unnecessary hit that was deserving of the match penalty it received and Jeannot should also receive a lengthy suspension. Frankly, knowing what we know about concussions and their long-term effects, Jeannot deserves a lot worse than a suspension.
- Here’s hoping that Boeser, who has gone through enough injury troubles in his career, won’t miss a significant amount of time with a concussion. Throw the book at Jeannot. Actually, throw several books at Jeannot. Heavy ones.
- Long before the hit, the game got off to a poor start for the Canucks. With plenty of time and zero pressure, Vincent Desharnais foolishly attempted to bank a stretch pass off the boards, turning it over in the neutral zone. That could have been fine but then he stood more flat-footed than a green army man, allowing Quinton Byfield to burst past him and drive to the net to open the scoring.
- The Canucks tied up the game during Jeannot’s match penalty. Hughes fired the puck cross-ice to J.T. Miller, who one-timed a pass to Conor Garland as he snuck to the backdoor. Garland actually lost control of the puck but Darcy Kuemper helped him out by swatting the puck into the net for an own goal. The Kings should consider putting Kuemper on the power play; he’s got the net-front finish of Tomas Holmström.
- With Boeser out, Nils Höglander stepped into his spot on Miller’s wing and comported himself well. Meanwhile, Garland ended up double-shifting on Elias Pettersson’s line and on the fourth line in place of Höglander, leading to 22:24 in ice time for the winger — a career-high by one second, as he played 22:23 in a game with the Arizona Coyotes on March 3, 2021 that also happened to be against the Kings.
- Daniel Sprong’s defensive lapses were a focal point early in the season, so I thought it was only fair to point out when he made a strong defensive play. Late in the first, he saw Carson Soucy was pinching up the boards and rotated up to the point to cover for him, leading to him defending against Trevor Lewis one-on-one. Sprong stayed right with him, swept the puck off his stick, then stick-checked Lewis again behind the net, leading to the puck heading right back out of the Canucks’ zone.
- The Canucks took the lead in the second period on a superb shift by Hughes. He first created a great scoring chance for himself with a drive to the net down the right side, then danced around Akil Thomas and drew everyone’s attention to himself like he was Kat Stratford, leaving Jake DeBrusk wide open on the opposite side like Patrick Verona. Hughes found DeBrusk with the puck and the winger scored in his third-straight game with a lovely move around an over-aggressive Kuemper to tuck the puck inside the post.
- Pettersson didn’t find the scoresheet but he still had a great game. He was primarily matched up against the Kings’ top line led by Anze Kopitar and the Kings had just one shot on goal when the two centres were on the ice together at even strength. On top of that, he was a key part of the penalty kill, even saving a goal in the second period when he beat Kopitar to a loose puck during a scramble in the crease, then cleared the puck out of danger before Kevin Fiala could poke it home.
- Filip Hronek very much does not like being called for penalties that he feels he does not deserve — and he feels like he does not deserve any penalties. Either that or he was doing his best dramatic chipmunk impression.
- Poor Akil Thomas is going to need to take a mental health day. First, Hughes deked him out of his hockey pants on the DeBrusk goal, then Hughes victimized him again for a goal of his own. Hughes is going to show up in Thomas’s nightmares at this rate.
- It was an unassisted goal to boot. Hughes kept a puck in at the line, then juked Thomas into oblivion. At one point, Thomas’s feet were flailing around like a cartoon character waiting for gravity to kick in, likely with a sound effect straight out of Scooby Doo. That opened up a huge shooting lane and Hughes fired a wrist shot through it, past a J.T. Miller screen and into the net to make it 3-1.
- The Kings pushed back hard in the third period, to the point that they were throwing four forwards and one defenceman on the ice at 5-on-5. Ironically, when they pulled within one it was the lone defenceman on the ice who scored. Kevin Lankinen couldn’t see Vladislav Gavrikov’s point shot through the double screen of Trevor Lewis and Tyler Myers and it sailed past him into the net.
- Teams have no answer for Hughes between the whistles, so you have to wonder if they’ll start trying to find an answer after the whistle. That seemed to be the case late in the third, as Brandt Clarke got his glove up in Hughes’s face after an offside whistle and Hughes retaliated by ripping Clarke’s helmet off.
- While it’s nice to see that kind of take-no-crap feistiness from Hughes, the offsetting minor penalties took Hughes off the ice for two minutes in a one-goal game, which is less than ideal. Hughes can’t let that be the blueprint for getting him off his game — or just off the ice. That said, it was his first penalty of the season, so he’s a pretty disciplined guy. He’ll probably be fine.
- Rick Tocchet had the Canucks do a drill at practice where they shot for the empty net from their own zone and if they missed, they had to skate a lap. That drill paid off as Miller jumped on a loose puck in the defensive zone and sent it the length of the ice for the 4-2 insurance goal into the empty net.
- The drill didn’t pay off for Tyler Myers, unfortunately. He had two shots on an empty net from his own zone and missed both of them. That’s two laps for Mysie.
- Tocchet jokingly suggested, “[Miller] didn’t want to skate, that’s why he put it in.” Miller, however, didn’t give Tocchet any credit for the goal — “Absolutely not, absolutely not” — but said he might have if Myers had scored on his empty-net attempts.
- With the win, the Canucks swept California — the first time in team history they’ve done so in consecutive games on a road trip. To be fair, the California road trip ain’t what it used to be with the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks at the bottom of the Pacific Division but this was an impressive win over the Kings.
