After the infinitely entertaining season opener, many Canucks fans were hoping for the team to keep that momentum going into their home debut against the very same Flames they beat a few nights before. That would have been fantastic, but instead, we got a game that at times was hard fought, and at others, exhausting, culminating in an overtime loss.

This one started off with an absolutely perfect pre-game ceremony. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s true; CBC decided that they’d rather show the Leafs and Senators shootout, which will probably be proven irrelevant when Ottawa falls out of playoff contention in March and Toronto is mathematically eliminated next week. The broadcast went straight into the action, and with that, Matt Bartkowski seemingly went straight into the penalty box for tripping Johnny Gaudreau. The result was not pretty; the Canucks penalty kill appeared to be overwhelmed, and when Dougie Hamilton found an opportunity to pick a corner, he made no mistake.

While the Canucks failed to generate a response by the end of the period, they came back with regained energy in the second period. Seconds after Dennis Wideman headed to the penalty box, a Canucks powerplay unit full of guys who never really played on the Canucks’ powerplay unit assembled on the ice, and crashed the net. Bo Horvat did the bulk of the dirty work, and to balance the universe, was the one who got the goal that tied the game. Wideman went to the box once again, and while the Canucks weren’t able to convert, they did use their offensive control to set Jarred McCann up for this a few seconds later:

Suddenly, the team was on top for the first time in the game, and things looked good. The Sedins were even throwing punches (more on that later). But Calgary was by far the more dominant team in the third period, and that eventually caught up to Vancouver, as a miscue in the corner allowed Sean Monahan to easily slip a puck past Ryan Miller to tie the game.

After sixty minutes, a winner was yet to be declared, so the two sides headed to overtime. Things looked good for a bit, including a near-dagger by Daniel Sedin, but eventually, Calgary established a presence in the offensive zone and had no interest in giving it up. Brandon Sutter did his best to break it up, and for a second, he was able to, but instead of chipping it out, he opted to try to carry the puck, at which point Wideman quickly stripped him, set up Gaudreau, and the diminutive winger wrapped things up for the bad guys.

I have to give this to two guys tonight; Ben Hutton and Ryan Miller. Hutton was absolutely phenomenal. He set up the Horvat goal, constantly moved the puck into the offensive zone, and did a very solid job of limiting the opportunities against him. It showed in the fancy stats, as he was one of just five players on the team to be on the ice for more positive than negative shot opportunities, despite being largely deployed in defensive situations. He’s been everything everybody had hoped for, and then some.

We’ve all been saying that Miller needs to have a bounce-back season, and once Jacob Markstrom went down, there was no margin for error; results had to come immediately. So far, they have – he stopped 35 of 38 tonight and looked tremendously confident in yet. Who knows if it lasts, but one thing is for sure, and that’s that this is the goalie that Jim Benning thought he was signing.

There were some legitimately nice plays, but this was a hilarious response on Daniel Sedin’s part after Brandon Bollig gave him a love tap. Deryk Engelland eventually came up to Daniel to have a discussion, and shoving may have gone down, which was just the best thing ever.

Horrible communication on the part of, well, almost all the skaters. Both guys probably shouldn’t be heading to the same general area, let alone close enough to create impact. As well, once they started heading there, a forward should have gone to the slot to cover Monahan, which didn’t happen. This game doesn’t go to overtime if this play is handled better.

I guess we won’t get 82-0-0 in Vancouver this year, but hey, every team has to lose at some point, right? The Canucks now head back on the road to take on the Anaheim Ducks. That game is on Monday, and it’ll be a 7 PM start.