Longest winning streak of the season on the line.

“Bruce, (there it is)!” chants sure to ring through Rogers Arena on a Sunday night.

The Vancouver Canucks were back defending home ice with the streaking Carolina Hurricanes playing their second game in as many days.

Here’s how the Canucks lined up for tonight’s game:

The only change to the lineup was Justin Dowling slotting in for Alex Chiasson.

Thatcher Demko started in goal once again.

Let’s do this!

After opening the game with about five minutes of going back and forth without generating any quality chances, the Hurricanes appeared to open the scoring.

However, the officials immediately waved off the goal due to the puck being contacted with a high stick. This one remained scoreless and gave the Canucks a new life.

One thing that was apparent right away is how well the Hurricanes forecheck.

Canucks fans have been treated to a more aggressive forecheck from their team since Bruce Boudreau took over, but Carolina took it to a whole new level early on.

Vasily Podkolzin had two — maybe even three — of the Canucks’ best chances of the first period of play, but couldn’t convert. Each time, Podkolzin tried to get a little too cute with it — electing to stickhandle instead of shoot — and this one remained scoreless through the first 18 minutes of play.

It was shaping up a rather boring, low-event first 20 minutes of play.

That was, until Brock Boeser continued to take Bruce Boudreau’s advice.

You guessed it, Boeser “got back to shooting.”

1-0 Canucks heading into the second.

The Canucks got their first power play opportunity of the game when Martin Necas took an interference penalty on Elias Pettersson roughly two minutes into the second.

Necas didn’t like the call, but despite his best efforts, the Canucks’ 17th ranked PP went up against the second-best penalty kill in the league for the first time of the night.

After the game on Friday night, Bruce Boudreau said what’s been on every Canucks fan’s mind when he said the Canucks power play needed to shoot the puck more.

The Canucks wasted little time in getting shots on goal with their first man advantage of the game, but couldn’t convert on any of their three shots that they got through.

Back at even strength, Tyler Myers made an incredibly smart play in the neutral zone to catch the Canes napping and create a 4-on-2 rush chance for the Canucks.

After carrying the puck into the offensive zone, Myers found Garland, who ripped a pass to Pettersson in the slot. With time and space, Pettersson leaned into a wrist shot and ripped it top shelf on Antti Raanta.

2-0 Canucks as “Bruce (there it is)!” chants rain down to the ice at Rogers Arena.

Side note: you can get this shirt now at nationgear.ca:

Pettersson was asked about the

Now back to the game.

Simply put, the Canucks were all over the Canes in the early parts of the second as Carolina certainly showed signs of a team that played a hard game against the Edmonton Oilers yesterday evening.

The Canes looked good — even better than the Canucks, really — in the first, but seemed to run out of gas once the second period started.

The Hurricanes showed some late life in the latter half of the second period, but if this was a UFC match, the Canucks would almost certainly be named the winner of the second round in this one.

The Canucks lead 2-0 heading into the third.

The first two minutes of the third brought icing numbers 14 and 15 as this game continued on without much flow.

Kyle Burroughs misplayed a puck along the boards in the neutral zone which allowed the Canes to break in on a 2-on-1.

Despite Brad Hunt’s best efforts, Martin Necas managed to bury the puck five hole on Demko to make it 2-1 Canucks. 

The first five minutes of the third was all Canes, but the Canucks certainly weren’t changing their style in an attempt to lock down the lead.

Instead, they were trying to secure this game by scoring even more goals.

This became more difficult to do, because Bo Horvat took a penalty with just over 13 minutes remaining in this one.

The Canucks’ dead-last ranked penalty kill hopped over the boards to try to shut down the Hurricanes.

The Canucks penalty kill looks different under Boudreau and assistant coach Scott Walker. Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, and Vasily Podkolzin all worked in tandem to kill off the penalty and the Canucks remained unscathed as the Canes continued to press.

The Canucks had a golden opportunity to extend their lead to two when Bo Horvat broke in on a partial breakaway but was stopped by Raanta. On the ensuing rebound, Horvat centred the puck with a hard pass to Dickinson who couldn’t handle the pass to redirect it into the yawning cage.

The Canucks continued to press hard late, but Raanta was sharp in stopping a flurry of Canucks chances.

Rod Brind’Amour called a timeout with two minutes remaining as the Hurricanes pulled their goalie in an attempt to tie this one up.

It’s hard to put into words just how frantic the end of this game was.

The Hurricanes pressed hard, but some sharp defending from the Canucks — namely a timely block from Tucker Poolman — allowed the Canucks to escape unscathed as time ran out on the clock.

That wasn’t before the Canucks broke out of their own end with numbers, appearing poised to enter the Canes’ zone and put a bow on this one with 22 seconds left on the clock.

Then Vasily Podkolzin got rocked in the slot as the Canes’ last man back stepped up and caught everyone by surprise before snapping the puck back up the other way.

Chaos ensued, but the Canucks locked this one down in the end. 2-1 final.

No doubt about it, the Canucks have benefited from Thatcher Demko playing at an otherworldly level, but the fact of the fact of the matter is, Bruce Boudreau just became the first Canucks head coach to begin their tenure with the club with four straight wins.

That’s no accident.

Boudreau has the Canucks playing an exciting brand of hockey and while all the games have been close — so were a lot of the other ones the Canucks were losing earlier in the season.

“Let’s make it five,” said Boudreau when asked for his reaction to being the first Canucks coach to start 4-0. “We’re behind the 8-ball, so we need to keep going after it.”

“It’s been awesome,” said Brock Boeser post game. “Just getting all these wins, you can feel the confidence building. It’s a lot better when you’re winning hockey games.”

Sure they were coming off a back-to-back, but there’s little debate that the Hurricanes — who had won four straight heading into tonight’s game — were the toughest challenge the Canucks have had to face with Boudreau behind the bench.

Getting the win tonight certainly meant something.

The Canucks will close out their homestand on Tuesday with a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets before a quick stop in San Jose on Thursday before returning home once again.