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The Stanchies: Despite growing pains on defence, Canucks battle valiantly in 3-2 loss to Islanders
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Photo credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Oct 14, 2026, 01:53 EDT
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Good news, everyone! The Vancouver Canucks didn’t give up five or more goals on the night, as they managed to keep things close in a 3-2 loss to Bo Horvat and the New York Islanders.
Which part of you might be thinking that sounds a tad bit snarky, but honestly, it’s not meant to be. If you want a tough market, merely glance over Philadelphia and their reaction to the start of the Flyers season and something tells me Rick Tocchet might have a new outlook on the “harsh spotlight” of Vancouver. Did I ever think Saddam Hussein analogies would become a part of the outlook of a hockey franchise? I can’t say that I did.
All things considered though, this was a fantastic result for the Canucks. The process for the most part was quite good throughout the game, resulting in a pretty evenly matched affair. This felt like a nice reprieve for a team still wondering how the previous beatings handed out by the Rangers and Hurricanes were meant to raise morale.
In contrast to those games, this contest felt like a match up between two teams that belonged in the same league. Nobody had to accuse Sebastian Aho of smurfing on his account in this one, as the closest you could get to that was marveling at the way Matthew Schaefer can play hockey. Is he cheating? Of course not, but if this was Warzone I would submit a report on him hacking, just in case. Explicit language? Offensive name? Sure, throw it all in there, one of them is bound to stick.
Fastest kid alive aside, it was a good battle between two teams trying to generate some momentum in the early parts of the season. At times the Islanders would pull away and start controlling the game, but then Vancouver found a way to push back. Ultimately Manny Malholtra’s team would fall a second too late from tying the game up, but overall the team should feel good about its efforts.
Leevi Meriläinen in particular was the Canucks star of the night, as he stopped 35 of 38 shots, many of the high quality variety that made you pine for the days of Don Taylor describing the action to you on Sports Page. Did he save it with his right Meril, or his left Läinen, sadly we might never know. What I do know is that this is officially Leevi’s net now, as Kevin Lankinen, even for his own sake, needs a break from starting every other game. Let the young lad run the show for a bit and see what he can do while Kevin dials in the mechanics in practice. If ever there was a season to see what the kids can do, it would be this one.
And for a team that had started talking about the toll losing can take on you, this was the kind of game that can help build your confidence up for the next one. There is canyon of difference between losing and losing badly in sports, in which losing a close game gives you hope that a bounce or two goes your way, and that’s a win. If you keep playing like this, things are sure to turn around eventually.
When you lose badly, that’s when you have to start wondering if your Mother was right when she called you a failure who would never live up to expectations, and that you’d be lucky to even graduate from high school.
Where was I?
Right, the Canucks.
The point is, as cliche as it may sound, this was a game where the Canucks can feel good about where their game is headed, Their goal is to believe they can shock the world and start winning games, and maybe take a quick sniff of the playoffs, while the job of the fanbase is to hope they play well enough not to implode the dressing room but also secure another top five pick. On this night, both of those dreams came together beautifully.
Best remember the days
The joys of having a dynamic defenseman who can generate offense simply by willing it into existence isn’t lost on Vancouver fans, who get to glance across the table at the guy enjoying his beer while trying to recover from an addiction to Quinn Hughes. Schaefer started the night off quickly when he skated into the zone and tested Leevi early, which was followed up quickly by Ondrej Palat finding a hard charging fake Phil Kessel crashing the net:
Leevi Meriläinen denied both chances, setting the tone for a night in which he made hard saves look easy, and easy saves look, well, easy as well I suppose. There were no rebounds kicked into the slot for unknown reasons, there was no over committing and giving up too much net, it was all around the best performance of his early career with Vancouver.
And mental baggage aside, there is just something so delightful about watching Matthew Schaefer play hockey, and not only because he isn’t part of hockey’s worst group chat. He’s just so damn dynamic in pushing the puck up the ice and taking shots or setting up his teammates.
