December 6th, 2024
JC Clemas
The Canucks recently wrapped up a 6 game road trip, which proved to be a fruitful stretch for the team. Especially considering their struggles at home, getting back onto the road was an unusually exciting opportunity for the team to rack up some wins. The Canucks finished the trip with a 4-1-1 record, nabbing 9 of a possible 12 points. I’ll take you through those 6 games, and talk about the highs and the lows of the two weeks.
Ottawa (4-3 W)
I went into this game in-depth in an article a week or so ago. I won’t go through it all again, but I will repeat the fact that the Kiefer Sherwood goal made every Senators fan in the arena hate me.
Boston (2-0 W)
Considering the events of free agency, this game was marked on the calendar for a couple of players. While Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen made their return to Boston, Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov played their first game against the Canucks since they were Calgary Flames. This unofficial swap of players has been looking like a victory for the Canucks so far, with Lindholm and Zadorov struggling. DeBrusk showed the Bruins exactly what they lost this game, scoring the game-winning goal. Despite this, none of the above players were the big story in the game.
Kevin Lankinen absolutely stole the show. The Canucks were absolutely dominated by the Bruins in this game, evident by the shot totals (33-15 in favour of Boston). Luckily, Lankinen morphed into Blankinen, stopping all 33 of the shots he faced. They weren’t an easy 33 shots either. He had to make some highlight reel stops to keep that puck from hitting twine. According to moneypuck.com, he had a 3.37 GSAx in this game. If Lankinen weren’t right on the money at all times, the Canucks would’ve lost this game handedly. It’s nice to have a backup that we can trust with an extended workload because he can split starts with Thatcher Demko. I think it’s important that even with Demko at full strength, Lankinen gets at least a start per week. Lankinen needs to stay warm, and Demko’s work needs to be managed so he doesn’t aggravate his injuries. This game showed what Lankinen is capable of, and shows that even when Demko can’t take the crease, the Canucks have a great chance of winning.
Pittsburgh (5-4 L)
It’s hard to have a perfect road trip. This game was a mess. Artūrs Šilovs’ performance in this game had me passionately typing out an article the day after the game. He gave up 5 goals in the first 24 minutes of this one. Some of them were bad, too. I mean, like, BAD. With Demko back now, Šilovs will get some much-needed time as Abbotsford’s starter, where hopefully he can guide them to the playoffs. Maybe this season we won’t need to steal him from them at that time!
As for the rest of the team, I didn’t mind the effort. I think the defense came up short a lot of times, and Šilovs just wasn’t able to bail them out. On the bright side, they showed a lot of heart in this game. Even when down 5-1, they attempted to battle back. Suter scored late in the 2nd. Quinn dangled the entire team to bring the Canucks within two early in the 3rd. Pettersson added a 6-on-5 goal late to give the team some hope. Unfortunately, the deficit was just too much to overcome. To make matters worse, Filip Hronek was injured late in the game when he got shoved into the boards. The team announced recently that we’d be without his services for about 8 weeks, a huge blow to the team. After a difficult start to the season, Hronek had been instrumental to Vancouver’s success the past couple of weeks. On the bright side, we weren’t totally dominated by Tristan Jarry.
Buffalo (4-3 OTW)
Last season, the Canucks’ trip to Buffalo made for probably the worst display of hockey I watched all year. This is especially impressive considering the Canucks won that game. At just a 1-0 final score, it was a brutal watch. Let’s be real, Buffalo is not the most interesting team to watch. This game, however, was fun.
The big story for the Canucks in this game was that they’d have to move forward without Filip Hronek. Tyler Myers assumed the position on the top pairing with Quinn, a role he understands well: give Quinn the puck and watch. This was a game that I felt they needed to win. Losing Hronek could not have been good for morale, and losing the first game with him gone could have easily caused a slide. BC boys Bowen Byram and Zach Benson combined to open the scoring for the Sabres, and as time ticked on, that 1-0 score seemed daunting. The Canucks finally managed to solve Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen 38 minutes into the game on a DeBrusk goal. Early in the 3rd, Conor Garland tapped home a beautiful power play setup from Boeser. Garland followed that up with one of the most perfect shot blocks I’ve ever seen, on a Tage Thompson blast that rainbowed over the shooter and sprang Pius Suter on a breakaway. Suter has been much better at capitalizing on his opportunities this season and made no mistake on this one.
