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!
Nils Höglander got another opportunity to start the game higher in the lineup, and this time, I thought it’d be best to keep track of each of his shifts that might have set off the alarm bells for Tocchet. This is because every time Höglander gets benched, everyone tries to figure out why he was benched; so for this one, we’re going to try to keep an eye on this before there’s any benchings to dissect. And wouldn’t you know it, our first example came early on.
Höglander’s second shift: ices the puck while trying to make a rather straightforward pass to Blueger in the neutral zone, then turned over the puck back in the Detroit end later on. This one was not a good shift for number 21, and it came early in the game.
Carson Soucy took the game’s first penalty seven minutes into the game, and thankfully, the only highlights were Kevin Lankinen’s four saves.
Nobody likes watching Kevin Lankinen make highlight-reel saves more than Carson Soucy and Noah Juulsen.
The Red Wings opened the scoring with just over six minutes remaining after an unfortunate — well, fortunate for them, I guess — bounce went right to Jonatan Berggren at the side of the net. 1-0 Wings.
Conor Garland drew the game’s first penalty with one minute and one second remaining in the first period. Then about 30 seconds into that, Elias Pettersson did his dekes and was hauled down by Justin Holl to give the Canucks 28 seconds of two man advantage time to close out the period.
That also meant they opened the second period with a minute and a half to work with on the 5-on-3 power play. Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson connected to set up Jake DeBrusk at the netmouth to make it 1-1.
Then, with even more power play time to work with, DeBrusk was right back at it, scoring his second goal of the game.
This Detroit penalty kill is quite bad.
Nils Höglander bad shift alert: an offensive zone tripping call in a 2-1 game five minutes into the second period.
As the penalty came to a close, Danton Heinen fanned on his clearing attempt, which allowed Alex DeBrincat to snipe one past Kevin Lankinen. 2-2.
Honestly, it was still early in the second, but if it were up to Tocchet, I’m pretty sure Höglander would have been traded mid-game.
Max Sasson drew the game’s next penalty, giving the Cancuks another chance to feast on the struggling Detroit power play. The Canucks were very focused on getting pucks on net, but the Wings managed to kill this one off as the Canucks went to 2-for-3 on the power play.
Nils Höglander good shift alert: Tocchet chose not to skip Höglander’s next shift, as he was right back out with Blueger and Sherwood, and in fact, the trio nearly connected on a goal. If we’re going to track the bad, we also need to track the good.
Pius Suter brought some good as well, as he moved in on a 2-on-1 with Kiefer Sherwood and sniped home his team-leading ninth goal of the season.
Suter the shooter baby. 3-2 Canucks heading into the third period.
The third opened with an Elias Pettersson penalty, and the Red Wings managed to convert on the subsequent power play. Detroit got the puck toward the net, and neither Vinny Desharnais nor Tyler Myers could find the loose puck in their skates. 3-3… OR WAS IT?!
The Canucks challenged the goal for goaltender interference, but the goal stood. So yes, 3-3.
The Canucks were short a man as the result of the failed challenge, and the highlight of the next two minutes was Noah Juulsen courageously blocking shots in front of Kevin Lankinen.
Shortly after killing the penalty off, the Wings pulled ahead as Vladimir Tarasenko sniped one far side on Lankinen off the rush. 4-3 Detroit.
The Canucks pushed to tie this game up down the stretch, and eventually did after Pettersson found Erik Brännström with a backhand saucer pass that Brännström one-timed home. 4-4.
Nils Höglander got a shift right after, and he and his linemates’ forechecking effort eventually led to the Canucks getting their fourth power play opportunity after Alex DeBrincat put the puck over the glass.
The Canucks controlled well and came close to pulling ahead on more than one occasion, but this one needed overtime to solve. Coming off of an OT possession clinic on Friday in Buffalo, the Canucks once again won the faceoff and tried not to look back. Again, they controlled for the first two and a half minutes, and Quinn Hughes once again almost made magic happen, hitting Pius Suter with a 100-foot stretch pass to spring him in on a breakaway. Ville Husso made the stop, however, but it wasn’t long until Jake DeBrusk called game.
Pettersson dropped the puck off for DeBrusk, who sniped home his third goal of the game to cap off the victory. 5-4 Canucks win.
Some more takeaways from today:
-Quinn Hughes is just so good. We could say that every game, but today we can say it because he broke Alex Edler’s franchise record for assists by a defenceman.
-Kiefer Sherwood seemed to be a little bit low on gas today.
-5 hits for Dakota Joshua today. You hope that he continues to get his game back. He could’ve had one or two assists last game, and hopefully he keeps trending in the right direction.
-Hughes with 31:04 of ice time tonight.
-Honestly? Nice to see Höglander have some bad shifts and not get benched.
-3 points for both Pettersson and Hughes. Need your best players to be your best players.
-10 straight road wins for Kevin Lankinen. That’s an all-time NHL record.
What’s your instant reaction to tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments section below!
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