Welcome back to Instant Reaction — the series here at CanucksArmy where we give you our instant reaction to the game and ask our readers to do the same in the comments section below! Wyatt Arndt is at Rogers Arena tonight and is writing The Stanchies tonight, which will be posted later this evening. Mike Liu is writing The Statsies — CA’s analytics-based post game report — and that will be posted tomorrow morning.
Things started out well for the Canucks. Brock Boeser opened the scoring six and a half minutes into tonight’s game, which of course was the Canucks’ Hockey Fights Cancer night.
Every player and every line the Canucks deployed were buzzing on their first and second shifts of the game. Then they took their foot off the gas before throwing the car in neutral for all of the second period.
Having lost six straight, including their 8-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night, the Anaheim Ducks are a still rebuilding team that are in free fall mode. Anaheim had allowed 30 goals in that stretch of six losses, and through 40 minutes of play, the Canucks had managed just one goal on 12 shots.
Rick Tocchet called Saturday night’s 4-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks a “wake-up call” for his team, but they sure looked half-asleep in the second period. Thatcher Demko was sharp in this one, and helped the Canucks weather the storm until they could actually wake up.
The shot totals by period actually tell this story quite well:
Clearly, the real wake up call came in the second intermission, as the Canucks were strong all third period long. Elias Pettersson put them in front early after Andrei Kuzmenko distracted John Gibson in the crease:
The Canucks continued to press and protect the lead, and this one ended the way it started. With the NHL’s leading scorer, Brock Boeser, scoring a goal on Hockey Fights Cancer night.
3-1 Canucks win after a slight hiccup in the second period. Here is Boeser’s NHL-leading 17th goal of the season:
Some other takeaways from tonight:
-It was a strong night for anybody named Nils. Both Nils Aman and Nils Höglander were noticeable for all the right reasons, but it feels like Aman deserves some extra love given that he was in the AHL just a week ago.
-The Canucks’ patchwork defence group got the job done tonight. Cole McWard looked fine in limited minutes during his season debut, and Noah Juulsen continued his recent stretch of not being downright awful. It was a good night for the defence corps!
-Have to hope that the Tyler Myers slap shot that hit Ilya Mikheyev in the left knee turns out to be nothing too serious. Mikheyev left the game and did not return.
Finally, let’s close tonight’s Instant Reaction with this quote from the game’s first star, Thatcher Demko.
What’s your instant reaction to tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments section below!