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The Stanchies: Hughes and Pettersson look sharp in Canucks’ 5-4 OT loss to Avalanche
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Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Nov 10, 2025, 04:05 ESTUpdated: Nov 10, 2025, 12:46 EST
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The Vancouver Canucks may have lost to the Colorado Avalanche in overtime to the tune of 5-4, but I can genuinely say it might have been their best effort of the season. No, we don’t need to get into moral victory territory on this one, but if you’re an optimist praying that this season doesn’t end with Quinn Hughes leaving and Elias Pettersson being unable to say anything other than “Hodor”, then this game probably left you satisfied.
The good guys didn’t walk away with the victory, but in a game in which Vancouver never led, they scratched and clawed their way into gutting out a solitary point, which is not nothing. You also had a night of hockey in which Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes looked as sharp offensively as I’ve seen them in quite some time. Let’s just say I didn’t find myself wondering if we made a mistake inventing hockey after every time either one of them touched the puck, which feels like a nice change of pace. Quinn Hughes was razor sharp, rushing the puck into the offensive zone and bull-rushing towards the net. Elias Pettersson finally stopped making 18 drop passes a game, instead choosing to shoot the bloody thing himself this time.
You might wonder why I am heaping praise on them as they only had one assist between the two of them, but when given the choice between heaping and showering, I always go heap.
The point is, we haven’t seen too many games this season in which Elias and Quinn have looked that dialled in, so I would say it’s safe to applaud their efforts against one of the better teams in the league.
We have a lot to go over, so let’s dive into this one.
Best before we begin
I feel safer knowing that the NHL still has some of the same storylines from Vancouver continuing around the league. JT Miller’s team struggling offensively while he’s out here breaking sticks on the net, and fans are drawing lines in the sand to attack and defend his leadership? Rick Tocchet running a low scoring team, running into issues with his Russian player, while his locker room looks to handle things themselves?
It says something when other teams respect traditions like this.
Best shoot your shot
As stated in the opener, Elias and Quinn looked engaged in this contest. Skating with purpose? Shooting with intent? I don’t know what phrase you want me to use, but they had it on this night. Playing with mustard in their back pocket? Does that work?
Either way, here is a glorious clip of Elias Pettersson getting a long bomb of a pass from Quinn Hughes and actually shooting the puck on net:
Not once did Elias Pettersson look to do a drop pass. Not once did EP40 pull up and look for a trailer. Not once did he try to circle the net while muttering “oh dear god please let a teammate get open so I don’t have to shoot this thing, please help me, I’m so excited, I’m so excited I’m so….scared” before collapsing in the arms of Zack Morris.
I’ve said since day one of this season, if Elias goes out there and has banger after banger after banger by way of shooting endless pucks, this city will relax. It’s just easier to accept someone not scoring if they’re shooting a lot. For whatever reason, our brains tell us to relax. The guy is shooting the puck; what else do you want from him?
But if all he does is pass? Clearly, he doesn’t want to win and is scared to shoot, and it’s very possible that he is purposely doing this to hurt you. Yes, you, Justin. You’re reading this right now, and I am talking about you. Elias Pettersson wants you to be sad when all he does is pass.
But on this night, Elias was playing with mustard in his back pocket, as not only was he shooting, but he was once again putting his body on the line to make some big shot blocks:
Dude literally pancake flattened himself diving backwards to make a pad save. Someone get Randy Marsh’s wheelbarrow out here because Petey is going to need it.
Best 2011 vibes
I’ve talked about it before, but 2011 was a season in which Vancouver would try for like the first half of the first period, then the last half of the third period, and they’d still win games. They were just too skilled to be stopped, so they knew when to turn on the gas. Go up early, coast for a bit, then turn it back on again if the other team is still hanging.
And on this night, the Avalanche got started pretty quickly, mostly in the form of Nate MacKinnon being stupidly fast:
Nate walks around Tyler Myers pretty easily and gets the shot off, but Kevin Lankinen is there to make the glove save.
