This game got off to a hot start.
First, Conor Garland moved in off the rush and hit the crossbar on his shot attempt.
On the next shift, John Gibson made a big pad save before reaching behind his back with his glovehand to turn it into a save of the year candidate.
Then the Chytil line came out, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki ripped a puck wide.
All of a sudden, the Canucks were stacking shifts.
Even Elias Pettersson — sticking to his promise to shoot more — blasted a one-timer on Gibson. The Canucks were peppering the Anaheim goaltender early on, and clearly came out ready to play in this one.
With the Canucks outshooting the Ducks 9-2, Anaheim took the first penalty of the game to put the Canucks on the power play for the first time. They didn’t strike, but did continue to look good.
Which is why it was only expected that a tip on a point shot open the scoring.
With the shots favouring them 14-3, the Canucks found themselves down 1-0.
Elias Pettersson, the defenceman, took a shot and skated right to the net looking for a rebound. It was there that he was met with a high stick from Radko Gudas, giving the Canucks their second power play of the night.
This time around, the Canucks didn’t get a shot off on Gibson, and struggled to get set up.
The second period kicked off with another power play chance for the Canucks. THIS TIME, they got the puck up quick and decided that there was no sense in trying to get set up. Brock Boeser hit Jake DeBrusk with a pass in tight, and DeBrusk made no mistake in depositing his 22nd goal of the season over John Gibson’s shoulder.
1-1.
Marcus Pettersson took the Canucks’ first penalty of the game just under five minutes into the period. The Canucks killed this one off, and looked to keep up their strong 5v5 play.
Teddy Blueger moved in on the rush with Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and instead of looking for the Canucks’ sharpshooting rookie, Blueger let go of a shot himself that deflected off a Ducks defender and past Gibson to give the Canucks their first lead of the night.
2-1 Canucks.
After his most candid media availability in some time on Tuesday, Pettersson had one of his best games in recent memory tonight.
The Ducks’ busy schedule seemed to catch up with them about halfway through the second, when they lost their legs a bit.
Carson Soucy appeared to make it 3-1, but Anaheim challenged for goaltender interference…
And it stood as a good goal!
That also meant that the Canucks were back on the power play. They got some more good looks, but were just missing… something. Not sure what it is! I’ll get back to you on that.
The Ducks pulled within one with just over six minutes to go as Brian Dumoulin buried a big rebound allowed by a sliding Kevin Lankinen.
3-2.
Lukas Dostal was phenomenal upon entering into this game, and he kept the Ducks right in this one.
The Ducks pulled their goalie late, but the Canucks stood tall and locked this one down.
3-2 final.
Some more takeaways from tonight:
-Season high in both faceoff wins and hits by Elias Pettersson (F). A career-high in faceoff wins with 20. He was engaged, and as mentioned above, the ice was tilted when he was on the ice tonight. Something to build off of. Nothing more, nothing less.
-Fantastic performance from Filip Hronek. Thought he really elevated his game and put the team on his back with no Quinn Hughes.
-My solution for the Canucks’ power play is to add Quinn Hughes to it.
-The Ducks have been red-hot lately, and while they’re still a longshot to make the playoffs, they’ve certainly been making some noise. It was important that the Canucks took care of business tonight.
-Excited to see Jonathan Lekkerimäki get more comfortable at this level. Felt like he had some clear efforts to get into the middle of the ice.
-Loved the way the Canucks played tonight. They were reverse PDO’d, but stuck with it. They got shots on goal right from the start, and came to play tonight. A no show against a tired Ducks team would have been absolutely embarrassing.
-Didn’t like Kevin Lankinen’s game tonight.
-Loved to see Conor Garland drop the gloves with Trevor Zegras.