Best give and take
There are two wolves inside the Canucks. The one who rolls Horde and enjoys the chaos of trying to find their way through Ogrimmar while weirdly owning a sense of superiority about terrible architectural design, and then the one who rolls Alliance and ends up getting yelled at by their guild master at the weekly meeting because their fire resistance isn’t high enough.
I don’t know which one showed up tonight, but at the very least the Canucks finally made multiple appearances in the offensive zone, something that has been few and far between ever since those games against Edmonton.
The Canucks in fact almost scored on an early power play, were it not for the dark iron post behind Ilya Sorokin preventing Jonathan Lekkerimäki from making it 1-0:
What is wild about Lekkerimäki is that his physical game has seemingly come out of nowhere? Like the entire talk about him was “yeah nice dude, has a killer shot, but maybe this league isn’t for him” said with a knowing look of smugness normally reserved for the people who bring their own cup to Starbucks.
He just has not looked out of place at all on a line with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk, often times getting involved in the cycle to continue offensive zone time, and not shying away from physical contests of strength and will. Add in his aforementioned killer shot, and do we have an NHL’r on our hands? Sure feels like it.
The Canucks got another good look on net when last year’s hotness Liam Öhgren broke up an Islanders cycle and tried to dangle his way to a goal on an odd man rush the other way:
The Zoolander vs Hansel vibes between Liam Öhgren and Jonathan Lekkerimäki hasn’t resulted in a walk-off quite yet, but it’s certainly been a fun bit of intrigue to watch which of the young fellows starts making gains on the season.
Speaking of Hansel, here he is jumping up into a scrum to steal the puck and take off down the ice, first trying to deke out his check and losing the puck, but follows it up and quickly regains it before sending it across the crease to Elias Pettersson for a scoring chance:
The kid is just clicking right now, you can’t deny it. Who knows if this is the start of something great, or merely the up and down lifestyle of a young player making their way downtown, skating fast, faces past and he’s homebound, staring blankly ahead, just making his way, making his way through a crowd. But it’s certainly possible.
Speaking of Elias Pettersson, of the forward variety, I think he has come to the realization that the only way he’s going to get control of the puck and set up on the power play is if he takes it in himself:
Just another example of a bit of the pre-Tocchet swagger coming back into Elias Pettersson’s game, in that he has the confidence to try and break into the offensive zone with dangles instead of screaming and throwing the puck towards his own goalie.
Best someone else’s problem
Before we get to the Islander’s first goal, we have to show some gif glove to Leevi, who made an absolutely egregious save on Calum Ritchie on the set up from Victor Eklund:
I was actually editing that clip together muttering to myself “those idiots will never score on this beauty, he’s unbeatable, nothing gets by him!” in the seconds before the Islanders did in fact score a goal on a deft tip (is there any other kind?) by Kyle Palmieri:
Now if you’re like me, and time is a cruel mistress who sneaks away from you the second you stop paying attention to her, you’re going “Kyle Palmieri, the former career New Jersey Devil?” before reality crashes into you and lets you know this is his seventh season with the Islanders.
To be fair he has looked 34 years old since he was 21, but the point remains sometimes you lose track of things. Much like Tom Willander got caught sneaking up towards his own blue line, having the kind of belief in his own team’s ability to clear the puck that I can only marvel at.
The end result is the zone exit gets blocked and Matthew Kessel just tosses the puck in from the blue line, leaving an unguarded Palmieri a lot of time and space to try and get a piece of the shot. Tom Willander will have learned a lesson from this, which is never trust your teammates.
Best come on now
Speaking of young defenseman still finding their way, Zeev Buium was next under the microscope, and his pass attempt from the corner was neatly picked off and quickly converted into a goal via Matias Maccelli:
The Canucks struggles in their own end is no secret, as everyone has been able to witness just how poorly the team handles the puck at times. Clean zone exits have been a rare sight this season, as most of their pushback has been in the form of a counter attack where they finally manage to shove the puck out of the zone while the other team is foaming at the mouth, hyped up on how much zone time they’re generating by forechecking hard.
