Welcome back to Instant Reaction, the series here at CanucksArmy where we give you our instant reaction to tonight’s Vancouver Canucks game and ask our readers to do the same in the comments section below!
For a second, it seemed like Quinn Hughes wouldn’t play in this game.
And as you can read by the title, the Canucks won this game. Let’s dive in.
Dakota Joshua sprung Conor Garland for the Canucks’ first great chance of the night, but David Rittich squeezed his arm and cut off the gap that Garland was looking to exploit.
Nils Höglander, who was getting his shot in the top six tonight, created some space for himself by carrying the puck into the zone and making a nifty move to the middle before quickly ripping the puck past Rittich’s glove side to make it 1-0 Canucks.
🚨CANUCKS GOAL🚨
Nils Hoglander opens the scoring with a beautiful goal!
There wasn’t much space in this game, and the Canucks don’t exactly excel at creating space for themselves, so it was great to see Höglander do so. Especially given the fact that Höglander has struggled to do anything even close to that this season after scoring 24 goals in 2023-24.
The Canucks opened the second period by taking two penalties and killing both of them off. It was a bit more of a grind to get shots through, and the Canucks were beginning to fall victim to trying to make one too many passes. The Joshua-Chytil-Garland trio started to create some quality chances, but they too struggled to get shots through.
Later in the second, the Canucks got their first power play opportunity of the night, and made good on it. Here, it was Chytil setting up Garland.
🚨CANUCKS GOAL🚨
Filip Chytil finds Conor Garland open in front of the net and he buries it! It's 2-0 Vancouver!
Great to see Joshua get a point on this play. The Canucks got another power play chance shortly after, but couldn’t convert.
Thus, they entered the third period up by a pair of goals.
The Canucks played a tight-checking game, and really locked things down for the first half of the third. They were in passing lanes, minimized mistakes, and when they did make mistakes, they did an excellent job at not compounding those mistakes.
The Kings managed to get on the board when Adrian Kempe came in off the rush and sniped one past Lankinen with just over 10 minutes left to go.
This one looked like a high-stick, and the Canucks challenged for goaltender interference. It was called a good goal after review, putting the Kings back on the power play.
The Canucks killed that one off, and Filip Chytil nearly put the Canucks ahead afterwards when he got a puck past Rittich but couldn’t beat the post by a matter of inches.
Filip Chytil blows by the LA defenceman and beats David Rittich… but can't beat the post. Tough break for the Canucks.
In OT, Drew O’Connor tripped up Kevin Fiala and gave the Kings a prime chance to end this game. Play stopped after Tyler Myers took a shot from Fiala to the neck area, and Myers was in immediate distress. Hope he’s okay.
After a strong play from Chytil and Hughes, Conor Garland scored his second goal of the game to put the finishing touches on this one.
-Really liked Dakota Joshua’s jump in this game, especially early on. I’m a big believer that he’ll turn his season around and look like the player we’ve seen him be before. After returning from his cancer treatment, it took Joshua a while to find his game. Just as he found it, he suffered a lower-body injury that kept him out for almost all of January. It’s been a process, but he’s showing flashes and it feels like he’s on the cusp again.
-Quinn Hughes is so damn good at hockey. It’s great to have him back on this team.
-Liked Carson Soucy’s game tonight. I get the Canucks want to trade him, but he was pretty good last season, and it’s hard to believe that he won’t naturally benefit from having Marcus Pettersson there to play matchup minutes alongside Tyler Myers.
-Absolutely love the snarl in Elias Pettersson’s game. He’s playing with so much confidence defensively and his reads are well beyond his years. I’m talking about the defenceman, of course.
-Another great start for Kevin Lankinen.
-Thought it was a great night for Conor Garland. He was a key driver to his line’s success. (I wrote this before his OT goal).
What’s your instant reaction to tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments section below!
And be sure to tune into Rink Wide Vancouver after the game LIVE on YouTube moments after the final horn!
