One month into the season, the Vancouver Canucks were in dire straits and needed one thing more than any other — they needed their goaltenders to start stealing wins.
Nothing else could so swiftly improve the Canucks’ fortunes, as the team’s other issues were too deep-rooted to solve quickly. Ever since, at least one of their goaltenders got the memo.
Over the last month, Thatcher Demko has been exceptional. His .945 save percentage leads all NHL goaltenders in that timeframe and he’s absolutely stolen games that the team in front of him didn’t deserve to win.
Case in point, Monday’s game against the Ottawa Senators. Demko faced 46 shots on goal, tied for the most he’s faced all season. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Canucks allowed a season-high 20 high-danger chances. The Canucks were badly out-shot, out-chanced, and outworked — they shouldn’t have won but Demko stood on his head.
Metaphorically, of course — the butterfly is much less effective when it’s inverted.
Demko’s been so good over the last month, that we’re running out of superlatives to describe his excellence. J.T. Miller didn’t even bother trying.
“I feel like I said the same thing about him every time: he's giving us a chance to win and that's all you can ask,” said Miller. “He's a really good goalie, that's it.”
That’s why it’s hard not to laugh at the tweet from Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini shortly after the game ended.
“Not sure why we were so dismal at the start of the season,” reads Aquilini’s tweet, “but the wins are starting to come and man, what goaltending we’re getting!”
The answer to the question posed by the start of the tweet can be found at the end of the tweet. Over the last month, the Canucks have been getting the best goaltending in the NHL by Demko. That’s why the wins are “starting to come.”
Tweeting that after this particular game is incredible. The Canucks needed Demko to stop 44 of 46 shots — a .956 save percentage — to barely eke out of a victory in overtime against the Senators, who are in last place in the all-Canadian North Division and have the worst goal differential in the NHL.
Yes, the Canucks were dismal at the start of the season but they weren’t much better on Monday. Many of the same issues that made them dismal are still there. The difference is the goaltending.
Canucks head coach Travis Green had a much more realistic take on the game.
“Well, I'm happy we won the game,” said Green. “I didn't think we skated very well, I didn't think we passed the puck very well and our goalie to give us the game.”
Demko gave us this game; I watched this game.
- Every fantastic performance from Demko this season has immediately been compared to “Bubble Demko,” who has become a nearly mythological figure in Canucks lore. Bubble Demko faced 50 — no, 100! — shots per game and turned every one of them aside with his 36 limbs, each of them equipped with both a blocker and a glove — even his 6 legs. But maybe Bubble Demko is just...Demko. He’s just a really good goaltender.
- “He played three games, might have been the best three games of hockey I’ve seen out of a goalie in a row,” said Green. “I think it's unfair for people to expect... They keep talking about that time, I think he's just developing into a good young goalie. He's playing very, very well right now.”
- The Canucks kept leaving players wide open in the slot and Demko kept bailing them out with his sound positioning, high shoulders, and flexible legs. It was a masterclass in two things: puck-watching and puck-tracking. The former is bad, the latter is good.
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- Side note: "high shoulders and flexible legs" is a really terrible combination of compliments to give your significant other, unless they are also a goaltender.
- Demko had some help from a quick whistle and his trusty goalposts. The Senators actually got a puck through Demko about five minutes in off a weird bounce off the end boards, but the ref thought he had it covered and blew the play dead before the puck crossed the line. They also hit two posts and two crossbars, so that should sound the alarm for the Canucks: Demko was magnificent, several bounces went their way, and they still only eked out a win in overtime.
- “In the game, you're telling yourself that's all they had just to keep the confidence high,” said Demko about the sound of the puck hitting the post. “You check quickly behind you to make sure it didn't go post and in and once you confirm that you can kind of take a quick sigh of relief.”
- Jayce Hawryluk had 7 points in 11 games for the Senators last season and he decided to give them a little taste of what they were missing after they chose not to re-sign him in the offseason. He opened the scoring with a solid net-front battle, spinning off of Christian Wolanin to slam home a Brandon Sutter rebound for his first goal as a Canuck and the first goal of the game.
- Side note: Hawryluk confirmed that his on-ice nickname is “Howie,” which is disappointing. I was hoping that even with the standard hockey nickname conventions that they would grab the last part of his name and call him “Lucky.”
- Tanner Pearson made it 2-0 late in the first period off of a dreadful turnover by Colin White. Someone could be heard shouting, “White!” just before the Senators centre blindly threw the puck up the middle, but it apparently wasn’t Pearson. White put it right on Pearson’s tape for the one-timer and now White has more assists on Pearson goals this season than Bo Horvat does.
- The Canucks struggled to get the puck out of the defensive zone all game and one of their failed clearances came back to bite them. Nate Schmidt banked the puck off the glass but Pearson blew the zone instead of making sure the puck got out. Tim Stützle hit the post a moment later and Josh Norris sent the rebound towards the net, where it banked in off Alex Edler’s skate.
- The Canucks got a couple of chintzy calls in the second period that were borderline but understandable. It’s just frustrating when those types of nothing plays get called and dangerous hits in the numbers like this one by Norris on Hawryluk don’t get called. Hawryluk said it was just a “tweak” and he was fine, but we’re seeing more of these types of hits go uncalled around the league.
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- Hawryluk bounced around lines as Green tried to find a spark. “I did play him more as the game went on because I thought he was having a good game,” said Green. “To be honest, I just tried to find three lines that we could go with...It felt like the first 40 minutes, we really didn't play that well and just tried a couple different combos to settle things down a little bit.”
- I’ve been critical of Jake Virtanen’s details this season, particularly along the boards, so it’s only fair I highlight him doing it right. Here he hustles to the boards to cut off a clearing attempt, then protects the puck and outworks his man, pushing the puck down the boards, recovering it, and cycling it back to the point, leading to a shot for Tyler Myers. Even though the shot got blocked, that’s the type of effort and work rate the Canucks need from Virtanen consistently, because it leads to good things.
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- Stützle won the battle of the umlauts over Höglander with the one assist — perhaps because Stützle’s is actually an umlaut — but Höglander still had the slickest moves of the game for the Canucks to set up a Bo Horvat chance. He protected the puck in the neutral zone to set up the zone entry, then danced around his man to pass to the backdoor. Regrettably, Horvat couldn’t finish off the play, probably because of his lack of umlauts.
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- The Canucks have had a couple of last-minute goals to force overtime recently but this time they were on the receiving end of one. Once again, the Canucks couldn’t get the puck out of the zone, as Demko’s ring-around got cut off. Brady Tkachuk won a puck battle with Sutter and centred for White, who got some redemption with his top-shelf one-timer to tie the game at 2-2.
- The late goal didn’t demoralize the Canucks, who controlled the puck for almost the entire overtime. Eventually, Thomas Chabot made a line change at the end of over a minute-and-a-half on the ice, trying to take advantage of one of the few times the puck left the Ottawa zone. Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller immediately made him pay.
- Chabot was the lone defenceman on the ice, so as soon as he started towards the bench, Hughes fed Miller, who attacked Tkachuk, who is evidently incapable of skating backwards. Tkachuk skated at Miller and whiffed harder than I do when I’m playing Rocket League. In alone, Miller made a simple deke to the forehand for the game-winning goal.
