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The Stanchies: Lankinen’s big night, shot volume issues, and let’s talk about the Rutherford interview
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Photo credit: © James Guillory-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Nov 15, 2025, 00:15 ESTUpdated: Nov 15, 2025, 05:41 EST
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Although the Vancouver Canucks managed to escape Carolina with a point in hand, your view of the 4-3 overtime loss might vary.
You might see a team struggling with injuries gutting out a point as something bordering on, well, not heroic, but downright admirable. Any time this team secures a point without Quinn Hughes in the lineup is probably a good reason to toast your glasses in appreciation. If ever there was a time to embrace your inner New York Italian, now would be the time to let out a “what are you gonna do?” as you commiserate with friends and family.
Or you might view the fact that the Canucks got outplayed, outshot, and outchanced as another symptom of the rot that has burrowed into this roster. That even with a healthy lineup, the ceiling for this team will forever be stuck in the dreaded mushy middle. We’ve been fighting it for a while now, but it sure feels like we’re entering Moral Victory season.
I will say that despite leaving this game with an .895 save percentage, Kevin Lankinen’s 34 saves on 38 shots doesn’t tell the whole story. The Canucks ended the night with two, count them two, high danger chances to the Hurricanes’ 21. In fact, the Canucks only had 17 total shots in the game, meaning Carolina surpassed them in high-danger chances alone, let alone more than doubling them in total shots.
So while I won’t assign the MV label to Kevin’s performance, he at least can rest easy that he wasn’t to blame for this loss.
And if we want to stay positive, Elias Pettersson’s two points were a good story out of this game. He unleashed a vintage wrist shot at one point, scoring on the play, teleporting us to 2018, back when “Yanny” vs “Laurel” was our biggest worry. Although don’t worry if you want to scream at Elias Pettersson, he did get beaten pretty soundly on the overtime winner, so you can take your pound of flesh if need be.
To the Canucks credit, winning a road game while drunk off of a high shooting percentage isn’t a unique spot to be in. Going up 3-2 in the game, you can excuse them for sitting back and trying to gut out the win. And for a while, it felt like they’d lulled the Carolina players (and fans) into a sort of acceptance of their fate: low energy, light fading, the need to sleep slowly crowding into their thoughts.
Luckily for the Canes, another Kane entered the fray, as a bizarre sequence in the third period from Evander pretty much dragged Carolina back into this game. We’ll get to that later.
Still, setting that aside, the Corsi paints the picture of one team in control, and the other one hoping their goalie plus luck going their way could steal a win:
Anytime a Corsi graph looks like an airplane taking off, it’s clear who was controlling the play.
So while you decide what viewpoint you want to land on, happy they got a point or tired of watching a team struggle, let’s jump into the guts of this game.
Best early warning signs
Carolina had good energy off the hop, and were it not for Kiefer Sherwood being Johnny-on-the-spot, they might have scored on their first shift of the game:
It was to be a night of this for Vancouver, endlessly watching shots and wondering to themselves, “how did we get out of that mess?” before promptly going back and making another mess.
And while the team overall got caved in on Corsi, we do have to point out that the Kiefer Sherwood, Brock Boeser and Lukas Reichel line got absolutely murdered at evens on the night, as Sherwood was dead last with a 3 for, 30 against.
So what I’m saying is if you’re a Kiefer fan, really embrace that video clip and enjoy it, as I don’t have much else to offer you. He’s been one of their best goal scorers on the team, and I am not questioning his effort level. I am just saying on this night, he lost the battle and/or I don’t think that’s a line combination we need to see again anytime soon.
I can give you a big hit, though? You want a boom boom?
There you go, that’s a big boom boom.
Best here comes the pain train
Tyler Myers continues to resort to his more chaotic ways, as the absence of the Tocchet GOTI system the Canucks used to have in place is no longer there to provide the nurturing, structured environment I think CG57 can excel in.