But that was merely a slight delay in the Nate-bomb assault, as MacKinnon would make it 1-0 shortly thereafter:
You’ll notice Evander Kane using skills he learned at Planet Ice at the start of the clip, as he just sort of skates in the general direction of the puck before slowly turning around to watch the destruction unfold behind him. Perhaps inspired by this approach to life, Elias Pettersson is the next one to wheel up at the puck carrier before slowly cycling off to think about life. Unfortunately, by this point, two Avalanche players have jumped on the ice from the bench and made a beeline to the Canucks zone, one of whom was MacKinnon.
This leaves Filip Hronek with the choice of defending the two guys in front of his goalie or Nate Mack off to the side, so Hronek does what any new driver at a four-way stop would do: freeze on the spot and pray someone else moves first. But as Hronek drops to a knee to pledge allegiance to Stannis Baratheon and/or possibly block Valeri Nichushkin’s shot, the hefty Russian makes a brilliant pass right over to a wide-open MacKinnon.
It’s a clinical finish on a very slick goal, and this is very much one of those situations where you have to give credit to both teams. Credit to the Avalanche for such a skilled play, and credit to the Canucks for making poor defensive decisions in life that you simply do not agree with.
A couple of minutes later on the power play, the Canucks found themselves once again staring down the barrel at a MacKinnon goal:
The Avalanche just use a lot of puck movement and eventually finds enough room for Nate to walk in and unleash a shot on net, which results in a goal. Like, if you’re asked what the Canucks should have done better on this goal, you’re just like, “stop MacKinnon from shooting?” And you’re not wrong, but clearly that’s not an easy task.
I have just come to realize that Derek Forbort is apparently the foundation of a good Canucks penalty kill, and without him, you simply wait to see if the other team will score. It’s not an exciting system, but it’s an honest one.
Despite being down 2-0, the Canucks didn’t fold up shop, however, which is where the majority of praise for this game will be pointed. It truly was one of, if not the, best efforts on the season from a Vancouver Canucks club that has struggled to showcase consistency game to game.
And it wasn’t just an Elias or Quinn game; it was also someone like Jake DeBrusk stepping up and stealing the puck and getting a couple of shots out of a nice offensive zone rush:
There weren’t a ton of passengers on the night as this felt like a full team effort from the club.
Best pawn stars
Best I can do is Elias Pettersson hitting the post:
The important thing is once again, Elias is shooting the puck. He’s not looking to pass. He’s not thinking how can he make it look like he accidentally shot the puck into the stands so he can go for a line change. No, he’s out here playing with mustard in his back pocket, and taking good shots when he has a shooting lane.
I will say if there is one thing you can criticize Elias for in this game, it’s why he didn’t just shoot between his legs like Linus Karlsson did?
What’s so hard about that? What’s with all this passing and puck movement when all you have to do is throw it in the general area of Linus and he’s gonna smash the deke button and bust out a shot between his legs??
You never know how long an NHL player’s career will be, so I always get unnaturally excited about a slick goal like this. A lot of players can end up only playing under 100 games in the NHL and be forgotten to the sands of time, but a goal like this automatically helps solidify your spot in Canucks lore.
“Linus Karlsson? Oh sh!t, that was the dude who scored between his legs!”
Hey, we still talk about Lee Goren for a reason, that’s all I’m saying.
Now, Linus has a long way to go before he hits high-end lore status on par with, say, a Jeff Cowan. But it’s still a solid start.
After that goal, the first period sort of settled into a back-and-forth affair, as both teams traded chances.
First, you had Gabe Landeskog testing Lankinen with a shot from the slot after a Marcus Pettersson “This is gonna look so cool when I dive to make this pass “oh sh!t that’s right to the other team” turnover:
And then you had Quinn Hughes skating all over the offensive zone, running a give and go with Fil Hronek:
We try not to get too deep into body language around these parts, as a player looking sad isn’t the most scientific approach to coming to a conclusion in the NHL. But in a season in which we haven’t seen Quinn Hughes skate his ass off as if he wants to beat the entire world by himself, this night felt more like the Quinn Hughes we’ve become accustomed to seeing in Vancouver.