So while Buium is not alone in these struggles, it has felt like his skill set coming into the NHL was sold on the idea of being a mobile, skilled defenseman who could skate or think his way out of danger. And thus far, he just hasn’t show a lot of that.
And to be fair to him on this goal, you can see he doesn’t have a lot of options when he gets to the puck:
The Islanders have done a good job of overloading the side of the ice and have sent two guys to harass and rush Zeev into making a decision. I think they even got a piece of Buium’s stick on the pass, which slowed down a lot of its zip.
And even the old standby of “glass and out” might not work as the Islanders have effectively sealed up the boards.
So he can either reverse it and hope a teammate can get to it on the other side of the ice, or what is probably the best solution here, just jam the puck into the boards and scrum it up and give time for your team to come to terms with the fact the puck isn’t leaving the zone anytime soon.
Again, I know it is very very easy to point out the better options after the fact, and I know when it happens on the ice in real time, it feels like there is absolutely no time to process all of it. But the caveat is that this is the NHL and that’s what it takes to make it in the league. Players have often talked about the difference between superstars and regular folks in hockey is how quickly they can process the game and act on it, and it’s something Zeev will have to figure out as he goes along.
Until then, eat some punishment along the boards instead of trying to thread the needle, unless your coach is ok with learning on the job via many potential turnovers.
Best stolen dreams
Brayden Schenn would then go on to almost make it 3-0, were it not for another set of heroics from Meriläinen:
There are few things in life that get me to perk up in a hockey game more than watching a goalie making a sliding glove save. It’s my version of Gladiator where Commodus is watching the fights and visibly reacting to the action in front of him. Am I not entertained? You’re gawd damn right I am.
Also, when do we get to openly worry about putting Drew O’Connor at center? That dude has winger DNA all over him. Not in a gross weird way, but just like, the make up of him. As a person. In life, that is.
Not that getting dingle dangled by Schaefer is anything to be too embarrassed about, that’s sort of his thing, but I do think Doc is at his best when he’s penalty killing with Max Sasson, and when he’s on the wing and doing cardio and vibes along the boards.
Best do whatever takes you to the dance
Hey, at least they’re getting chances? Last year I believe they dumped and chased the puck approximately 21,382 times and were successful in retrieving the puck on maybe four of them.
Michael’s observation is not wrong, however, as it does seem like a lot of teams know if you pressure the Canucks in their own end, they tend to panic and turn the puck over. As a result of this, you see teams getting super hyped and they start forechecking like crazy because they aren’t too worried about a counter attack.
On occasion, though, the Canucks will find a team overextending itself and they find a way to create a scoring chance off the rush. And against the Islanders, the Canucks started getting into a rhythm in the second period, starting things off with another Brock Boeser and Liam Öhgren odd man rush:
Much like earlier in the game, Öhgren looked off the pass and shot the puck, and I will take that every single time. If a guy gets stopped on a two on one after he takes the shot, it feels good. It feels like he tried his best. Nothing was left on the table. You can punctuate this with a solid “what are you gonna do?” before walking off to the sultry tunes of the Alabama 3.
A dude comes in and forces through a pass that gets broken up? That’s disgusting. The guy clearly doesn’t know ball. How do we know he didn’t bet on this game? Is he legally even allowed to play hockey at this point? Why is he doing this to us?
The Canucks continued to find their groove, leading to a big hit from Luke Schenn in the corner that turned into a rush for Jake, Jonathan and Elias, a line that is just begging for a nickname but hasn’t met the prerequisite ten games played together yet:
Even on this rush you can see the NHL to Lekkerimäki’s game, as he skates up the ice and drives right through the middle of the offensive zone, causing two Islanders to collapse on him. He drags them out of the play and finds a wide open Jake DeBrusk who then finds a wide open Elias Pettersson, all of which was a direct result of the strong skating of Lekkerimäki. I actually wish Jake had skated with the puck longer as the Islanders were caught backing off trying to cover Lekkerimäki, but instead he finds Pettersson on the far wing, who ends up taking a bit of a hope and prayer shot from distance, aka the beer league special.