Basically, when you tell Chaos to improvise, sometimes that involves him improvising in ways I wouldn’t expect:
Part of me kind of loves this? Like, Myers does this big sweeping turn and then is like “Nah, you know what, you can go get that Joseph” and motions at him to go take care of Logan Stankoven.
Best keep on rollin’ baby
Despite the chaotic nature of the start of the game, the Canucks ended up scoring first when Mackenzie MacEachern managed a pass and a sweeping of the leg at the same time, allowing Max Sasson to skate into a breakaway:
MacEachern managing to kick the puck over while also hooking his leg behind Shayne Gostisbehere is the kind of Jarkko Ruutu energy I want to see more of from this team. A Cobra Kai approach to hockey is never a bad thing, as long as you don’t go full John Kreese mode. Just sort of hover around Terry Silver levels.
And kudos to Max Sasson for coming in and celebrating Alex Mogilny’s Hall of Fame induction with a five-hole goal worthy of the former Canuck. Sasson just casually walks in, and while the goalie is wondering which corner Max is going to pick, he’s like, “nah dog, I’ll just go through your legs,” and now Pyotr Kochetkov looks like a fool, a fool!
Best animal nature
The lead was short lived, however, as Tyler Myers attempted to thread the needle through several Carolina players, where it was picked off and promptly turned into a goal:
I have looked at all the angles of this goal and the best I can come up with is Tyler Myers was trying to dial in a long distance bank pass to a very far off Evander Kane (which is its own problem), effectively giving him four points of failure in regards to Carolina players waiting to make a play on the puck:
It ends up being a really well placed shot from Andrei Svechnikov that beats Kevin Lankinen, and I don’t think this turnover is the most egregious one you’ll see in the NHL. But in a game of inches any turnover in your own zone is never a good thing, so yes, you can safely say that Chaos Giraffe embraced evil on this play.
I’m mostly surprised Svechnikov didn’t elbow someone in the face to celebrate his goal, to be honest.
Best making it up as we go along
Shortly after the Canes first goal, Seth Jarvis would get raked in the eye by his own teammate’s stick, leading to Marcus Pettersson getting a penalty for existing near the scene of the crime:
Now I have seen some terrible cross-checking penalties handed out in my time, just as soft as this one, but the penalty was clearly called because Jarvis fell to the ice and began kicking his legs in pain, the universal sign of “oh my god that hurt so much, why did that hurt so much”.
Jarvis left the game and didn’t return, so I am not saying he was embellishing it. What I am saying is I think an official saw Seth lying on the ice exhibiting a large amount of pain and was like, “ok it must have been that tall guy with a stick, he did it”, so Marcus Pettersson was arrested. He just looks like the kind of guy who enjoys a good cross-check. And he’s so big that the cross-check would probably hurt. That’s how we got here.
This would then lead to Carolina immediately scoring off of the faceoff on the power play:
Once again the Canucks have given up an East/West goal, and once again the Canucks historically bad penalty kill continues to chase down records. I never thought we’d find ourselves wondering just how vital Teddy Blueger and Derek Forbort were to a team’s success, but we might be at that point now.
Best shake and Jake
Even though the Canucks controlled very little of the play Friday night, they did manage to counterattack at times with speed, which is only noticeable due to how much they struggled to do it last season.
Not that I am suggesting Adam Foote is the answer or that losing Rick Tocchet has crippled the team, I just mean at this point in the season, we’re starting to see some differences emerge between the two styles, and it’s clear that a Foote-coached team seems to generate offensive rush chances better:
That’s a nice little give-and-go from Drew O’Connor and Jake DeBrusk. DOC waits until he draws in the defender, then finds Jake down low with all the time and space in the world, and Vancouver gets one of their two high danger chances on the night.
Best no gas, no brakes
Planet Ice would put the Canucks down a man halfway through the first period with the most beer league penalty I have ever seen in my life:
Just a casual one handed stick to the face, complete with hand in the air as if to say “you’re calling that??” when the ref raised his arm.
