The New York Rangers have been dominant this season, led by a trio of star forwards scoring at a point-per-game or better in Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, and Mika Zibanejad, an elite defenceman in Adam Fox, and a talented goaltending tandem of Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick. They have the NHL’s best power play, a top-tier penalty kill, and came into Monday night’s game with the best record in the Eastern Conference.
Perhaps the Canucks, after faltering in grind-em-out games against the St. Louis Blues and Philadelphia Flyers recently, would struggle to match up against such a difficult opponent.
Strike that. Reverse it.
The Vancouver Canucks have been dominant this season, led by a trio of star forwards scoring at a point-per-game or better in J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, and Brock Boeser, the league’s leading scorer among defencemen in Quinn Hughes, and a talented goaltending tandem of Vezina-favourite Thatcher Demko and backup Casey DeSmith. They have a top-ten power play, a swiftly improving penalty kill, the NHL’s best goal differential, and the second-best record in the Western Conference.
Perhaps the Rangers, after falling in the shootout to the mediocre Montreal Canadiens, would struggle to match up against such a difficult opponent.
This game was billed as a tough test for the Canucks, who keep having to prove that they belong with the top teams in the NHL, even as their record places them among the top teams in the NHL in the standings. But maybe this should have been billed as a tough test for the Rangers, who have been overly dependent on special teams this season with an even goal differential at 5-on-5.
At least, they had an even goal differential at 5-on-5 heading into Monday’s game. After the game, the Rangers dipped into the negative, because the Canucks beat the wheels off them, led by the recently re-formed Lotto Line.
The loaded-up first line of Boeser, Pettersson, and Miller were dominant against the Rangers, combining for four of the Canucks’ six goals, with Nils Höglander providing two more from the fourth line.
Looking at the final boxscore, one might think the Canucks were lucky to beat the Rangers. After all, the Rangers out-shot the Canucks 42-to-26, which looks rather alarming. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Through the first two periods, shot attempts were dead even, 38-to-38 at 5-on-5 and expected goals were narrowly in the Canucks’ favour, 2.04-to-1.98, and that doesn’t even adequately reflect the quality of chances the Canucks were able to create. At the very least, the Canucks kept pace with the Rangers at 5-on-5 and it’s only in the third period that the ice finally tilted for the Rangers as they scrambled to come back from a three-goal deficit.
If Monday night was the Rangers’ toughest test of the season, they utterly failed it.
“The chances that we let up tonight were way too loud,” said Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette. “About a dozen of them…They bit us right away against a team that’s got a lot of talent.”
“They’re the highest-scoring team in the league,” Laviolette added later. “They’ve got the biggest goal differential — plus/minus — and so you can’t afford to make those mistakes and expect to be successful.”
The Canucks weren’t tested on Monday night; the Canucks became the test.
I watched this game.
- In stark contrast to some of the drearier Canucks games in recent weeks, this was a wildly entertaining game, with the two teams exchanging chances and scoring highlight-reel goals. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but this would be an absolutely incredible match-up in the Stanley Cup Final. More of this kind of hockey, please, and less of whatever the heck the Blues and Flyers are doing.
- The game started out very poorly for the Canucks after a careless Nils Åman penalty in the offensive zone. The Rangers showed why they have a 30.0% power play, humming the puck around to create chaos in the Canucks crease, with Thatcher Demko losing his stick in a scramble. That seemed to completely unbalance him, as he was unable to recover on a fake shot by Mika Zibanejad, leaving an open net for Vincent Trocheck to open the scoring.
- The Lotto Line responded less than a minute later. Off a strong pinch by Filip Hronek, Boeser took the puck to the point, then swung it down low for Pettersson. That motion — what Tocchet would likely call a scissor play — took the Rangers’ forwards to the top of the zone and the defencemen to the goal line, leaving the middle wide open for Miller. With one motion, Pettersson picked the puck up off the boards and swung it to Miller for the one-timer, snapping it through New York like he was a Jet or a Shark rather than a Canuck.
- “They got one on the power play and we didn’t let that shake us at all,” said Miller. “We pushed back and that’s kinda where we’re trying to get to as a team, is having higher maturity level and being more comfortable being in those situations.”
- The Canucks quickly made the Rangers uncomfortable, taking the lead two minutes later. Quinn Hughes made a patient play to circle back in the neutral zone before sending the fourth line in on the attack. Sam Lafferty tipped the puck through to Nils Åman, who made up for his earlier penalty by spotting his fellow Nils, Höglander, streaking to the net behind the napping Rangers. Höglander’s finish was impeccable, going bar down to makedamnsure he beat Shesterkin.
- Pettersson still doesn’t get respect for his physical play. After he flattened Barclay Goodrow in the first period, Sportsnet’s Colby Armstrong surmised that Pettersson must be playing more physical because of Rick Tocchet, as if Pettersson hasn’t been catching opponents off guard with huge hits almost his entire career. Pettersson isn’t playing any more noticeably physical this season; he’s been playing like this for years.
- The Lotto Line provided a devastating blow with 16 seconds left in the first period. After a hard Miller and Pettersson forecheck forced the Rangers to clear the puck instead of breaking out with possession, Hughes recovered the puck and played a quick up off the boards to catch the Rangers on a change. Pettersson took the pass and slipped a gorgeously subtle feed past K’Andre Miller to send Boeser in alone and he splashed in the backhand like Steve-O and Machine Gun Kelly.
