Snap Shots: The Canucks’ Winning Ways at Home

The Canucks were getting back to playing great hockey at home this season.

After a few years of mediocrity, the Canucks have begun to turn the corner when it comes to protecting their home barn.

This season the Canucks were 22-9-4 at Rogers Arena. They established a consistent winning mentality and a defend home ice mentality. Whether it’s Al Murdoch’s voice through the speakers or the distant echoes of “Where the Streets Have No Names” — the team had (or is currently having) a year in which they should be proud of how they played at home.

On home ice, the Canucks scored the first goal of the game 20 times out of a possible 35 games. A solid improvement from past seasons where they would toss away the first goal to their opponents.

The goaltending duo of Jacob Markstrom and Thatcher Demko is one of the main reasons for this success on home ice. The Canucks’ most impressive situational stat is that they were 18-2-0 when outshot on home ice.

Home ice was a serious advantage for the Canucks as they controlled the goal share at a very high percentage. They scored 128 goals at Rogers arena this season while only allowing 95.

There were only seven players that were outscored at 5-on-5 on home ice this season.

Here’s the list of players who had a positive goal share at 5-on-5 on home ice.

The energy that’s been missing for a few years could be back at Rogers Arena. Every team gets more fans when they are winning and this year, that is exactly what the Canucks were doing on home ice.

From December 12th to January 27th, the Canucks marched their way to nine consecutive home victories. Which was good enough for the second-longest in franchise history — just two games shy from tying the franchise record. The funny thing is that the way the streak was working out made it possible for the Canucks to break the record on the night of the Sedins jersey retirement night.

Unfortunately, the Canucks didn’t get the opportunity to get to 12 consecutive wins as they would fall to the Calgary Flames on February 8th after returning from a five-game road trip. This loss on home ice would end their nine-game win streak on home ice and ruin the chance to make history on the Sedins’ special night.

Due to the COVID-19 virus, everyone is probably getting tired of “home games” but I for one am excited to see the Canucks continue to build on this dominance at Rogers Arena as they continue to grow towards being a playoff team.

It would be great to one day soon see the white towels make like Quinn Hughes — spinning up a storm at Rogers Arena.