What was that?
The Vancouver Canucks pulled off an improbable comeback, topping the Dallas Stars 6-5 in overtime after being down 5-2 with just a minute left. It was an ending for the ages, coming despite a lackadaisical 40 minutes, and with the game looking all but over after the empty-netter. But thanks to the hottest Canucks remaining hot, history was made to keep some slender playoff hopes alive.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

For the first two periods, things hung in the balance. The numbers ever so slightly favoured the Canucks after the first with the team recording a 5-0 high-danger chance lead, but Dallas put together a commanding 62.89 xGF% share in the second period to even things back up. Vancouver was looking to make things interesting with two goals in the third period, but until the final minute, the Stars looked to have their insurance and the game wrapped up. Four goals later, and the result was flipped on its head.

Heat Map

The heat map was a pretty marginal one for both teams. Vancouver had a slight edge in overall 5v5 scoring chances at 28-26, with the high-danger chances also favouring them by a 12-9 margin. From the graphic, the Canucks’ hot spot sat more in the slot area than Dallas’, which does reflect that slight lead despite both patches being about the same density. The distribution of high-danger chances was interesting – Vancouver had a 5-0 lead in the first, then dropped to 3-5 during the second, before finishing with a 4-4 split in the third.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Kiefer Sherwood racked up a team-best 65.22 CF% while playing the fourth-least minutes on the team. But it wasn’t as if he was being sheltered – the majority of Sherwood’s 5v5 minutes came against the Stars’ top line. Considering that, his numbers were pretty darn solid, being on ice for a 7-5 shot advantage. Funnily enough, the majority of Sherwood’s shifts came late in the third. Better late than never.
Corsi Chump: Victor Mancini brought up the rear in the Corsi department with a 31.25 CF%, splitting time between Quinn Hughes and Marcus Pettersson as his pairing partners. On ice for one goal against, the defenceman recorded a team-low 0.22 xGF and team-worst 26.63 xGF% while being on ice for a 0-2 HDCF hole. It wasn’t the best, but Mancini at least was able to get the Canucks on the board during a power play.
xGF: Sherwood led the Canucks in xGF% as well, racking up 70.59 thanks to a 8-5 scoring chance lead and 4-1 HDCF advantage. What’s particularly impressive is that Sherwood racked up the 5th-best xGF on the team with 0.92 despite the fact that his ice time was the 4th-least. It’s pretty efficient offence generation and something that the Canucks appreciated dearly with the overtime winner. Leading the way in raw xGF was Elias Pettersson who continues to impress on the back end, managing to record 1.46 xGF to lead all skaters last night.
GSAx: Thatcher Demko wasn’t all-worldly last night and finished with a negative GSAx, but it wasn’t as if he was a terrible liability either. With a 3.40 xGF against him, Demko finished with a -0.60 GSAx against the Stars, with none of the goals against being high-danger and split evenly between middle and low-danger. Again, it didn’t cost the Canucks too much in the end after all, but the goal distribution against him last night just was not the best.

Statistical Musings

D-Petey’s big game: For such a young defenceman to be trusted to move up and down the lineup says a lot. Elias Pettersson found himself splitting time on all three pairings and putting together a really solid performance all around. He finished with the second-best CF% on the team with a 65.00, managing that aforementioned team-best xGF while also splitting a 7-3 HDCF ratio. Considering that the team totaled 12, for D-Petey to be on ice for over half of that says a lot about the kind of effort he turned in last night.
An interesting line combo: Slotting Max Sasson in between Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser was certainly a choice. With two wingers that are not usually play drivers, it seemed to be an odd fit on paper, but the results were not the worst. Their CF% was the worst amongst all forward lines but still finished with 57.89, while their 63.96 xGF% was the team’s best mark. They didn’t manage to generate a ton of raw offence, but still finished with 0.43 xGF as the team’s third-best mark.

As a team

CF% – 57.14% HDCF% – 64.52% xGF% – 54.38%
The Canucks looked like they were out of it. Then suddenly, they weren’t. It was genuinely a historic comeback and probably left more than a few fans without their voices by the end. While their playoff hopes are slim, they managed to stay alive, and that was probably more than anyone expected out of them when they were down 5-2 in the third.
Vancouver heads into the mile-high city to take on the Colorado Avalanche tomorrow night for their next contest.
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