All of that pressure eventually paid off, however, when Jamie Oleksiak, who has a propensity to randomly bust out a perfect break out pass once a game, long bombed the puck down the wing to Arshdeep Bains who accidentally or on purpose soft touched it up for Max Sasson to skate into:
I straight up can’t tell if Bains meant to make the pass or was just struggling to control it, but when a goal is scored on the play, clearly you meant everything you did.
So after Bains feathers the kind of pass you can only learn while traveling hard miles with a guy on the AHL busses right into the skating lane of Max, and wouldn’t you know it, that kid is pretty fast. He just zips on over and flicks the puck on net across his body and he cuts the Islander’s lead in half.
Best period of hustle, loyalty and respect
You know who won the Jeff Tambellini Award of the Night in this game? Liam Öhgren for his hustle on the back check:
He defuses an odd man rush and shuts things down with pure effort, which is what you want to see from a young team like Vancouver. That and an occasional moonwalking goal celebration, which I don’t think is too much to ask.
Let’s swing back to Lekkerimäki and yes, that is something you are indeed seeing which is 9 foot tall Logan Stanley avoiding physical contact with Jonathan in a race for the puck:
Logan goes for the “oh god I don’t want to get hit, I’ll just reach for it with my stick” defense and Lekkerimäki does a good job of rushing in and chopping his stick away, and then rotating the puck to DeBrusk who finds Hronek for the point shot. The Canucks crash the net and have a couple of moments where it looks like the might get a greasy one, which includes Lekkerimäki himself setting up shop right in the middle of all the chaos.
That my friends is what we call the good shit.
Best getting Brock to basics
The Canucks would tie the game up near the end of the second period on the power play, but before we get to that, let’s watch the play just before the goal:
Fil Hronek and Elias Pettersson take turns passing the puck back and forth before EP40 puts the puck into the bumper slot for Brock Boeser, to which I wondered aloud “why would you do that, why do you hate hockey.”
Passing into triple coverage aside, you can see the vision the Canucks have on that play, which is why they immediately went back to it. This time, though, it resulted in Brock sniping home the goal:
Fil and Elias get the puck, pass it back and forth, but this time the coverage in the slot is a little bit looser so the Islanders can’t collapse on Brock as quick, and Bob’s your Uncle.
Best high hopes
The Canucks ended the night at 26 shots total, but the process was good in this one. Linus Karlsson almost made it 3-2 on a third period power play, but was stoned by the Islanders goalie:
I think it was at this point the Islanders kind of woke up, as they basically took over the rest of the third period, minus the last minute of the game, which meant, you guessed it, it’s time for some Schaefer clips.
Best speaking of
Wanting to win the game I guess, Schaefer started wheeling down the ice and watching this clip it’s hard to understand how he doesn’t have a goal yet this season:
He does two thirds of the dreaded wheel, snipe, celly combination but Meriläinen was up to the task and shuts him down.
I also enjoyed how Jake DeBrusk got to experience getting split in half twice on the same shift by the same guy, as Schaefer cuts through him twice on the same rush. That is when you know it’s time for a line change if for no other reason to get away from this freak of nature.
Best all good things
As good as Meriläinen played, all it takes is one puck to get by you, especially when it’s one you never even see:
Zeev Buium once again feels like he is swimming upstream, as he screens his goalie on the first shot, then he fails to get the puck out of the crease on the rebound, then ends up screening his goalie on the eventual shot that goes in. I can almost smell the Ben Affleck sighing outside his house meme from here.
A bit of a rough outing for Buium from where I stood tonight, especially coupled with him not producing much in the way of puck possession in the offensive zone, or carrying the puck up the ice with control. It was possibly one of the worst games I have seen from him in Vancouver.
