The Vancouver Canucks (5-6-1) came out strong last night and defeated the Dallas Stars (4-5-2) 6-3 on home ice for #HockeyFightsCancer night, making them 2-4 on their current home stand.
The return of Pettersson
The stars were definitely shining bright for the Vancouver Canucks last night. Everybody was shooting pucks, passes were connecting, and Elias Pettersson put on quite the show!
Canucks fans have been waiting for superstar Elias Pettersson to return back to his normal form, and last night he delivered.
An absolute laser beam of a shot that Khudobin was definitely not expecting. Elias strikes on the power play and the flood gates have opened.
Pettersson had 3 points (1 Goal, 2 Assists) and was a +1 in 18:43 ice-time, making this his best game of the season thus far.
Some other notable performances during last nights game included :
J.T. Miller:
Miller had 2 goals on 4 shots in 22:19 minutes, with an impressive 79% in the face-off circle.
Quinn Hughes:
Hughes had 3 assists in 22:48 minutes, and was a main reason why the Canucks power play was rolling last night (we will get into that later on)
Bo Horvat: Horvat had 3 points (1 Goal, 2 Assists) and was a +2 in 21:20 minutes and just like Hughes, he was a massive power play impact last night. However, it was not his best night in the face off circle (50%).
Here, Horvat scored his 5th goal of the season on a rebound of Tanner Pearson's shot
It appears the Canucks scoring woes were resolved thanks to poor goaltending from the Star's goaltender Khudobin.
The Unspecial Special Teams
The title may be misleading as Vancouver went 3-6 on the power play last night, which was very impressive.
However, the Canucks also had nearly 1 minute and 30 seconds on the 2-man advantage, and failed to capitalize.
Dallas killing off that 2-man advantage led to a major momentum shift in the game, eventually leading to Dallas cutting the Canucks lead in half to make it 3-2 in the second period.
But, there is hope that our power play will continue to improve now. It appears moving Chiasson off the 1st unit power play was the right decision by Green, and a popular decision for Canucks fans everywhere.
Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson took a 4 minute penalty late in the 2nd period when he hooked & slashed two players in a short period of time. This eventually led to Ryan Suter scoring for Dallas to make it a 4-3 game early in the 3rd period.
Vancouver continues to struggle to kill off penalties, with a 33.3% PK% in last nights game after Dallas scored 2 power play goals on 3 attempts. Hopefully when Brandon Sutter returns to the lineup, our penalty kill will look significantly improved.
The Save
It would appear that these save of the year candidates from Thatcher Demko are happening every single game. Your eyes aren't deceiving you, Demko is just that good.
Here is the save that has rocked the hockey world:
Demko now has 2 legitimate goal of the year candidates in his past 3 games.
Conor Garland is still no fluke
Garland continues to be my favorite player so far this season. Although he only had 1 assist last night, it was a beautiful pass feeding young rookie Podkolzin his 3rd goal of the season.
Garland now has 11 points (3 Goals, 8 Assists) in 12 games, the second most on the team behind J.T. Miller. This was definitely unexpected when we basically were given him for a bag of pucks by Arizona in the off-season.
Miller rolls on the power play
J.T. Miller scores his second goal of the game on the powerplay, making it a 5-3 game and sinking the dagger into the Dallas Stars.
Boeser Seals the deal
Heres the cherry on top by Brock Boeser.
The perfect finish to a fast-paced eventful game. Brock Boeser has his 4th goal of the season after initially missing the empty-net shot.
Outside of "the save", Thatcher Demko had one of his weaker performances of the season. posting a .893 SV% after allowing 3 goals on 28 shots. However, the rest of the team helped him out tonight by scoring countless goals.
That brings us to my 3 stars of the game:
1st star - J.T. MILLER (2 GOALS, 1 ASSIST)
2nd star - ELIAS PETTERSSON (1 GOAL, 2 ASSISTS)
3rd star - QUINN HUGHES (3 ASSISTS)
That win was worthy of some hockey hugs
Next Game
The Vancouver Canucks return to action tomorrow night at 7PM to face the Anaheim Ducks at Rogers Arena.
This will wrap up a 7-game home stand for Vancouver. The best they can finish is a 3-4 record giving they win against the Ducks.