The Sabres wouldn’t go away and managed to send the game to overtime. Garland was not going to lose this game, though. As Quinn hypnotized the Sabres with his skating, Garland slipped to the front of the net where he shortened up his grip on his stick, knocked down the pass, and drew it back into the net through his legs like he was taking a faceoff. This was a gritty victory, with so many factors going against the Canucks. Thankfully, Patrik Allvin is a genius who cap-dumped Anthony Beauvillier instead of Conor Garland.
Detroit (5-4 OTW)
A good ol’ 9:30 PST start time. Absolutely insane of them to schedule this on a Sunday morning, right after a Saturday night. I feel for everyone who had to force themselves awake to watch this, as I struggled to even wake up to my 12:30 alarm. This random start time seemed to impact the Canucks early, as they looked a bit lazy in the 1st period. The Red Wings scored first, and the Canucks looked pretty bad on that Berggren goal. They eventually found their game, with DeBrusk scoring two straight power play goals early in the 2nd to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead. The Red Wings tied it up soon after, but before the period could end, Suter looked off Sherwood to snipe one home on a 2-on-1. The Canucks quickly lost this 3-2 lead in the early parts of the 3rd, and after an additional Vladimir Tarasenko goal, they found themselves down 4-3 immediately. Thankfully, Erik Brännström decided he wanted to absolutely murder a puck, and tied it up late.
This was certainly the biggest emotional rollercoaster of the road trip. Both teams held 2 separate leads in regulation. They were tied at 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, and 4-4. There’s no better way to cap off an emotional rollercoaster than to take it to overtime. In overtime, possession was weird. The Red Wings kind of just kept giving the Canucks the puck for no reason? I don’t really know what was happening. You can’t really give the Canucks the puck for that long and expect them to not make you regret it. Quinn Hughes made a long stretch pass, Elias Pettersson made a drop pass, and Jake DeBrusk sniped it in off the post. Bing, bang, boom. Ping. Other onomatopoeias. A hat trick for Jake DeBrusk, making him the first Canuck to get to double-digit goals this season. Unsurprisingly, he’s better than Bruins fans said he was.
Minnesota (3-2 OTL)
This game’s odds were definitely stacked against the Canucks. With it being their 5th game in the span of 8 days, plus the fact they’d been travelling for two straight weeks, plus the fact they were facing the first-place team in the league, my expectations were set pretty low.
The team battled anyway. They scored first, with a perfectly placed shot by Quinn on the power play. They were getting destroyed in puck possession the first two periods, but strung together a couple of beautiful offensive zone shifts in a row, all leading up to DeBrusk’s 11th goal of the season. After squandering the 2-1 lead early in the 3rd, they played an inspired period and locked it down to take at least an extra point home with them. Minnesota boy Brock Boeser had a breakaway in overtime, but in heartbreaking fashion, rang it off the post. The Wild went the other way and gave it to the one guy you don’t want to see shoot the puck: Kirill Kaprizov. Kaprizov did Kaprizov things, and the Canucks had to settle for the 1 point. I was happy to settle for it. They somehow managed to find their legs late in the game, which is something that should be commended given the circumstances of the match.
Takeaways
Something I noticed while writing this is that every game of these six was decided by one goal, besides the Bruins game. The only reason this wasn’t a one-goal game was because of a Conor Garland empty-netter with 13 seconds left. While blowouts are fun and easy to watch, close games like this show the true character of this team. They aren’t panicking while playing these close games, and they can shut the door on the opposition to win them. Even in the losses, they were able to battle and strike some fear into the opposition.
Taking 9 of 12 possible points on the road while missing your leading scorer from last season, missing a Vezina-calibre goaltender, and losing your 2nd option on defense partway through shows a lot of heart. In different games, different people stepped up, which is how it needs to be. The same player can’t win you the game every time (Quinn is close to having this ability, though). Pettersson and Hughes took charge of this team over the road trip, each with 10 points in the 6 games. They were given great help from their supporting cast, though. Lankinen in Boston, Garland in Buffalo, and DeBrusk in Detroit were standout performances that won us the games, but all three were solid throughout the games. Along with that, Suter was consistent in this stretch, posting 5 points in 6 games. Tyler Myers stepped up in Hronek’s absence and has been a good defensive partner for Quinn the past couple of games. This team has the next-man-up mentality that they’ve needed to have, and it’s been a pleasure to watch during these 6 games.
Let’s try to win some home games now. Please.