It’s was the biggest Vancouver Canucks game in years and the team needed to treat it that way.

Lucky for fans, they did. This was one of the best games of the year for the Canucks, they dominated play early and rode that momentum all the way to an impressive 6-2 win as they eliminated the St. Louis Blues. This was the first time the Canucks have advanced to the second round of the playoffs since the 2010-11 season as they now will face the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Canucks went with the exact same lineup as they did in game five on Wednesday night. That doesn’t really mean much as Travis Green went with different line combinations is all three periods in their previous game.

The big lineup change in the game was the starting goaltender for the St. Louis Blues. They went away from Jake Allen and back to their regular-season starter Jordan Binnington. This was potentially good news for the Canucks who had dominated Binnington in games one and two.

Jacob Markstrom was back in the crease for the Canucks as he has just been excellent in the postseason.

Alex Edler made his comeback after taking a skate to the ear in game five. That balanced out the ice time for the other five defencemen who had to play a lot of tough minutes after he left the previous game due to said injury.

The Canucks needed to come out firing on Binnington like they did in games one and two.

Marie Hui was back on the anthems with the Canucks back in their home blue jerseys. With that, it was time to get to the 7pm puck drop.

Let’s go!

The Canucks came out with their mashed up lines once again. Bo Horvat was playing with JT Miller and Brock Boeser. Elias Pettersson was centring Loui Eriksson and Tanner Pearson. The rest of lineup was a jumbled up mess, but it was a jumbled up mess of awesome.

The Canucks came out and dominated the first 10 minutes of play. At the 10 minute mark, they were outshooting the Blues by a count of 13-4.

It didn’t take long for the Canucks to score when they were firing so many shots. It just didn’t come from a usual suspect. Jay Beagle found some space after a Blues skater stepped on the puck and Beagle fired a wicked wrist shot over Binnington’s glove. 1-0 Canucks.

The Canucks took a penalty just past the midway point of the period but we able to kill it off and go right back to applying pressure on Binnington. The Blues had a good long shift from the Ryan O’Reilly line and after that swing of momentum back into the Blues direction they were able to draw another powerplay with 1:38 remaining.

Goal scorer Jay Beagle took the holding call and the Canucks would miss him on the penalty kill as he is one of their best forwards to have out there when shorthanded. The Canucks were able to withstand the 1:38 of time shorthanded and the Blues got the other 22 seconds to begin the second period.

The Canucks had 12 scoring chances in the first period. This was their best period of the playoffs.

So far…

It got even better. This period recap will simply be a Canucks highlight reel.

The Canucks came out in the second period and started converting on their strong possession numbers with three goals in the period. It all began when Antoine Roussel scored just over two minutes into the period. 2-0 Canucks.

Roussel capitalized on a turnover at the blue line and made no mistake burying it.

They followed that up a few minutes later by toying with the Blues in their zone before finding Troy Stecher with some open ice as he made it 3-0 Canucks.

Binnington wasn’t good tonight.

Good for the Canucks.

They weren’t done as Boeser got his groove back on the Canucks first powerplay opportunity. He ripped a one-timer slap shot right through Binnington and the Canucks took a commanding 4-0 lead.

This goal chased Binnington from the game and Allen would come in to replace him. Allen did not allow a goal in the 12 minutes of ice time in the second that he received and the Canucks would take a 4-0 lead into the third period.

Quinn Hughes was on the ice for three of the four Canucks goals in the first 40 minutes while Pettersson had two assists on the night.

All the Canucks needed to do in the third period was control the puck a bit and stay strong in front of Markstrom.

The Canucks needed to ride the wave that was the Blue pressure in the third period.

They did that and some.

Jaden Schartz scored two goals in the third period but it wasn’t enough.

The Canucks were able to get two goals in the third period from Tyler Motte as he scored a goal to make it 5-1 and had an empty-net goal to finish the Blues off. 6-1 Canucks.

It was one of the longest periods of the season as the game was all but decided after 40 minutes. The wait was worth it and the Canucks advanced into the second round of the playoffs.

  

The Canucks were all top performers tonight. I don’t think you could pick out one player who stood about head and shoulders above the rest and you couldn’t pick one player who was horrible either.

So tonight my top performer is Travis Green. He trusted every player in this lineup and mixed his lines as the game went on. It was another great performance for the Canucks and it was partially due to Green’s combinations of lines and usage of players.

The Canucks went to work on Friday night. They were able to control the possession in the first period, score enough goals in the second and close it out in the third.

It was a solid 60 minutes of play for a team that will now face the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round of the playoffs.

The Canucks took advantage of bad goaltending from Binnington and with that got some scoring from their bottom six once again. This seems to be the recipe for success for this team and with Green mixing the lines so much it gives the bottom six players more of an opportunity to score.

The Canucks have the best goaltender situation in the Western Conference but will now have their toughest task of the season as the Golden Knights cruised through their first-round series and have had the Canucks number since their entrance into the NHL.

You won’t have to wait long to see the Canucks play in that second round as they are back in action Sunday at 7:30pm.