The longest undefeated streak in Canucks history lasted a full month.
It was the 2002-03 Canucks at the peak of the West Coast Express era. Markus Naslund had 48 goals and 104 points that season, finishing just two goals behind Milan Hejduk for the Rocket Richard trophy and two points behind Peter Forsberg for the Art Ross. He did manage to win the Lester B. Pearson Award as the best player in the NHL as voted on by his peers.
Todd Bertuzzi had 46 goals and 97 points, while Brendan Morrison rounded out the top line with 25 goals and 71 points of his own.
On January 26, 2003, the Canucks beat the Phoenix Coyotes 1-0. They wouldn’t lose another game until February 27, 2003 — a 3-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks. The Canucks played a total of 14 games in that time, winning 10 and tying 4 in the days before the shootout was introduced.
That same season, the Canucks had their longest winning streak in franchise history, surprisingly at a completely different point in the schedule from the longest undefeated streak. Again, starting with a win over the Coyotes on November 9, 2003, the Canucks won ten-straight games.
I bring this up because this season’s Canucks are approaching both of those records. Sort of.
With their win over the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday night, the Canucks have a perfect 7-0-0 record under new head coach Bruce Boudreau. If they can win their next two games — eminently winnable games against the Los Angeles Kings and Seattle Kraken — they’ll match the longest undefeated streak in franchise history. At least, in days.
Their next game after that will be on January 5, which would mean they would be undefeated for, at minimum, 31 full days, just like the 2002-03 Canucks. Sure, they had five postponed games along the way to extend their time without a loss but who’s counting? Other than me when I just said “five.”
Win that game against the Islanders and the Canucks will have a franchise record-tying ten-straight wins.
Okay, maybe that’s counting chickens before they’re hatched but it’s hard to avoid being excited about this team right now. All of the frustration and despair clogging the arteries of Canucks fans’ hearts has been cleared away and suddenly the optimistic blood is pumping again.
Just don’t look at the standings to see how many teams they still need to pass to get into playoff position. Seriously, don’t do it. Bask in the optimism for a while. It feels good.
I started looking up statistics like “longest undefeated streak in Canucks history” after I watched this game.
- The Canucks were missing Brock Boeser for this game (as well as Phillip Di Giuseppe) after a positive COVID-19 test but the Ducks were missing rookie phenom Trevor Zegras, who has 25 points in 30 games this season and has been a major play-driver for the Ducks. We’ll call it even — after all, Boeser had five goals in six games heading into this one.
- Nils Höglander was arguably the Canucks’ best forward in this game, as he had plenty of jump right from puck drop, while his teammates seemed to take some time finding their legs. Shots on goal were 11-to-3 for the Canucks when Höglander was on the ice at 5-on-5 and five of those shots came from Höglander himself, with another on the power play.
- The other candidate for best forward was Conor Garland, who had chance after chance in this game but couldn’t buy a goal. He got robbed on a breakaway, stoned on a 2-on-1, and deked his way right into goaltender John Gibson after a fantastic pass by Elias Pettersson sent him in alone. Gibson didn’t wait long after Christmas to take down Garland.
- Look, they postponed all of the other games around Christmas, I had to force in at least one terrible Christmas garland pun at some point.
- Speaking of Christmas, Boudreau was wearing a delightfully-jolly Christmas mask behind the Canucks bench even though Christmas has come and gone. I thought perhaps he donned the gay apparel because the team’s games before Christmas were postponed but not so according to Boudreau: "It's the only one my wife gave me, so I have to wear it!"
- The Ducks opened the scoring right after a first period power play. As Sam Carrick picked up a head of steam on the breakout, two things happened defensively for the Canucks: Tucker Poolman pinched up in the neutral zone and Brad Hunt didn’t drop back enough to make up for Carrick’s speed. As a result, Carrick blew past Hunt on Poolman’s side of the ice and made a lovely move to the forehand to chip the puck over Thatcher Demko’s pad.
- It was terrible luck for Hunt: that was literally the only Ducks shot on goal for which Hunt was on the ice all game. The Canucks out-shot the Ducks 10-to-1 when Hunt was on the ice at 5-on-5 but that one shot went in. I’m betting Carrick was cheating and holding the NES Zapper against the screen for that one.