Say what you will about the man, but this is one of the most technically perfect beer league penalties I have ever seen in my life.
Fortunately for Vancouver, this led to a bit of a vintage play from Elias Pettersson, as Carolina accidentally hit the drop pass button on their break out on the power play:
Elias sees Sean Walker bobble the puck a tiny bit and put his head down so he reads the backhand pass right away. So EP40 jumps into the play, takes the puck, and then scores on a nice little drag shot as it to say, “I’d like to see Sebastian Aho try that on ME in overtime, ha ha ha!”
Best next up mentality
Marcus Pettersson would end the night with 30:23 of ice time on the night, leading both teams in that regard.
Best view from the other side
Thinking random goalies will always destroy your team is not just a Vancouver Canucks tradition; other fan bases share a similar outlook.
We have seen Kevin do this before; however, it was the first half of last season that largely earned his current contract with the Canucks. And while he has looked far more like second-half Kevin this season, tonight he did play his ass off, and grinded out that one point for the Canucks:
That’s a nice side-to-side save from Lankinen, but with the amount of East/West shots the Canucks are facing, I do fear for the groins of the goalies this season.
Also, remember that party enthusiast who was really, really good at side-to-side saves? He would have probably been nice to have around.
Best shoot for the moon
You don’t need shot volume when every other shot goes in:
With three goals on seven shots, the Canucks third and final scoring play of the night was a power play marker from Conor Garland, who managed to dig the puck near his feet and push a shot on net. With Jake DeBrusk set up in his Tim Hortons office screening the goalie, Corolla was just able to beat the goaltender in a similar fashion to the Hurricanes’ first goal of the night.
Best don’t say moral victory
Best sub plot
Tom Willander’s NHL journey is just starting, and while his gameplay so far has centred around being a dependable Milford Man, every other game or so, he goes on a rush where he almost scores:
His ability to jump in the rush now and then to provide a burst of speed to the net is one of the most exciting parts of his game.
I feel like we’re getting closer and closer to Willander’s first goal of his NHL career, and so help me god, it better be off a delightful rush, not some thoughts-and-prayers screenshot from the point. We deserve a bit of hype this season. We aren’t even getting the “Oh man Lukas Reichel almost scored” moments anymore; we’ve got so little right now.
Best a bit much
While I come to terms with “Kevezina”, I will say that the second period was mostly a lot of Kevin trying to deal with life against a team that seemed intent upon hating him in the form of generating as many shots as possible, while his teammates did their best to block as many pucks as possible.
This is why you would see a lot of Kevin making the initial save, followed up by teammates jumping on the puck like it was a live grenade, and they wanted to be the ones to make the noble sacrifice:
With the Canucks sitting back and defending, it would lead to moments where the Canes would gain the zone, pull up, and then find an open player. In this case it was the Stank who found himself in the slot but was unable to beat Kevin:
At one point, Jackson Blake literally skated around four Canucks in an end to end rush, before missing the net on the shot:
Sometimes you’d get Gostisbehere walking into a shot and unloading a piss missile that Kevin would have to drop his stick in dramatic fashion to make a glove save on:
And sometimes the Canes would beat Kevin using the East/West puck movement that seems to slice up Adam Foote’s defensive zone system, only to just miss the empty net:
It was just a lot of that kind of gameplay, where Vancouver would hold on and then offer up a counter-rush now and again in the hopes of getting a two-goal lead.
Again, not a unique strategy: when it wins, they call it a “solid road game,” but on this night, it felt a bit extreme? Like you’d watch this game and it just felt like playing with fire more often than not.
Best positive outlook
I think that’s a very charitable read of the game through two periods but damn it, if Drance is going to be optimistic for once, I am not going to be the one to argue.
Best what are we even doing here
The most memorable play of the game for me was the Evander Kane shift. I don’t think it will hit the point where I can go “The shift” when talking about Evander Kane, and people will know right away what I’m talking about, but it’s close.