He skated like he felt he could score. Or at the very least, wanted to score. He skated like he was almost insulted you didn’t think he COULD score. That’s the Quinn Hughes energy we’re used to.
Other games this season you just watch him on the ice and it’s like he has this Charlie Brown energy hanging over him and he’s just waiting for someone to yank that football away from him.
How can Adam Foote break through if all Quinn hears is an assortment of weird trombone noises?
Best GOTI hockey reference
You want some guts? I’ll give you some damn guts.
Near the end of the first we have Conor Garland, the land shark that he is, drawing a penalty by simply being Conor Garland:
His entire energy is making other people annoyed at how hard he works and thus making themselves feel bad about their own efforts, which is what I think leads to a lot of moments like these. He makes people feel bad about themselves by outworking them, which brings up a lot of childhood baggage, which leads to them lashing out.
And while the Canucks didn’t score on the power play, they got the puck to Brock Boeser in a spot that I assumed was going to be a goal but life doesn’t always work that way, does it:
The good news is that as you can see, Elias had the hunger for the puck on the net. He’s jamming his stick right into the guts of that ice and trying to score as dirty as possible.
The Avalanche would get the best scoring chance on the power play, however, as Jack Drury snuck behind the Canucks defence and got himself a breakaway:
OK perhaps “snuck” is too kind of a word. No, what happened was Evander Kane was last man back and he saw the puck leaving the Canucks’ zone and he just sort of stops. Planet Ice skates back for a bit but then coasts the rest of the way in, but luckily for Vancouver, Lankinen was able to make the stop.
The second period then started a lot like the first period did, with Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson looking dangerous in the offensive zone:
There were a lot of plays like this during the game from Vancouver, where a skater would wheel up the boards toward the point, shield the puck and then dish it off to a teammate coming into the zone with speed. In this case, it resulted with Hughes getting another shot on net, one of his seven on the night, but it was a play that let the Canucks generate speed to create some room to shoot.
Best on the prowl
Tyler Myers, he of the chaotic desires, used his energy to jump up along the boards, causing a turnover from Martin Necas. The end result? Kiefer Sherwood continued his hunt for the Rocket Richard with his 10th goal of the season:
As the season continues, we will keep you updated on who gets more goals this season, Sherwood or Steven Stamkos.
Best working hard or hardly working
The Canucks played hard, they really did. Even with the game tied, they kept pushing the pace, which is an essential part of making an opponent hate their lives when they’re playing their second of back to back games. That long change is draining, so credit Vancouver for continuing to hunt for blood in this one.
It led to this high danger scoring chance for Planet Ice in the second period, and I think we can all agree we have never seen him skate faster than when he saw a chance for a breakaway:
Now, don’t get me wrong, Evander Kane is a very skilled player. But we all know beer league strats when we seem them, albeit at the highest level of hockey. In a way, I’m impressed by the fact we get to watch this in the NHL, it makes everything feel so much more relatable.
But it wasn’t just Planet Ice skating hard, as Quinn Hughes also created a scoring chance based purely on angrily skating into the offensive zone as if it owed him money:
And it’s efforts like that which will draw penalties, as Jake DeBrusk found out when he was held up on a breakaway attempt:
Which led us to, guess what? More Elias Pettersson shots on the power play!
That’s right, you just saw Elias Pettersson attempt a one-timer with no hesitation, as well as walking in and unleashing a wrist shot. Mother Nature is truly healing.
And speaking of drawing penalties out of pure hustle, here is perhaps my favourite drawn penalty of the season:
Corolla out here trying to drive his way past Victor Olofsson, kicking his feet back like a mule, literally bucking like a horse at times, in an attempt to get at the puck. At one point Victor looks up as if to say, “what the **** is going on, is anyone going to help me out over here?” as Garland tries to kick his way past him.
This visuals alone on this put it up for penalty of the year.
I can only imagine how annoying it must be to play against Conor Garland. How many times has an opponent probably told him to relax?
Best good teams are good
Entering the third period the Canucks were outshooting Colorado 26-16, but good teams know when to turn it on, so it shouldn’t shock you to know The Avalanche ended the third period outshooting Vancouver 14-7, winning the underlying stat battles in scoring chances generated/attempted, insults thrown, threats made, etc.
