The Vancouver Canucks certainly let the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, losing 3-1 to the Calgary Flames in the Saddledome. It’s a familiar loss for the Canucks again, getting out-chanced, out-possessed, and outplayed in a lot of aspects of the game. The defence struggled, the offence spluttered, and Lankinen had a lot more work than he should’ve had to deal with in the form of the Calgary Flames. To add to the misery, the usual depth forward pieces who’ve been buoying a lot of the numbers the Canucks put up also struggled. In all, it just wasn’t good.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

Whale team cannot control puck. The only period where the Canucks managed to post a 50 CF% was the first period, with the Flames dominating the Corsi charts from that point onwards. Even with the split in CF% in the period, Vancouver got rained on by Calgary, who put up 1.38 xGF for a 61.45 xGF% off a 6-4 high-danger chance difference. While the xGF% evened out more in the second period, it wasn’t as if the Canucks were taking intiative to make things better. And in the third, when Vancouver should’ve been pushing for the win, they gave up a 65.52 CF% and 60.76 xGF% share.

Heat Map

It’s another game where the Canucks couldn’t create scoring chances. In fact, the team got demolished at 5v5, to the tune of 26-12 for the Flames in overall scoring chances and 11-7 in high-danger chances. It got marginally better when factoring in all situations, with the Flames’ lead shrinking to 29-24, but the high-danger chances only jumped to 11-8. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Vancouver’s hot spot suffers from a size problem, not really able to get the puck into those spots much last night.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: The only goal scorer for the Canucks last night was Brock Boeser, so it only made sense that he would lead the team in Corsi. One of only 5 Canucks to finish above 50.00 CF%, Boeser led the team with a 59.09 CF%, putting up a third-best 0.94 xGF and 82.28 xGF%. He was on ice for 4 high-danger chances for a 0 against at 5v5, which is a pretty decent feat considering how many chances the Canucks gave up to the Flames.

Corsi Chump: It was a rare game where Pius Suter struggled a lot. Matched up against Calgary’s line of Nazem Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau, Suter posted a team-low 22.58 CF%. That translated over to the expected goals side as well, posting the second-worst xGF (0.12) and xGF% (9.81), while being on ice for 1.13 xGA. Suter faced down 6 high-danger chances against at 5v5, tying him for the team-most, and was also on ice for a goal against. Not the greatest, to say the least.

xGF: JT Miller led the team in xGF%, racking up 84.50 on the night while posting a team-best 1.05 xGF. He was on ice for 5 high-danger chances for and 0 high-danger chances against, taking advantage of playing against Mikael Backlund’s line. Unfortunately, it didn’t result in a 5v5 goal, which has been missing since his return, but at the very least, Miller was one of the only players who produces offensive pressure last night.

GSAx:  Kevin Lankinen once again gave the Canucks a fighting chance to try and pull off a win in this game. The Finn faced down 2.64 xGF from the Flames and came out with a 0.64 GSAx, with the goals against him split between a high-danger chance and a middle-danger chance. It wasn’t a game-stealing performance by any means, but Lankinen was more than solid enough to backstop Vancouver. Unfortunately, the team wasn’t good enough in front of him to get more than a single goal of run support.

Statistical Musings

Please send help:  It is quite something to see the drop off in level of play from the Carson Soucy – Noah Juulsen pairing after a good stretch earlier in December. Maybe the Seattle game did do some permanent damage, as they posted a 29.63 CF% and 27.69 xGF% together. Bleeding 11 scoring chances against with 6 of them being high-danger, their xGF also stood at 1.27, which was anything but impressive. It just wasn’t a good night for them, one too many, and it’s clear that they are in way over their heads with the deployment that they’ve been given.

Can’t bank on depth:  A big reason why the Canucks were in a wildcard spot for as long as they were this season has been the performances of their depth forwards. Players like Kiefer Sherwood, Pius Suter, Teddy Blueger and the likes have stepped up in big ways to help shore up offensive production and defensive mishaps in light of a lack of production from anyone else. Unfortunately against the Flames, while the DeBrusk-Miller-Boeser line was clicking well, the rest of the forward lineup struggled to get anything going. None of them finished above 50 CF%, with only the fourth line of PDG-Sasson-Joshua breaking the 50 xGF% mark along with the top line. The biggest knock? DeBrusk-Miller-Boeser couldn’t get a 5v5 goal either, making it a complete desert in production when it came to even strength play.

As a team

CF% – 43.12% HDCF% – 42.11% xGF% – 38.23%

It’s a different flavour of the same kind of loss for the Vancouver Canucks. They didn’t get enough chances. Not enough of them were good chances. The defence struggled due to lack of depth and players playing against competition too much above them. And last night, with how no forward could produce at even strength, is it really a surprise that the Canucks lost? There hasn’t been much that has changed about the identity of the team, and losing in similar ways constantly throughout the year has only cemented the fact that this roster desperately needs patching. But, at the turn of 2025, there was perhaps no better loss to exemply the 2024 part of the season for these Canucks.

Vancouver continues on the road, heading into Seattle to hopefully get revenge against the Kraken.

Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com