So to set the stage for this, the Canucks to this point had been hanging back and holding onto the one-goal lead. And despite the fact it felt like Carolina could have been up a couple of goals to this point, you got the sense that Carolina had kind of stagnated in the third. They hadn’t scored. Kevin looked locked in. Stormy as a mascot, is a reference to the heavy Carolina pork industry, giving it a rather bleak background, so there was a lot to worry about on their end.
But then Evander Kane lost a puck battle with K’Andre Miller, and he got mad mad about it:
Planet Ice straight up loses the battle on that race for the puck; there’s nothing nefarious about it. Just two dudes in a puck pursuit, and one loses the physical contest. But Kane seemed to get real angry about this, so he starts chasing Miller around the ice. He’s chirping Miller looking for a fight but nobody is giving it to him. Now you have to understand, we at home only saw the puck battle. We saw Evander fall to the ice, and we were like, “Well that’s unfortunate,” and we had all moved on in life.
But on TV there was a growing murmur from the crowd, and the best I can describe the atmosphere is when a fan runs onto the field and the camera cuts away from them. You know some shit is going down, but they aren’t showing it, so all you can hear is the crowd getting louder and louder, and you keep wondering what’s happening.
So while this is going on, the crowd energy is building up and up, until Kane eventually gets levelled with a big hit from Joel Nystrom. Now the crowd erupts again, and you can see Carolina players start to feel the energy. They start another offensive rush, and when Kane finally goes for a line change, the Hurricanes now have the puck deep in Vancouver’s zone, and Taylor Hall taps in an East/West pass from The Ghost, and now it’s a tie game:
Tyler Myers does his team no favours on this play, as he loses the puck behind the net before going in front and just sort of spins in place, fully embracing a bubble hockey approach to life. But the entire mood in the arena just shifted on this play. Instead of being down and out, the crowd came to life, and the Hurricanes fed off of it. Evander Kane spent the majority of the shift trying to get revenge for himself because he fell down, and his resulting late line change just led to a disjointed defensive zone effort from his team.
Which, again, the Canucks were bleeding shots and chances against, so it’s not like this was the only time this kind of breakdown happened; it’s just that this one felt so unnecessary. At least before it was Carolina shooting at the Canucks, but here it truly felt like Vancouver shot themselves in the foot.
It’s one thing to defend a teammate taken out with a big hit, but it’s quite another to attempt to fulfill a blood oath because you lost a battle for the puck.
Best holding on for dear life
With the Canucks now firmly in “oh dear god please let us get out with a single point” mode, Marcus Pettersson caught a case of the slips and Carolina almost went ahead halfway through the third period:
Hey man, the effort is there, we can all see that. Drew O’Connor comes flying in to add support on the play, and the team continued to try and block shots at an absurdly high rate, to the point they had a 29 to four advantage by the end of the night.
But you could also see that Carolina had the horses on the night, and it felt like Vancouver was lucky just to be in the conversation.
Best glorious chance
The Canucks officially had two high danger chances on the night, and while I thought one was this late third period Linus Karlsson shot, apparently it was not registered as such:
I still felt it was important to showcase what was probably the only memorable shot attempt by the Canucks in the third period.
Best reference
Best eyes wide shut
Fil Hronek was taken out of the game near the end of the third period after Svechnikov unleashed a move probably better suited for the UFC:
Concussion spotters pulled him after the hit, and it’s easy to see why. No penalty was called on the play, mind you, as the official who was right there turned away from the puck being shot around the boards.
I will say that this is one of the more viscous elbows I have seen in hockey. Sometimes a guy hits through his check, and his elbow comes up with momentum, and we all scream and argue about intent or not, but in this case, it’s pretty clear Svechnikov was trying to land that shot to the head. He comes in hard and over the top with his arm, landing that elbow flush to Fil Hronek’s head, and if the league was serious about cleaning up the game and making it safer, this is the exact type of play they should be handing out suspensions for.
