It’s always nice to beat Toronto.

The Vancouver Canucks took down the Toronto Maple Leafs by a 2-1 scoreline. The headlines will likely be dominated by Thatcher Demko exiting the game early with what appears to be another injury, but that shouldn’t take away from a very solid effort that the Canucks managed to put forth on the ice. The team as a whole played well, and the manner in which the Canucks closed things out should also be commended. Back-to-back wins on home ice have never been this sweet.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

While the opening couple of minutes weren’t quite ideal, the Canucks were able to quickly turn it around. The first period was pretty convincing as a whole, with Vancouver taking home a 66.67 CF% and 68.47 xGF%. However, towards the end of the second, it looked like things were going to be turned on their head. Vancouver would lose the lead and their momentum, finishing the period with just a 34.21 CF% and 43.41 xGF%. Now, if it were a couple of weeks back, and the Leafs would probably steamroll this team in the third to get the win on the road. But, the Canucks closed this game out in magnificent fashion, dominating the third with a 63.33 CF% and a massive 88.08 xGF%, holding the Leafs to just 0.2 xGF while posting a 1.48 xGF of their own. That’s a huge margin, and despite the scoreline shows how incredible the Canucks were.

That expected goals dominance translated into the heat map. Vancouver demolished Toronto in scoring chances by a 27-19 margin at 5v5, holding the Leafs to just four high-danger chances while racking up 10 of their own to produce quite the hot spot in against Joseph Woll. The special teams held up their end of the bargain, too, with the Canucks producing three high-danger chances and holding the Leafs to nothing. Considering that the Sharks game was nearly the inverse of this, it’s a pretty darn good result against much better competition than San Jose.

Corsi Champ: Something that would be interesting to see is if Nils Höglander can produce more in elevated minutes or if this kind of performance is due to the deployment Tocchet is giving up. Leading the Canucks with 71.43 CF% in just 10:43 played, Höglander also posted the second-best xGA of 0.18 while clipping at a fourth-best 77.21 xGF%. A 7-1 scoring chance lead would do that for most players, and Höglander wasn’t on ice for a single high-danger chance against as the cherry on top.

Corsi Chump: This one was interesting. Dakota Joshua finished as the worst Canuck with a 36.67 CF%, but the rest of his numbers were very solid. His 1.06 xGF was the sixth-best on the team, and while the 56.88 xGF% was the fourth-worst on the team, it’s still a significant chunk above 50.00% and only suffers when put into context with the rest of the roster. Joshua also primarily played against John Tavares, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner, so it isn’t as if he was playing against chumps, either.

xGF: The doc is in. Drew O’Connor lit it up with an 83.71 xGF% on the night, standing at 21.12 xGF% rel to team average. That 11-3 scoring chance lead definitely helped his cause, while a 4-0 high-danger edge made sure that his numbers were sparkling. Yes, he was on ice for a goal against, but DOC was also part of the Canucks’ most consistent forward line throughout the night at both ends of the ice. In raw xGF, Filip Hronek continued his great play by leading the Canucks with a 1.6 xGF on the night. The Czech is putting in quite the performances with Quinn Hughes out of the lineup, suffice it to say.

GSAx: This is a split performance from Demko and Kevin Lankinen. In the one period that Demko finished, he was able to turn away 0.35 xGF for a 0.35 GSAx. Hopefully, he isn’t out for long, and it was just a minor tweak because it was looking at last that Demko was finding his Vezina form. Props should be given to Lankinen, who stepped right in without missing a beat. Facing down 1.74 xGF the rest of the way, the Finn posted a 0.74 GSAx with just one middle-danger chance sneaking past him. That level of netminding was needed to help the Canucks steer this one to a victory on home ice.

The D-Petey-Carson Soucy pairing: This one was an interesting lineup choice. Having defenceman Elias Pettersson line up with Carson Soucy produced decent numbers, even if they were the worst pairing the Canucks had to offer last night. Their line finished with a 52.63 CF% and 50.55 xGF%, not generating a high-danger chance but also not facing a single high-danger chance either. It was low-event hockey, and that isn’t a bad thing, all things considered.

Middle-six getting things going: The forward corps honestly looks solid. Dakota Joshua – Pius Suter – Conor Garland were able to make the most of their minutes, providing plenty for the Canucks to work off of with a team-best 0.98 xGF coming during their 9:09 TOI. But it was the nominal second line that was spurring the Canucks at both ends of the ice, with the DOC – Chytil – Boeser unit recording a 61.54 CF%, team-best 85.87 xGF%, team-low 0.11 xGA, 0.66 xGF while splitting a 6-1 scoring chance differential. They proved to be carrying plenty of energy for the Canucks and helped buoy the momentum throughout the night, and the fourth line was able to pick up the slack too.

Where Derek Forbort was the perfect partner for Hronek: This one was a little crazy to see but really good as well. Derek Forbort lined up with Filip Hronek last night and absolutely tore up the Leafs together. As a pair, they sat at 61.54 CF% and 78.27 xGF%, with a 1.24 xGF to their name and an 8-4 scoring chance advantage. Yes, they only had a slight 3-2 high-danger chance edge, but these are some great numbers for this duo to be posting as the Canucks’ best duo. A top pair of Forbort-Hronek probably doesn’t bode long-term success, but as a top four option with Hronek able to carry his own pairing? That’s pretty darn good.

It was a very impressive performance by the Canucks. They didn’t let the game slip past them, consistently generated chances, got a good amount of them from high-danger areas, and closed the game off by making sure the Leafs couldn’t get anything going. It was complete in pretty much every regard and a good bounce back from where the Sharks performance left them. Two 2-1 scorelines but the games couldn’t have been more different content-wise.

Vancouver gets quite a bit of time off before taking on the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday in Vegas.