Canucks overcome adversity once again, keep playoff hopes alive
Just as they have survived a nightmare of sporting adversity this season, they survived the odds on Wednesday. They’re still standing.
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This season has had all the fun and relaxation of a hike through a minefield for the Vancouver Canucks. Through four months and 65 games, it feels like they haven’t had an easy day.
Wednesday was one of the hardest.
Playing their third game in four nights and second game in less than 24 hours, with travel, the Canucks were on the road in Calgary against a rested Flames team needing a win to keep their National Hockey League playoff chances from fading into the realm of the remote.
Goalie Kevin Lankinen played the back-to-back games solo, and Quinn Hughes talked his way off the injured list and into the lineup. Starting without injured defenceman Tyler Myers, the Canucks played the final 45 minutes with five blue-liners after rookie Elias Pettersson was targeted and hit by Connor Zary’s elbow to the head in the first period. And Vancouver went into the third period trailing, and as the only NHL team without a comeback win this season when doing so.
And then, under the circumstances, the Canucks played 25 of their best minutes all year. Or at least their most important 25 minutes.
The team’s original Elias Pettersson, the beleaguered $93-million centre, tied the game on a rebound with 6:44 to go in regulation as Vancouver outshot Calgary 17-4. The Canucks then dominated overtime, but had to go to a shootout before winning 4-3 when Conor Garland wristed a shot past goalie Dustin Wolf’s glove in the fourth round.
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Winning the uniquely-NHL’s three-point game allowed the Canucks to pull even in points with the Flames for the final wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference, although Calgary still has one extra game to play.
A regulation loss would have just about finished off the Canucks. But they were the team in the final 25 minutes that all those “moments” coach Rick Tocchet has been longing for: Pettersson tying the game and opening the shootout with another goal, Garland burying the winner after Jonathan Huberdeau prolonged the tie-breaker for the Flames, and Lankinen stopping the other three Calgary shooters as his career shootout save rate moved to an absurd .853 (29-for-34).
Garland and the Canucks celebrated like it was a playoff game. The odds are still against Vancouver earning genuine playoff games this spring.
But just as they have survived a nightmare of sporting adversity this season, they survived the odds on Wednesday. They’re still standing. Next step, Saturday at home against the Chicago Blackhawks.
HUGHES IS NOT HUMAN
Still battling his third injury this season, Hughes, the Canucks captain, leading scorer and greatest hope for still making the playoffs, was clearly managing his game and body as he rejoined the lineup for the first time in 10 days — and just his fourth game since January.
Last season’s Norris Trophy winner still logged 29:48 of ice time, including 3:26 of overtime, and was a focal point on just about every shift. The Flames targeted him physically, which was expected. Ryan Lomberg should have received an extra two minutes for punching Hughes after cross-checking him to the ice in the second period.
But on the ensuing power play, Hughes’ shot was deflected in by Jake DeBrusk to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead at 10:32 before a pair of goals by Huberdeau — one short-handed and one on the power play, two minutes later — put Vancouver behind going into the third period.
Tocchet said last week he’d take 80 per cent of Hughes. We seriously doubt the defenceman is close to 80 per cent, but he was there Wednesday when his team needed him most, showing again that he is one of the most impactful players on Earth.
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GOOD STUFF ON PETTERSSON
After going 15 games without scoring (and generating only 21 shots) to crash to his nadir as a Canuck (maybe), struggling Elias Pettersson suddenly has three goals in four games and looks like he is trying to lead the team from the front instead of hiding in the back somewhere.
One game after registering four shots and a third-period goal in Tuesday’s 4-2 loss at home to the Montreal Canadiens, Pettersson had a goal and assist in Calgary for his first multi-point game since Dec. 23, seven shot attempts and fully “earned” his 20:57 of playing time.
And one of the most encouraging signs of all: how animated and engaged he was with teammates after scoring the tying goal in the third period. Pettersson looked fully invested. The Canucks could use 17 more games like that.
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BAD STUFF ON ‘JUNIOR’
As for the other Elias Pettersson, it’s difficult to believe that four NHL officials, including one of the most experienced and respected referees in the league in Chris Lee, couldn’t huddle together after Zary’s dangerous elbow on the Canuck and adjudicate something more appropriate than two minutes for interference.
Had Lee and referee Tom Chmielewski called a provisional major penalty to give themselves the opportunity to look at a replay, they’d have seen what everyone else did on TV: Zary swerving to his right to deliver a vicious elbow to the back of Pettersson’s head, away from the puck, after the Canuck flattened Nazem Kadri with a legal bodycheck.
Pettersson immediately clutched his head after being knocked to the ice and did not emerge from the dressing room after the first intermission.
The officials were trying to stay out of the way in what was an intense, entertaining, rivalry game with playoff implications. The Canucks had a 4-3 advantage in power plays. But in the Year 2025, the NHL is supposed to be way past players targeting each other’s heads with blindside elbows and getting away with them because no one noticed.
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SHOOTOUT SCHEME?
The Canucks had a tonne of possession and nearly all the scoring chances in overtime. But without pressure, they also retreated with the puck from the offensive zone several times (Hughes, Garland, Filip Hronek) when they weren’t in need of a regroup or a line change. Just 2-8 in games decided in OT since Dec. 1 — and with a shootout-ace goaltender in Lankinen — it’s almost like the Canucks were playing for the shootout.
Several weeks ago, amid an OT losing streak, Myers mused about the possibility of playing for a tie in overtime for a chance to win in the shootout.
“Maybe something we should talk about,” he said.
Maybe they did.
QUOTEBOOK
Rick Tocchet on Elias Pettersson: “He’s getting his game together. I shook his hand there, you know, ‘Good game.’ But it was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got more to go.’ I like that.”
