53 shots on goal. 51 saves. One incredible win.
Thatcher Demko was incredible on Saturday, stealing a win for the Vancouver Canucks against the Toronto Maple Leafs with a career-high 51 saves, matching Richard Brodeur’s franchise record for the most saves in a win.
There’s a saying that wins are not a goaltender statistic, they’re a team statistic. But there are some nights where they’re definitely a goaltender statistic.
Demko was simply outstanding, making stop after stop on Grade-A chances. Natural Stat Trick had the Leafs at 42 scoring chances, 19 of them high-danger chances, with an expected goals of 5.62. With average goaltending at both ends of the ice, this game would have been a breeze for the Leafs. Instead, they got blown away.
“He was pretty good, wasn’t he?” said Bruce Boudreau. “Let’s face it, when you get 50-plus shots and only two power play goals, you’re goaltender is doing something really well.”
That might be the most impressive part of Demko’s game. At even-strength, he was perfect, stopping all 41 shots he faced. It was only on the power play that the Leafs were able to beat Demko and it’s awfully difficult to blame him for those goals when the Canucks still have the worst penalty kill in the NHL. The two pucks that got past him were nigh-unstoppable.
Of course, it’s a little bit troubling that the Canucks were out-shot 53-to-24. In every aspect but goaltending, the Leafs dominated the game.
Boudreau was dismissive of that, simply happy to get the win.
“I don’t care if we got outplayed, we ended up winning the game and that’s the bottom line,” said Boudreau. “It would take a fool to think that we don’t know the goalie was amazing.
“But he’s our goalie and we get to have him every night.”
Demko, meanwhile, seemed completely unfazed by facing a whopping 53 shots and setting a new career-high in saves. One of the most impressive aspects of Demko’s game is his complete unflappability, neither getting too high nor too low.
When asked if it was a game he would remember, Demko simply said, “I don’t know. Maybe you have to ask me in a couple months.”
“You’re just kind of in the moment. If the puck’s coming, you’re trying to get in the way,” said Demko. “Half the time, I don’t even know who’s on the ice.”
Right. No big deal. Just another day at the office for Thatcher Demko.
But it was a pretty extraordinary day at the office for me when I watched this game.
- Specifically, it was a day at my home office, which is a desk in the corner of my bedroom, as I watched this game at home with my kids.
- When I first asked Miller about Demko’s performance, he looked off-camera, smiled, sat back in his chair, and deadpanned, “Oh, he’s the best,” then grinned widely and added, “He’s sitting right here.” There has to be a certain awkwardness to praising a guy who’s looking right at you.
- The Canucks have had two dreadful first periods in their last two games, so you could tell that getting off to a strong start was a priority against the Leafs, as they came out guns a-blazing — which is not a recommended way to dispose of your firearms. Please, do not set your guns on fire.
- The new-look first line all kicked in on the opening goal. Brock Boeser made a great play to close off the wall in the neutral zone to block Justin Holl’s pass and gain the Leafs’ zone, then he dropped the puck to J.T. Miller, who sent Bo Horvat in behind the defence. Horvat drove to the net but got pokechecked, only for the puck to find Miller, who patiently waited out the sprawling bodies before hitting the net like a kid in the late 90’s with an AOL disc.
- A quick perusal of social media would tell you that Leafs’ fans were incensed that the Leafs coaches chose not to challenge the goal — obviously, Horvat interfered with goaltender Peter Mrazek, right? Only, the replay shows Mrazek’s poke check actually sent his stick right into the gap between Horvat’s skate boot and blade, simultaneously tripping Horvat and spinning Mrazek around as the stick was yanked out of his hand. It's hard to call goaltender interference when the goaltender initiated the contact and the evidence was still stuck in Horvat’s skate.
- A few minutes later, the Canucks struck again, this time on the power play. Miller kept the puck in the zone with a savvy stick check on David Kampf, then a few moments later made on of his patented blind backhand passes to Oliver Ekman-Larsson at the point. The veteran defenceman’s hard and low slap shot somehow ended up behind Mrazek in the crease and Boeser banged it home.
- Watching the replay carefully, Ekman-Larsson’s shot took a deflection between Jake Muzzin’s legs, then ramped up the body of Mrazek, then hit Boeser in the side of the head. Honestly, it shows great presence of mind on Boeser’s part to remain unfazed by getting hit in the site of the head by a puck but, then again, that’s probably why he knew exactly where the puck was in order to score.
