Welcome back to Instant Reaction — the series here at CanucksArmy where we bring you our instant reaction from every Vancouver Canucks game and encourage our readers to do the same in the comments section below! Wyatt Arndt is writing The Stanchies tonight and those will be posted later tonight. The Statsies — CanucksArmy’s analytics-based post game report by Mike Liu will be posted tomorrow morning.
The Vancouver Canucks took part in the NHL’s special Frozen Frenzy night, though many Canadians weren’t able to try to league’s attempts to grow the game.
Does anyone remember Fusion Frenzy on the original Xbox? That was a fun game.
The Canucks were in Nashville to battle the Predators and they moved Nils Höglander back into the lineup and swapped their bottom pairings, giving Ian Cole and Mark Friedman a chance to skate in the top-four according to their line rushes. We will touch on them and their ice time quickly — later in this article. Thatcher Demko was in net for the Canucks and with that, you’ve got a solid base for how the Canucks took to the ice.
Now that we have that covered. Let’s talk about a few quick points from the game and hand it off to you all in the comments section.
Ilya Mikheyev scored in his second game back from an ACL injury. It was a long-distance shot that fluttered over the glove of Juuse Saros to give the Canucks an early lead in the game.
Carson Soucy had a giveaway while trying to force a puck up the boards and the Predators evened up the score at one with just under five minutes in the first period.
Phil Di Giuseppe and Brock Boeser played a bouncing puck to perfection in the first shift of the second period and PDG scored just 21 seconds into the period to gain an early lead in the middle frame.
The Canucks continued to pour on the pressure in the second period and that led to Höglander tipping a Quinn Hughes shot past Saros to give the Canucks a two-goal lead. It was good to see Höglander contribute more offence after being scratched on Saturday night. Höglander now has two goals and two assists through five games played.
Nashville pushed back and got themselves back within one goal just before the halfway point of the second period.
The Canucks were dominating the possession time and were able to break out of their own zone with ease in the middle period but only had a one-goal lead to show for it after 40 minutes. The shots in the second period were 15-5 in favour of the Canucks. It felt like one of their most dominant period of the season but still, they only held a one-goal lead with 20 minutes to play and had to be good in the third period to pick up a win.
Mark Friedman took an interference penalty with 6:42 remaining in the third period and that gave the Predators a chance to tie things up late.
The Canucks were able to kill off the penalty but Tyler Myers took a cross-checking call just after the Friedman penalty expired and the Predators were given yet another chance to tie it up late on the power play.
As the power play was winding down, the Predators took their first penalty of the game with 35 seconds remaining on their man-advantage.
The Preds pulled their goalie and Elias Pettersson missed two open net attempts, hitting the post on one of them but the Canucks held on by the skin of their teeth and improved their record to 4-2-0 on the season while wrapping up their five-game road trip at 3-2-0.
In terms of defencemen ice time, it was true that Ian Cole and Mark Friedman were top-four defencemen in this game.
The Canucks return home to begin a homestand on Friday when they host the St. Louis Blues.
Stanchies are coming soon and Statsies are coming tomorrow morning.
Now, it’s your turn to shine.
What’s your instant reaction to tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments section below!