Coming off his second consecutive three-point game, Kiefer Sherwood kept up his impressive play, as he made a great play to cut to the middle and drew a high-sticking penalty. The Canucks wouldn’t capitalize on their opportunity.

But the Jets left Pius Suter all alone. And with how hot he is lately, that was a mistake. And Suter made them pay:

It was a great play from Tyler Myers to thread a pass through two Jets players to find Suter streaming to the net uncontested. However, the Jets would challenge the play for offside, and of course, it took what felt like 45 minutes to get the call right.

The Canucks got the call they were hoping for, as the goal stood and were rewarded with a power play after the unsuccessful challenge.

1-0 Canucks.

But as is Canucks hockey nowadays, it was a relatively low event first period. There weren’t too many threatening scoring chances, and Vancouver was outshot 9-6.

The Canucks would start the second period on the power play. They wouldn’t convert, but the Canucks managed to start strong and generated some threatening scoring chances.

But the best chance came off the stick of the Jets captain, Adam Lowry:

Thatcher Demko has been so good since returning from injury. And that didn’t slow down in this game, especially with this save. It was a battle between the top two in the Vezina Trophy race last season. And Demko was winning that battle, until Kyle Connor had something to say about it:

I don’t know what the Canucks even did to Connor, but he loves scoring against them.

He just waltzes right into the zone and takes a wrist shot on net from distance with two Canucks defending him and goes five-hole on Demko.

Now, that’s probably a shot that Demko wants back. To get beaten five-hole like that from distance and comparing them to some of the saves he’s already made in this game can’t be something he’s happy about.

1-1 tie.

There really wasn’t much to talk about in this game. The shots were decent for a Canucks game, but there really wasn’t a lot of threatening scoring chances. Like, there was ONE high-danger scoring chance for either team in the second period.

Hopefully we got something more entertaining in the third?

Nope. No fun at all for the first five minutes.

But that would change once the Jets generated some offensive pressure and took the lead:

Future Canuck, Nikolaj Ehlers, grabbed the puck behind the net and took a spinning shot toward the net. But what do they say? Send the puck on net, and good things happen.

The puck goes off a skate, and Mason Appleton is able to bury the puck, crashing into Demko.

Unfortunate play here from Quinn Hughes. He’s unable to box Appleton out, who gave leverage to find himself in the perfect position to find the back of the net.

2-1 Jets.

The Canucks would take another penalty, but they managed to stop the red-hot Jets power play.

Shortly after the kill, Teddy Blueger had the Canucks’ best chance of the period:

Marcus Pettersson makes a great pass up to Blueger, who has all the room in the world to try and pick his spot. Unfortunately, he’s against the runaway Vezina Trophy winner, who comes up clutch to make the save one-on-one.

That Jets built energy on that save, as they grabbed the insurance marker off the stick of Cole Perfetti:

I have to say. What a move from Perfetti. He goes between the legs of Derek Forbort and makes no mistake in beating Demko.

3-1 Jets.

This was certainly the dagger for the Canucks. Rick Tocchet would pull the goalie with 4:40 left in the third period. They were able to generate scoring chances with the extra skater but got a little too excited as they had seven skaters on the ice and took too many penalty with 1:20 left in the game.

And that’s a wrap.

Takeaways

– I just really like the Joshua-Räty-Sherwood line, even though they didn’t get on the scoreboard tonight. At least early on, they seemed to be generating a lot of offensive zone time. Plus, having two of the hardest-hitting forwards, not only on the team but in the entire NHL, has to be threatening for any opposing team. Tocchet might have found something here.

– I continue to be surprisingly impressed with Linus Karlsson’s game. He doesn’t do anything flashy, but he seems to be fitting in at the NHL level. It wasn’t an outstanding performance by any means, but he’s trusted enough on the team’s second power play unit, where he scored last game and nearly did this game after a spinning shot off the feed from Kiefer Sherwood.

– Despite the losing effort, Thatcher Demko played well. He made a lot of big saves and just continues to play well. Jeff Paterson made a great point after last game, where he likely should have gotten the start against the Columbus Blue Jackets

– Quinn Hughes didn’t really take over this game as he normally does. That’s now three games where he hasn’t been the vintage Quinn Hughes we’re used to seeing. Obviously, I’m being a little over-critical, considering how well he’s played this season and literally carried the team to so many victories. But he may be playing through something. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Canucks shut him down later in the season if they’re out of the playoff race.

We wouldn’t say the Canucks are now out of the playoff race, but every point matters at this point. It’s a tough task to try and beat the league-leading Jets, but they’re still six points behind the St. Louis Blues with just one game in hand. It won’t be easy, but the Canucks need to get something going on their three game homestand against the Seattle Kraken, Anaheim Ducks and Vegas Golden Knights.