And it was on the first shot of the period that Colorado took back the lead, when Brent Burns found Artturi Lehkonen in front of Lankinen for the tip in:
If there is one drawback to Quinn Hughes, it’s that size still matters in some battles, and in this case, the Canucks captain just couldn’t control the stick of Lehkonen. The goal was also helped by the fact that Garland had dropped his stick earlier in the play, so Colorado had a pseudo power play of sorts, which allowed them to move the puck around even easier in the Canucks zone.
Best iron will
But like any good Lost Boy will tell you, Bangerang is a way of life, not simply a motto you utter when trying to intimidate Peter Pan returning to the fold, so Vancouver doubled down and attempted to turn the tide of battle once again.
The Canucks just kept forechecking hard, which caused the Avalanche to run into turnovers. This led to a nice couple of chances from Aatu Räty and Jake DeBrusk:
There was nothing very scary about those shots on net, but it just sort of shows the way the ice was tilting in Vancouver’s favour, as they were the ones knocking.
Moments later you had Quinn Hughes doing Quinn Hughes things by walking the blue line and circling the entire offensive zone, before feeding a pass to Hronek from the shot:
All of which, yes, ended in an Evander Kane penalty in the offensive zone.
But with Planet Ice in the penalty box, this led to the hero you don’t deserve, but the one you need: Drew O’Connor.
Best Calendar boy
Drew O’Connor, a man I have made many a “what’s the deal with this guy, anyways?” critiques of this season, shoved them forcibly down my throat with this shorthanded goal on the Kane penalty:
The guy missed a hundred breakaways a night but now he’s out here dialling long distance, going top shelf where Mom keeps the DNA tests that could crush your entire family if the results were ever leaked out.
That is just an absolutely filthy finish on that shot, and if I’m Drew O’Connor, I’m sending that annoying Stanchies author an e-mail with the the subject line of “open this if u idiot”. I will open this e-mail, watch the clip of this goal, before replying with a thumbs up emoji.
Best good teams gooder
Alas the fanfare was short lived, as the Canucks didn’t get the memo that taking penalties against Colorado is probably not the greatest tactical move to make in this day and age.
Somehow Lehkonen managed to find himself wide open on a power play right in front of the goalie?
Pettersson stumbles so he slides to the left trying to recover, Tyler Myers for some reason drops to block the shot but slides himself out of frame (bees?), and then Kevin Lankinen also over commits on the save and slides really far to his right, but because he’s a gentleman, damn it, he pops out the rebound right in the middle of his crease. Lehkonen finds himself with the kind of empty net you dream as of a child, and yeah, he’s not missing that.
In conclusion, this was not a great goal? This is very much a Dril situation where you don’t have to hand it to them?
Best never give up, never surrender
As Starship Troopers taught us, do you really wanna live forever? According to Hughes and EP40, no. Well, maybe. I don’t know how that metaphor applies to this game.
The point is, Elias and Quinn stood out as the top players for Vancouver, as they were constantly generating offence by passing the puck back and forth, playing off of each other, and even ending with Elias Pettersson attempting a one handed deke on this play:
People will want results from Elias before they applaud him, and they are going to want consistency, and I very much agree with that.
But on this night, he at least resembled the 11.6 million dollar player the Canucks signed up for.
Best drawing important conclusions
Elias went 18 for 29 on the night in the faceoff circle, and none was as important as the one late in the third period that lead to the Canucks tying up the game:
Faceoffs always make me laugh because back in the day, around 2013-ish, the advanced stats guys hammered away so hard about faceoffs not being important. Like, it was life or death sh!t with them. They’d scream at you with spittle running down their chins as they told you how little faceoffs meant in hockey and you were an idiot for caring about them. “It’s about what you do AFTER the faceoff that matters” was where they eventually landed and at that point I knew the semantics of advanced stats would have a limit for me.
That being said, this faceoff and what the Canucks did after it, was important. It got the puck to Brock Boeser, and he knows Jake DeBrusk is set up in Tim Hortons waiting for said puck, so Brock sends in a shot just waiting to be deftly tipped. How deft was the tip? Trick question, all tips are deft.