- Travis Hamonic returned to the lineup for the first time in two months, activated off the Injured Reserve while dealing with a mystery ailment that not even his head coach seemed to understand. He…wasn’t great. The Canucks were out-attempted 26-to-6 when he was on the ice at 5-on-5 and out-shot 12-to-4. In a game where a lot of Canucks were out-shot, Hamonic and his defence partner, Kyle Burroughs, were by far the worst.
- “It probably would have been better if he was able to play against somebody else for his first game in 10 weeks,” said Boudreau. “But I thought he handles himself pretty well against the onrush that the Leafs can provide. I’m pretty sure he’s just going to get better — this is his first game and he’s had one practice.”
- This game could have gone very differently but for a little puck luck at the end of the period. William Nylander lifted Hamonic’s stick behind the net and set up Auston Matthews for a last-second shot from the top of the zone. Demko stopped him, but then T.J. Brodie jumped up past Jason Dickinson and rung the rebound off the inside of the post, with only a well-timed stick check by Luke Schenn preventing Sandin from putting the puck into the resultant open net.
- The legend of Luke Schenn lives on. He’s already one of the most prolific hitters in NHL history — he’s 8th all-time since the NHL started recording the statistic — and he rocked Rasmus Sandin with a heavy hit that dislodged one of the panels of glass. He didn’t break it, like Trevor Linden once did, but it was still a big hit.
- The Leafs took over in the second period, firing a whopping 24 shots on goal. They pinned the Canucks in their own zone for multiple three-counts but the referees refused to stop the fight. Clearly, the fix was in.
- The first Leafs goal came after an overly-aggressive play by Ekman-Larsson and Tyler Myers on the penalty kill, both of them attacking the corner on a puck that wasn’t as loose as it seemed. Marner split the two defencemen with a pass to Nylander for a chance from the slot, then John Tavares was all alone in front and left Demko helpless when, instead of shoveling the rebound on net, kicked the puck out to Matthews for the finish.
- It was great passing by Marner and Tavares but it was also dreadful penalty killing by the Canucks. Both defencemen can’t get stuck in the corner like that and all three of Nylander, Tavares, and Matthews were extremely open.
- The penalty kill was victimized again for the tying goal, though this time it was just a fantastic play by the Leafs, with little the Canucks could do. Jason Spezza, perhaps inspired by being in Vancouver, unleashed a slap-pass that would have made Henrik Sedin proud, putting it right on Ondrej Kase’s backhand for the deflection up under the bar.
- The Canucks’ fourth line had a fantastic response after the 2-2 goal. A misplayed Leafs pass in the neutral zone landed right on Tyler Motte’s stick and he jumped into the Leafs’ zone and fed Alex Chiasson on the left wing. Chiasson’s shot wasn’t intended to score — he put it low on Mrazek’s left pad, forcing the goaltender to kick the puck into the slot, where Juho Lammikko was all over it like gravy on poutine to restore the Canucks lead.
- “[Lammiko’s] a guy everyone loves,” said Demko. “He’s a good spirit. He’s always got a smile on his face — missing some teeth but the effort’s there, nonetheless. He plays a hard, physical, committed game and that resonates through our dressing room…A goal at that point in the game is big regardless, but when it’s scored by a guy like that, I think it just adds a little bit more to it.”
- “[Lammikko] played a really solid game,” said Boudreau. “He’s an anchor on that line. You need a good fourth-line centre and he’s turning out to be that — he’s responsible, I just love the way he plays right now. He’s playing with a lot of confidence because we’ve been playing him quite often.”
- From there, it was just a matter of holding the one-goal lead through the third period and Demko came up big to do exactly that. It felt like a shooting gallery at times, but Demko was like the paper star at the carnival shootout game, bending but not breaking, making it impossible for the Leafs to win.
- Demko didn’t do it entirely on his own, of course. Tyler Myers saved a goal at one point, as Kase made a superb pass against the grain behind the net, completely bamboozling Demko, but Myers was alert and knocked the puck away from Spezza before he could put it in the empty side.
- The Canucks came a hair’s breadth away from sealing the game with an empty-netter, as Boeser dove out to swat the puck to Miller for a breakaway, but Miller was just barely offside. And by barely, I mean barely. The best angle on the replay showed that Miller’s skate blade was touching the blue line as the puck was about to cross, then was over the line with mere millimetres of the puck still touching the blue line. It doesn’t get any closer than that.
- The long offside review was ultimately moot. Demko slammed the door shut in the final seconds and the Canucks pulled out the 3-2 win, much to the chagrin of the overly-represented Leafs fans at Rogers Arena. On the plus side, the competing chants and cheers of the Leafs and Canucks fans managed to make the half-full arena sound like it was at capacity. The invasion of rival fans isn’t always a bad thing.