Best turning the screw
With the Islanders carrying the play for much of the third, there wasn’t a ton of pushback from the Canucks. Öhgren created a breakaway chance midway through the frame, but was defended nicely by Tony DeAngelo:
Meanwhile the Islanders followed the playbook most teams have used against Vancouver this season, which is pressure the puck and see if they turn it over. Drew O’Connor was stripped at center, leading to a tough shot from Simon Holmstrom that Leevi had to fight off, followed by a point shot from Schaefer that the young netminder swallowed up:
Rebound control has been iffy to say the least for Kevin Lankinen, which is where I think Meriläinen has really shone compared to his goaltending partner. His mechanics seem dialed in to the point that yeah, you want to feed him some starts to see if he can keep it up.
And with under five minutes left, DeAngelo got a shot off in the slot and the followed the rebound up with another shot that Meriläinen once again shut down in quick fashion:
Overall, this was very clearly Meriläinen’s best game with Vancouver, no questions asked.
Best rage against the dying light
Brock Boeser had the best chance to tie it with the one timer piss missile from the point as time wound down, but he was denied:
The lunging kick save is just slightly behind the sliding glove save for me in terms of making me whisper “hell yeah, awesome”.
With the Canucks looking for answers, it was Zeev Buium once again in the spotlight, this time for a hooking penalty with under two minutes left:
A couple of things, yes, that hook was a very soft call. Especially when the refs let what looked to be a boarding call against the Canucks off the hook earlier in the play.
But the initial pass to Elias Pettersson is just too slow, it gives New York too much time to close the gap on EP40. And when they do cut off EP40 and steal the puck, Buium is skating up out of his zone with a little too much confidence, and ends up taking a slow wide turn to get back into the play to defend the rush. The fact Zeev has to skate back to make the soft hook is what gets him into trouble in the first place.
The Canucks zone exits are both the solution to, and the source of all their problems.
This meant Meriläinen had to put his working boots back on, this time robbing Bo Horvat off another sweet Schaefer feed, leading to a bit of a scuffle after the whistle:
Bo Horvat would get another shot with under a minute left, which Meriläinen made sure had no rebound:
The main takeaway I have from Meriläinen is that he gave his team a chance to win. This game was close, the game was good for Vancouver, but there is a healthy dose of “it also took Meriläinen playing at a very high level to keep it at a close game” that you have to factor into all of this.
Best if only
I personally understand Aatu Räty getting sat down for a game, as he has struggled in his own zone at times, to the point where he is very clearly doing things coaches will yell at you about.
But there is something amusing about the Canucks losing three straight draws at the end of the game when they’re trying to tie things up. Marco Rossi lost twice, and then Elias Pettersson lost one as well, leading to a shot going in well past the buzzer:
Kudos to the Canucks for finding a way to try and squeeze a last second scoring chance out of the last faceoff, but ultimately the Islanders walk away with the win.
Best three up three down
Down:
  • Zeev Buium. Going to upgrade that “possible worst game I have seen from him in a Canucks uniform” to 100% the worst game I have seen from him. Struggled in his own zone all night, and aside from one little nice skate with the puck on the powerplay (resulting in a no look pass into traffic turnover special), was non existent in the offensive zone.
  • The new flavour of ice creams ads. Announce it already. Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to overshadow anything you do soon.
  • Drew O’Connor at center. Put him back on the wing where he belongs.
Up:
  • Leevi Meriläinen. Dude just seemed confident in net. Controlled his rebounds well, kept himself centered in his net, and made some highlight reel saves when he needed to.
  • Jonathan Lekkerimäki. Has not looked like a rookie in the slightest the last handful of games. Has been a big part of the Canucks best forward line.
  • D Elias Pettersson. I like his snarl in the crease. That end of game scuffle with Bo Horvat and Kyle Palmieri was fantastic. More of that please.
Best these are the rules now
I truly don’t know what this is. Did some copy and paste and hit print by accident? Why is this happening? What is going on?
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