I enjoyed this game, man. I don’t know what to tell you. I have watched too many games of this team looking like they’d rather be anywhere else but a hockey rink, but this game was not one of those. The team showed up and busted their asses off to get a point, and I fully respect and admire that.
Best remember Kevin like this
None of these saves Lankinen made would register on the Quinn Hughes Scale of Insanity, but we’re going to need to remember Kevin like we see in these clips, not like we will see him in overtime:
Three shots, three saves, Kevin made sure that single point didn’t slip away, and that is to be admired.
Best delay
First, the good of overtime.
Here is Elias Pettersson once again going all out to make a diving defensive play:
Say what you will about his offence, but I rarely think it’s an effort issue from EP40. I think he just gets stuck in his head at times, and it ruins his flow. He needs to put some Enya on and find his happy place while he trails his hand through some wheat fields, then the goals will come.
As for Lankinen, his rebound control ended up costing the Canucks in overtime, as he punted the puck right back into the middle of the ice, then swiped at said rebound, then watched as Gavin Brindley put the puck in five hole:
Kevin ends up looking a heck of a lot more like Fuller, and let me tell you, he did not go easy on the Pepsi on that initial shot. Woof.
And that was the ball game.
Canucks had a heck of an effort, and it’s hard to walk away angry from that one. I think they played as well as they possibly could and gave themselves a chance to win. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Best ending on a down note
If you enjoyed the game, please stop reading! Because I am about to talk about over a decade of misery, which is kind of a downer on a night in which the team played reasonably well.
So if you’re still here, pull up a chair, get comfy, put on your Costco-branded joggers and hoody combo you just bought for a reasonable price, and let’s talk rebuild, shall we?
Because, as it stands right now in Canucks Nation, the dreaded “rebuild” word has once again taken centre stage. Now, if you’re new to this scene or haven’t been paying attention, maybe this talk of rebuilding has caught you off guard. After all, this is a team with Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson and Thatcher Demko. A team just a few years removed from pushing the Oilers to their limit in round two, and looking like a team that might have some post-season juice.
But if we’re being honest with each other? This has sort of been the same song and dance routine since 2014.
Back then, we knew that Mike Gillis wanted to rebuild from the 2011 roster, as he saw the writing was already on the wall for the core. The Canucks won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2012, but their early exit in round one was a symptom of the rot, not a random chaotic event.
We didn’t know the exact details of the plan at the time, but as Patrick Johnston wrote about in The Province, trading Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows away for three first-rounders feels like a very solid and definitive way to reboot your franchise. It’s made all the more worse by the fact that this would have been one of the rare times the Canucks were selling high when trading top six players, as both Burrows and Kesler never reached the same heights ever again after 2011.
It, in fact, feels quite on brand for Mike Gillis to be ahead of the curve in hockey, as this was a team that was once viewed as leading the pack when it came to making smart decisions. Were there mistakes? Certainly, but they were quick to correct course and take action, and they went from being laughed at for looking into sleep doctors to setting the bar higher when it came to finding any competitive edge possible, both on and off the ice. Even to the point that Gary Bettman and the league had a little tantrum about the Canucks working the salary cap so efficiently that they got retroactively punished for the Roberto Luongo contract.
Which is why it always felt so forced when John Tortorella was brought in to coach the Canucks. It didn’t seem like a good fit with the team or the management, as anytime Gillis and the fiery coach were on screen at the same time, you could almost taste the awkwardness in the air. Lemons with a slight pinch of cumin is how I imagined it (I think if Lex Luther showed up to help Superman out with a job for the day, it would be very much the same vibe as the Gillis and Tortorella tandem gave off).
That was when we first heard the rumblings, of course. That maybe ownership had a different idea of what the vision for the future of the club should be. That maybe management had some ideas or trades they’d like to see happen. That may be the finger on the scale was getting heavier than it used to be. So when Mike Gillis was let go by the Canucks and Jim Benning and Trevor Linden were brought on, you could kind of see the writing on the wall. Sure, maybe you bring in new guys to launch a rebuild. There is some merit to that idea, after all: a fresh outlook, fresh ideas — maybe they can figure out a way to build the team back up.
