On paper, the Vancouver Canucks don’t match-up particularly well with many of the top teams in the National Hockey League. But games aren’t played on paper. And to their credit, the Canucks have found ways to rise to the challenge on occasion and pull off a number of victories this season when the odds were stacked against them.
Tuesday’s win over the Winnipeg Jets clearly tops the list. But it’s hardly the only one. Here is a rundown of the top five improbable Canucks victories in the 2024-25 National Hockey League season.
6-2 vs Winnipeg March 18, 2025
No Conor Garland. No Filip Chytil. Apparently, no problem for the Vancouver Canucks. There are a lot of reasons last night’s 6-2 victory over Winnipeg tops the list of the team’s most improbable wins of the season. Not only were the Canucks short-staffed with three AHL regulars filling forward slots, they were facing a Jets team that smoked them 6-1 the last time they played. Winnipeg had won 16 of its last 20 games (16-3-1) coming into the night. And oh yeah, reigning – and presumptive – Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck was rocking a 1.99 GAA prior to the game.
He allows fewer than two goals on average. He surrendered five on this night and gave up three in a first period for the first time all season. Adding to the surprise was the way the Canucks scored two of their first three goals off the rush. And on top of that, there is the fact that Brock Boeser scored twice after going 12 games without a goal. It was fun and the Canucks were full value for the victory. But make no mistake this was one of those games where the clear underdog had its day.
3-0 at Toronto January 11, 2025
With snow and ice delaying their late night departure from Raleigh, North Carolina, the Canucks had to make their way to Toronto on game day for the second half of a daunting back to back set. And after getting shutout and held to a season-low 14 shots in a 2-0 loss to the Hurricanes and with just one goal in their previous two games, the Canucks arrived in Toronto with few giving them any chance of shaking off their travel trouble to put up much of a fight against the Leafs.
Well, so much for that. Instead, the Canucks opened the scoring on the first shift of the game, added a goal in each of the other periods and rolled to a 3-0 victory on the featured game on Hockey Night In Canada. The travel woes made for a delicious storyline heading into the game, but once the puck dropped the Canucks put the obstacles aside, rose to the challenge and behind a 20-save performance from Kevin Lankinen and posted a convincing 3-0 victory.
4-0 vs Florida December 12, 2024
The defending Stanley Cup champions arrived in town on a 6-0-1 roll. The Canucks, meanwhile, had lost two straight and three of four. Also, JT Miller was returning from his mysterious 10-game personal leave and there were so many questions about the state of Miller’s game and the impact his presence might have both in the locker room and on the ice. The Canucks had defeated the Panthers 3-2 in overtime in Sunrise, FL in the second week of the season.
But the Cats were without both Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk for that game. On this night, the Panthers had all of their weapons in the line-up and the Canucks blanked them. It would be one thing if it had been the Canucks top players rising to the challenge, but Carson Soucy and Danton Heinen scored first period goals and Max Sasson added a pair of assists – the first multi-point game of the rookie’s NHL career. It certainly wasn’t the expected blueprint to a surprise shutout win over the champs. But at the end of the night, it was an effective path to victory.
4-3 shootout win at Calgary March 12, 2025
Playing on the second night of back to backs after a disappointing home loss to Montreal, the Canucks found a way to win a game they had to have in a key match-up in the Western Conference wild card chase. And it wasn’t so much the result that was surprising, but the way it was achieved.
Trailing 3-2 heading to the third period, the Canucks rose to the challenge, jumped out to a 15-1 shot advantage at one point and finished the period with a 17-4 edge on the shot clock. The Canucks got the goal they needed to force overtime and ultimately doused the Flames 4-3 in a shootout. It was the first – and only – time this season the club has come from behind to win when trailing after two periods.
That alone makes it one of the club’s most improbable victories. On top of that, Kevin Lankinen bucked convention by playing both ends of the back to back and was making his sixth straight start. It certainly helped that the Canucks got Quinn Hughes back from injury and despite not being anywhere close to 100%, the captain logged a heroic 29:48 of ice time and picked up an assist in the victory. They haven’t been comeback kids often enough this season, but they were on this night in Calgary.
3-0 win over Colorado February 4, 2025
Without an injured Quinn Hughes and two games removed from the trade that sent JT Miller to the New York Rangers, the Canucks faced NHL scoring leader Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche. The Avs were coming off shutout wins over Philadelphia and St. Louis while MacKinnon topped the league scoring race with 80 points through 54 games. The offensively challenged Canucks, meanwhile, had lost in Dallas at the tail end of a road trip and then fell 3-2 in overtime to Detroit as the club dealt with the emotional toll of turning the page and moving on from Miller.
Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser were both mired in scoring slumps, a host of new players were still settling in and it just seemed unlikely the Canucks could match the Avalanche firepower. In a game that remained scoreless late into the second period, Thatcher Demko outdueled Mackenzie Blackwood with the Canucks’ netminder ultimately stopping all 25 shots he faced for his first shutout of the season.
With Demko in a long-awaited groove for the first time in his injury plagued season, it wasn’t a shock that the Canucks defeated the Avalanche. But it was certainly a surprise that the club was able to keep MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Cale Makar off the scoresheet altogether.
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