ANAHEIM, Calif. — When hockey teams have struggled as much as the Vancouver Canucks have, you can be so desperate for good signs that there are more false positives than the early rapid-tests for COVID.
The Canucks, themselves, will either prove or disprove that they are starting their way back from the bottom of the National Hockey League standings. It’s only a day-and-a-half until they visit the San Jose Sharks for a Friday matinee, so the suspense won’t last long.
But there were a lot of encouraging aspects to Wednesday’s wildly-entertaining 5-4 win against the fast and trending Anaheim Ducks, who led the Pacific Division and were nine points ahead of the reeling Canucks.
There were still the defensive gaps the Canucks have been struggling mightily to close, a collection of awful Vancouver penalties and another near collapse when the Ducks scored twice in a little more than two minutes near the end of the second period to erase a 3-1 deficit.
Despite this, when the game was at stake, the desperate Canucks produced their best period. Their last-overall penalty kill survived two third-period disadvantages when the score was 3-3.
Vancouver’s reunited fourth line produced an early goal by Linus Karlsson, and fourth-line centre Max Sasson tipped in the go-ahead tally off Anaheim defenceman Drew Helleson with 4:02 remaining.
And the Canucks’ struggling second line ended its drought with a gorgeous goal by Conor Garland in the middle period — and could have scored another three if Brock Boeser’s finishing had been sharp.
And third-string goalie Nikita Tolopilo, who is actually the fourth netminder to start a game for the Canucks this season, earned his second NHL win by making 37 saves, including a breakaway stop against Frank Vatrano halfway through the final period.
“I think I can play better,” Tolopilo, starting with Thatcher Demko injured and Kevin Lankinen on leave, said after his third NHL game. “But, yeah, the most important thing is the team got a win. I wasn't nervous. No, just. . . it's a little bit different pace than down in the AHL. So to just get used to it, it took time during the game. But I think, like, the third period was really good.”
Like we said, the Canucks will tell us on this four-game road trip whether Wednesday was the start of something or merely a blip in their downward spiral.
But there certainly was a lot to feel positive about.
“We talked about it in between the second and third (periods), like, honestly, we can't even afford to really go to OT,” Sasson said. “We needed to win in regulation, like a four-point game. So, you know, it was big. We knew we needed to win this game, and we did.”
“I don't know if there's any pressure,” winger Kiefer Sherwood, trade reports swirling around him, said of trying to start a winning streak. “It's more like we take it game by game and day by day. But, you know, we believe in here. We trust our team that we’ve got. And when we do things the right way, we will get good results. If you just execute the process and the details, things will work out.”
The Canucks, 10-12-2, haven’t won consecutive games since Oct. 19.
They took a late lead Wednesday when Quinn Hughes got the puck across the ice to Filip Hronek, whose low shot was tipped by Sasson past goalie Petr Mrazek’s pad and off Helleson as Sherwood crashed the net.
“I whacked at it,” Sherwood said. “I was like, whatever, I’m just excited it went in.”
Not as excited as Sasson, who was reunited on a line with Karlsson and Arshdeep Bains — the trio who led the Abbotsford Canucks to the American Hockey League championship in June.
"Every chance you get in this league, no matter who you’re playing with, is big. And especially us three, we talked about not scoring. I thought we played well in our shifts, and we got a big goal," Sasson said. "Bains — obviously he’s been out of the lineup for five games or whatever — and he comes in and makes an unbelievable play leading up to that first goal (by Karlsson).”
Karlsson opened scoring at 9:49 of the first period on an end-boards rebound after Bains curled with the puck inside the Anaheim zone to tee up a point shot for Marcus Pettersson.
With just his fourth goal of the season, Evander Kane made it 2-0 on a Canucks power play at 11:47 when his shot clipped the stick of Ducks defenceman Jackson LaCombe.
LaCombe cut that lead in half when he fooled Tolopilo with a glove-side wrist shot for a power-play goal just nine seconds into the second period — and after three of four Canuck penalty-killers were lured to one side of the ice before the puck went the other way.
But at 9:04, Garland scored the goal of the game, dangling past both Helleson and Mrazek after Boeser, who finished with eight shot attempts, pulled up on a partial breakaway and passed cross-ice to his linemate.
Garland, Boeser and new centre David Kampf combined for nine shots and an expected goals-for of 74 per cent at five-on-five.
“We were kind of all over them, I felt, the last three games,” Garland said of his line. “And we haven't really got rewarded. But I felt like our line has played really well, and sometimes it might take one like that (to start scoring). I mean, Brock could have had two earlier. . . (but) it took us a few more shifts until we finally cracked through. We can be a good line for us, play a lot of the defensive side. . . and chip in offensively.”
Leo Carlsson scored for Anaheim to make it 3-2 at 16:19 when Vancouver couldn’t defend a lost faceoff and Tolopilo couldn’t move after Duck Troy Terry fell on him at the side of the net. And a series of mistakes, capped by defenceman Tyler Myers’ failure to play a two-on-one, led to Mason McTavish’s tying goal at 18:34.
But the Canucks did not crumble this time.
After the two penalty kills and Tolopilo’s breakaway save and Sasson’s go-ahead goal, Canuck Drew O’Connor made it 5-3 into an empty net with 1:52 remaining before Cutter Gauthier’s six-on-five redirect with 6.8 seconds came too late for the Ducks.