But with the signings of Ryan Miller and Radim Vrbata, it quickly became apparent that the new management wasn’t looking for a rebuild. In fact, that word wasn’t said by a member of Canucks management for many years. It actually became a point of contention that they wouldn’t even consider the idea of a rebuild, let alone say the word itself. How can you rebuild when you have the Sedins, they said? They owed it to the Twins, you see, to try and win a Stanley Cup. What kind of monster would deny them one last Cup run??
This, of course, was one of the more farcical lines of logic we have ever heard in this city, as I cannot think of two more selfless athletes in the world than Henrik and Daniel. They would be first in line to tell you to tear it all down if it were for the greater good, and would probably be mortally insulted if you held a door too long for them, much less delayed a rebuild for them.
But the closest we got to the Benning Era discussing a true teardown was a begrudging response of maybe it was time for a “retool”. A retool isn’t as scary as a rebuild, you see, because it might still contain a couple of games of playoff revenue. The “get in and see what happens” applies equally to your Stanley Cup hopes and your bank account when you’re an owner.
The Canucks had a brief playoff run in the early Benning years, mind you. A solid first-round exit at the hands of the Calgary Flames that led to a lifelong quest from Jim Benning to sign Michael Ferland. But things quickly began to fester. The wound, covered with scotch tape and packed with some pickling salt, could only do so much. Before you knew it, Trevor Linden seemed to realize that you know what? It might be a good time for a rebuild. This led to duelling soundbites in which Trevor would discuss moving forward with an eye on the future, while Jim Benning remained steadfast in the idea that they could turn things around; all they needed were a couple of pieces.
So it wasn’t much of a surprise which side Frankie chose. Jim Benning seemed very agreeable to an outlook that aligned with the owners, and off to the races we went. The playoff bubble run was the next “Hey, we’re a couple of pieces away from contending, aren’t we??” moment that led to a team that continued to believe in the quick turnaround. They just needed a few pieces, damn it! With those few pieces, they’d be a bona fide contender!
As the Canucks failed to match the success of the bubble run, Jim Benning made the ultimate “I gotta save my job by making the playoffs” move by trading for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, which still affects the team to this day. The OEL salary cap hit from buying out his contract and losing out on Dylan Guenther is hard to ignore, given the current management’s talk of needing more assets.
And with that, Jim was gone, and here was another Jim, as Rutherford and Allvin took their shot leading the team, much like before the team had a solid playoff run that generated hype, despite glaring flaws just underneath the surface. And much like before, the team struggled to match any of the expectations set by their latest post-season run.
Instead, they find themselves mired in the mushy middle. Once again facing questions about a rebuild. Once again, retorting that it’s simply not possible or fair to rebuild with the players they currently have. And once again, they assure you that with just a couple of additions, they’ll be contenders for sure.
Never mind the fact that the majority of the league can say the same thing. Never mind that finding these top-end, elite players is not something you simply generate out of nothing. Never mind that we’ve been doing this dance for year after year and seen the same results.
No, this time it’s going to be different, damn it. Because all they need are a couple of pieces, and this team is a contender.
So on a night in which the team played one of their best games of the season, it’s hard to buy into the hype. No one questions the team’s effort on this night, but how many times have we watched a Stanley Cup team win it all, and we’re left saying, “hard to imagine this team competing with that level of hockey!”?
“Anything can happen in sports!” should be a summary, not a game plan, and I just worry that we’re still stuck on the same ride we’ve been on since the end of the Mike Gillis era. Constantly looking for the quick retool and never planning for long-term success.
For a franchise that seemingly cannot wait to raise prices at the first sniff of success, for a franchise that seemingly feels like it doesn’t need to bother with engaging off-ice content and branding, for a franchise that seemingly thinks you should be entertained enough by simply being let in through the doors, it all starts to feel just a little bit silly at times.
And at the end of the day, this fan base deserves better.

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