- I do have to poke a tiny hole in that goal, unfortunately. Pettersson’s assist looked like an incredible slip pass under Miller’s stick but it wasn’t. It was actually the backchecking Trocheck who poked it off Pettersson’s stick, perfectly setting up Boeser. You can see it on the slow motion, as well as Trocheck already looking to the sky in dismay before Boeser scored.
- The opening shift of the second period showed that the Lotto Line has to be a nightmare for other teams to play against even when they’re not making gorgeous plays. All three have incredible hand-eye coordination and make it so hard to get a pass by them, so they hemmed in the Rangers just because they kept knocking down, blocking, or deflecting every clearing attempt.
- The Lotto Line wasn’t perfect, unfortunately. Boeser tried to make a risky pass along the blue line to Nikita Zadorov for an egregious turnover. He got back to defend the rush but he was unfortunately trying to defend Artemi Panarin, which is notoriously difficult for even the best defencemen in the league; Boeser is not one of the best defencemen in the league. Panarin sniped the top corner with a ridiculous shot.
- It was a one-goal game until two of the Canucks’ Swedes decided to put on a Broadway show, like Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark with more stunts, fewer injuries, and no songs by Bono and The Edge.
- Teddy Blueger took a hit on a zone entry to send Pettersson and Boeser in on a 2-on-1, then Pettersson out-waited a sliding K’Andre Miller but couldn’t beat Shesterkin with his initial shot. No matter: Pettersson collected the rebound and, with the fanciest hands since Josh Farraday, he tucked the puck around Shesterkin from below the goal line while being tackled by Trocheck, who was not having any luck doing the latter half of his name.
- Of course, Pettersson humbly undersold his goal: “Teddy made a good play. I saw their D laid down and tried to chip it over his stick, shoot it, and score right away but when the puck ended up on my stick, I just tried to go around him. Yeah.”
- It seemed like things couldn’t get any fancier than that, but then Höglander provided a fancier feast. After Hronek broke up a Rangers rush, Pius Suter made a great play on the entry to draw in two defenders, then hit Höglander with a nice pass. Höglander went between the legs twice: first between his own legs to protect the puck from Adam Fox, then between Shesterkin’s legs to score the 5-2 goal.
- When it was suggested that Höglander’s goal might have been fancier than his own, Pettersson flashed a grin and said, “Both were good.”
- “Couple goals by Höggy, he gave us some energy and those goals were big for us,” said Tocchet. “You get a fourth line — I think they played 10 or 11 minutes — when they’re getting a couple of goals, that’s huge. Höggy can do that. Sometimes you want to bump him up, get him some shifts when he’s hot like that, but I just thought all four lines were contributing.”
- The most memeable moment of the night came after Höglander's second goal, when a Rangers fan was spotted lamenting everything in her life that had led her to that moment right behind the celebrating Höglander. An enterprising member of Canucks Twitter spotted the likeness to a relentlessly memed image of former Canuck Loui Eriksson and it really is uncanny.
- The Rangers scored early in the third period to give themselves some life. Hronek didn’t seem to realize he had enough support in the middle to pressure Trocheck on a Rangers transition and gave Trocheck far too much room on the outside. Trocheck took advantage of all that breathing room by ripping the puck top shelf over Demko’s shoulder to make it 5-3.
- The Rangers poured on the pressure in the third period, trying to claw their way back but Demko and the Canucks kept them at bay. At one point, Demko lost his stick on a scramble, much like he did on the first goal. Miller alertly handed him back his stick to prevent a disastrous sequel, like Son of the Mask.
- Finally, Pettersson ended the Rangers’ hopes of a comeback with an empty net goal. Tyler Myers picked up a misplayed pass along the boards and chipped the puck up the boards to Boeser, who relayed the puck to Pettersson for the easy goal from the neutral zone. That gave Pettersson a four-point night and moved him back into the top ten in NHL scoring, from which he had ever-so-briefly slipped.
- While the Lotto Line and Höglander got the goals, all four lines were clicking for the Canucks. The Good Job Boys on the third line led the team in corsi and expected goals, with Conor Garland coming a Chris Kreider stick lift away from scoring late in the first period after Teddy Blueger made like Agent Grant Ward and dove out to keep the play alive.
- The second line of Andrei Kuzmenko, Pius Suter, and Ilya Mikheyev was also dangerous, creating a series of dangerous chances that were just missing that last finishing touch. Kuzmenko looks revitalized after his most recent scratch and if that line can find some chemistry, it’ll make it a lot easier to keep the Lotto Line together, which seems like a pretty good idea.
- “It’s just so fun talking about it, talking about our line,” said Pettersson with a sarcastic twinge to his tone, clearly already tiring of the Lotto Line narrative. “No, but we played good. We understand each other and the way we want to defend and forecheck and that sets up good chances offensively for us.”
- Full credit to Thatcher Demko, who made 39 saves on 42 shots. A lot of those shots came on tips and deflections too, which, like an order from Wish.com, are very difficult to track. If Demko wasn’t already a Vezina favourite, a statement game like that against the Rangers will certainly help his case.
- As for the Canucks as a whole, they’re not getting too high or too low despite the big win. Tocchet commended them for staying “on an even keel,” which is good, because I’ve tried to stay on an odd keel before and it was really uncomfortable.
- “We’ve stuck to the mantra ‘day-by-day’ all year,” said Miller. “We’re going to totally enjoy tonight, we’re going to learn from what we didn’t do well tomorrow morning, and then we’re going to get right back at it.”