- At one point late in the first, it looked like the Canucks were going to get a power play when Quinn Hughes was tripped. Only, the replays made it clear that Hughes actually just stepped on the puck and sent himself tuchus over teakettle. Surprisingly, the referees got together, discussed it, and made the right call, correcting the ref that was going to call a tripping penalty and just restarting play with a faceoff. I like it. Refs should get together and admit when they’re wrong more often.
- After a fairly even first period, the Canucks were all over the Ducks like dead ants on Trix but they just couldn’t get the puck past Gibson, who seems to transmogrify into a brick wall every time he faces the Canucks, who really need to figure out a way to steal his upside-down cardboard box.
- The ice was seriously tilted after the first: the Canucks out-shot the Ducks 28-to-15 in the second and third periods but could only get one puck past Gibson. His best save was probably this ridiculous right shoulder save on Pettersson after he gave the puck away to Garland behind the net. Gibson had to shrug harder than Colin Farrell to make that save.
- Gibson was playing so well that he had the Canucks second-guessing with the puck, like this moment from Jason Dickinson, who couldn’t decide whether to shoot or pass to Bo Horvat for the tap-in, waiting a split second too long and allowing Kevin Shattenkirk time to check Horvat’s stick and prevent a clean shot.
- In terms of creating scoring chances, this might have been the Canucks’ best game under Boudreau. “I think that’s just from playing really good defence,” said Boudreau. “We also got some great looks from great passing, whether it was J.T. Miller’s pass [on the Tanner Pearson goal], Petey had a couple of good passes to Garland, tic-tac-toe, and when you pass fast, you play fast.”
- The passing was perfect on Pearson’s tying goal but it also helped that the Canucks attacked in a surprising way. Both Hughes and Tanner Pearson started in the defensive zone on a regroup but ended up with a 2-on-1 from coming up through the neutral zone and hitting the Ducks’ blue line together.
- Hughes sent the puck up to J.T. Miller in the neutral zone, then jumped up the left wing, where Miller found him with the return pass. Meanwhile, Pearson zipped up the middle of the ice and took advantage of some confused Ducks coverage to get in behind the defence. Hughes hit him with the pass early and Pearson gave it the ol’ two-touch: one touch to stop the puck, the next to fire it past a sliding Gibson.
- “When [Hughes] gives it to me going the other direction, I know he's moving up the ice,” said Miller. “He's so smart, he knows how to get their players to turn their back and I was trying to just be a little patient there and let the play open up…We knew that we were trying to do a little give-and-go there and he made the rest of it.”
- Miller had two dreadful giveaways in the defensive zone in this game and an ugly puck-over-glass penalty. But he was also instrumental in both Canucks’ goals, so who can complain? He also threw five hits and went head-to-head with the Ducks’ top line.
- Honestly, the way the Canucks played, clawing back from being 1-0 down and creating chance after chance, it would have still felt like a pretty good game if the Canucks didn’t pull out the win. Don’t say that to Miller, though.
- “I think we're tired of saying we played good, but it wasn't enough,” said Miller. “We needed two points tonight. We understand that we're creeping back in this right now. There's tons of belief and I don't think this room would have been satisfied with anything other than two points.”
- Miller made sure to get those two points. After a Tyler Myers turnover and blown tire in the neutral zone gave the Ducks a 3-on-1 in overtime, the Ducks blew their passing play. Miller picked up the loose puck and chipped it ahead for a breakaway. Gibson might’ve had a chance to charge out and play the puck; instead, he stayed back, Miller skated onto it, and fired the puck past Gibson’s blocker with a wickedly quick release.
- “I shoot glove on him all the time, back when we were playing junior together, he knows I like to go glove,” said Miller, who played with Gibson with the U.S. National Team Development Program. “So, I pretty much had my mind made up that if I got a chance at any point in the game today, I was going to try to shoot blocker on him and obviously that was a good opportunity to try it.”
- As for chipping the puck ahead of him the way he did, Miller quipped, “That's pretty textbook,” then added, “I had to kind of be strong on my stick and to be honest with you, I'm surprised it settled where it did. I thought I shot it all the way down the ice.”
- I joked about not looking at the standings earlier but a quick glance tells you that this Anaheim Ducks team is pretty dang good. Sure, they were missing Zegras, but they’re second in the Pacific Division behind only the Vegas Golden Knights. Even if the Ducks were missing Zegras, this win is a pretty nice feather in the Canucks’ cap.
- Yes, it’s a duck feather. Moving on.
