The Vancouver Canucks were playing a nearly perfect road game against the Florida Panthers. They battled to a standstill in the first period, then took over in the second to take a two-goal lead heading into the final frame.
Then the third period happened and it nearly all fell apart.
It’s been a pattern on this four-game road trip: one period where they get brutally outplayed. In the previous three games, it was the second period. In Edmonton and Tampa Bay, the Canucks were out-shot 18-to-6 in the second period; in Philadelphia, they were out-shot 22-to-3.
So, when the Canucks flipped the script and doubled-up the Panthers 12-to-6 in shots in the second period, it seemed like they’d sorted out that major issue.
But the Panthers dominated the third period. The Canucks got one shot in the opening minute of the period, then the Panthers got 16 of the next 17 shots and erased the Canucks’ two-goal lead.
Last season’s Canucks gave up a lot of multi-goal leads, so they were in familiar territory. The difference is that this time they got a goal back and actually won.
It was a nice change of pace when I watched this game.
- Oliver Ekman-Larsson is having a nice little post-Canucks renaissance with the Florida Panthers, as he’s playing top-pairing minutes and quarterbacking the first power play unit. He was dominant for most of the game, leading the Panthers in corsi — they out-attempted the Canucks 30-to-10 when he was on the ice at 5-on-5 — but he was also partly responsible for the Canucks’ game-winning goal, so there’s still a little bit of Canuck left in him.
- Casey DeSmith was superb for the Canucks with 33 saves on 36 shots and was particularly good in the first period when the Panthers poured on some early pressure. It says a lot about the faith the Canucks have in their backup that they have already given him two starts in the first five games of the season, none of them on back-to-backs.
- Ilya Mikheyev made a most welcome return to the lineup and slotted into the top-six on a line with Elias Pettersson and Andrei Kuzmenko. He had more sudden bursts of speed in this game than he did all of last season, illustrating just how much his knee injury affected him. It’s clear he’s still ramping up his game but the Pettersson line immediately looked better with him on it.
- “[Mikheyev] comes back — I love this guy, he’s a big help for me,” said Kuzmenko, who said he helped Mikheyev with his communication. “Mikky says to me, ‘Kuzy, can you please English words?’ Because Petey doesn’t understand on the bench.”
- Quinn Hughes was absolutely outstanding in this game. He controlled puck possession and the pace of play brilliantly, with a game-high six shots on goal in 25:30 of ice time. It was all the more impressive because he was hard-matched against the Panthers’ best players all night long, though it might be more accurate to say they were hard-matched against him. It was some real Rorschach “You’re locked in here with me” energy.
- Hughes opened the scoring on the power play with a point shot past a Pettersson screen but that seemed pedestrian compared to the ridiculous keep-in at the blue line Hughes made a minute earlier. He was like Omniman catching Invincible’s punch with how swiftly he knocked down the puck.
- Hughes holding the blue line kept the Panthers’ penalty kill on their heels and even when the puck eventually came out of the zone, Hughes moved it back in so quickly that their penalty killers never had time to change. By the time Hughes fired the puck top corner past Sergei Bobrovsky, it was a mercy kill, finally letting the penalty kill off the ice after a minute-and-a-half hemmed into their own zone.
- The lead lasted just 20 seconds. Pius Suter, Sam Lafferty, and Dakota Joshua got caught too high in the neutral zone and Ian Cole and Tyler Myers were further apart than the eyes of a hammerhead shark, giving up the middle of the ice. When Myers was over-aggressive at the blue line, Evan Rodrigues tipped the puck through to Barkov, who was left all alone to deke out DeSmith.
- The line of Suter, Lafferty, and Joshua got eaten alive in this game. Shot attempts were 20-to-3 for the Panthers when Joshua was on the ice at 5-on-5, shots on goal were 10-to-0, and goals were 2-to-0. Not to get too technical but that’s known in hockey terms as “bad” and also “not good.”
- The Canucks power play gave them the 2-1 lead in the second period, though the goal came from an unlikely source. Carson Soucy came out at the end of the power play so the Canucks could have two defencemen on the ice and, when the Panthers’ penalty kill couldn’t clear the puck past Anthony Beauvillier and Conor Garland, Soucy cut into the high slot and picked the top corner.
- Then Kuzmenko went to work below the goal line, jumping on a loose puck and holding off Niko Mikkola before sending a spinning backhand pass to Pettersson inside the left faceoff circle. Pettersson ripped a quick shot past Bobrovsky’s glove, then just as quickly pointed to Kuzmenko for the brilliant pass.
- The goal was Pettersson’s second point of the game, giving him 10 points in 5 games to start the season, tied for the league lead with Jack Hughes. And that’s while battling an injury. Guys, I think Pettersson is going to, as Beck says, get real paid.
- The Panthers started on the comeback with a goal from Sam Reinhart, who got loose from Hughes in one of the defenceman’s only mistakes of the game. Rodrigues skated literal circles around the line of Suter, Lafferty, and Joshua, then sent a shot that DeSmith couldn’t swallow up and Reinhart put back the rebound.
- DeSmith made save after save in the third period but couldn’t keep Reinhart from tying the game 3-3 with a five-hole goal after a pass from below the goal line. The more troubling part of the goal was the exceptionally soft defence from Filip Hronek. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve been underwhelmed by Hronek so far this season. Or maybe “underwhelmed” is overstating it; maybe I’ve just been whelmed.
- This game could’ve gotten away from the Canucks if not for Phil Di Giuseppe, who absolutely clowned Oliver Ekman-Larsson in a battle of the three-part names. Ekman-Larsson had position on Di Giuseppe but PDG out-worked OEL to win the puck, then fought off Gustav Forsling too, holding onto the puck until he was joined by Kuzmenko on a line change. He fed Kuzmenko, who was left all alone, and the Russian echoed Di Giuseppe’s patience, waiting for Bobrovsky to hit the ice before he hit the open net.
- “This is a Phil goal, it’s not for me,” said Kuzmenko. “I say, ‘Phil, before my goal is a big work. I like it, it’s your goal.’”
- This was a standout game for Andrei Kuzmenko, who had a goal, a stunning assist, and drew a key penalty on Ekman-Larsson in front of the Panthers net that led to Soucy’s 2-1 goal. It’s a game Kuzmenko needed as he’s had a slow start to the season. It’s not regression, as his shooting percentage is actually higher than last season, if you can believe it — he just hasn’t been able to get many shots.
- “[Kuzmenko] went to the net with a vengeance tonight, he was in front battling,” said Tocchet. “Those are the things we’re looking for. The system stuff will come, I don’t want him to overthink it… He can do triple salchows, I don’t care what he does if just does the system stuff, like the staples of it.”
- It’s pretty telling that Tyler Myers had the lowest ice time among the Canucks defence in this game. He was benched for the final 14 minutes of the game, which strongly suggests that, unlike Lt. Daniel Kaffee, Rick Tocchet can handle the truth, that truth being that Myers probably shouldn’t be trusted with a lead.
- Brock Boeser capped off the win with an empty net goal shot with confident authority from the defensive zone. That gives Boeser six goals on the season, tied with Auston Matthews, Sam Reinhart, and Nikita Kucherov for the league lead. More importantly, he’s already 20% of the way to 30 goals and we’re only 6% of the way through the season. He might make it this season, folks.