Best playing the long game
The start of overtime was objectively hilarious as the Canucks held the puck for over two minutes at one point? It’s just, without Quinn Hughes, their offensive pressure amounted to entering the zone, passing the puck around briefly, before leaving the zone and making a line change.
The crowd would boo every time they left the zone, and the heel work being done by the Canucks was so effective that by the time Carolina finally got the puck back, the crowd cheered like a goal had been scored.
Unfortunately, the Canucks didn’t make the Hurricanes work hard with all that puck possession, as Aho, who had been on the ice for the entire two-plus minutes, stayed on the ice after Carolina got the puck back.
So A for effort in working the crowd, but it didn’t put a dent in the energy level of their opponent.
And once they lost the puck, Carolina seemed to understand the assignment: Avoid facing Kevin Lankinen in a shootout at all costs.
Blake and Gostisbehere almost ended the game with under a minute left, but Kevin made a couple of key stops:
But Aho gonna Aho, as the overtime specialist called game when he danced around Elias and drag shot his way to victory:
That’s an absolutely clinical finish from Aho, as Kevin stood very little chance of stopping that.
Could Elias Pettersson have played that better? Sure. But sometimes top level players make big plays, and there’s not much more to it than that.
As we said at the start of the article, you’re either impressed the Canucks got a point, or disappointed they got buried by a good Carolina team so handily.
Best summary
It was an uphill battle all night long.
Best before we go
Now I would be remiss if I didn’t dive into the topic of the day, which was Jim Rutherford’s interview with IMac. They cover a lot of ground in the Q&A, but the main points for me were:
  • There is no rebuild on the horizon. The boogey monster that is the Buffalo Sabres remains the “See what can happen if you rebuild too hard??” talking point that all general managers refer to when they don’t want to tear down a team. Rutherford goes so far as to even refuse to mention the name of the Sabres, but I assume that’s out of decorum, not out of the fear of saying their name three times in a mirror and having them appear behind you to trade away your best players to Vegas.
  • Rutherford admitted that he didn’t expect the Canucks to still be looking to acquire a second line centre at this point in the season, but said the prices are just too damn high. Which I just have to say to any GM out there, if you’re looking for a top four D-man that can play significant minutes, or hunting for top six centre depth, that’s what every team is always looking for, every day, until the end of time. The “maybe we can find one on Craigslist?” approach works on occasion, but most of the time you’re going to show up at the dude’s garage and now he’s asking you to pay $200 above asking. “I didn’t realize it was mahogany bro, my bad.”
  • Rutherford did seem to embrace the team accepting its fate this season and riding out the injuries and continue to develop their players, instead of going all in to try and get a toe in the playoff pool. I have no doubt the team might change its tune if they acquire a second line centre and go on a bit of a heater, but this might be a season in which the Canucks actually trade assets at the trade deadline, which I had assumed was illegal in Vancouver?
  • On the opposite end of the Buffalo Boogey Man system is the St. Louis Was Last Once And Still Won The Cup system, which Rutherford made sure to point at just to let you know anything can happen. I don’t know if it’s reassuring or frightening that my last place fantasy football team mirrors the Canucks approach, but here we are.
  • One of the rougher spots of the interview was when discussing Pius Suter. Jim said Pius wanted to come back but then there was “some miscommunication on term”, which was either a thinly veiled comment about Suter’s demands and what he ended up accepting, or the Canucks got locked out of their hotmail e-mail account and couldn’t remember the password. From the organization that brought you “we ran out of time”, this won’t go over well, but as this is a different regime, we can’t bury this Jim with the sins of Jims past. That being said, we also know the Canucks flexed to Brock Boeser hard out of nowhere, and Nikita Zadorov talked about feeling disrespected in contract discussions, so its understandable if you read that quote and feel a bit uneasy.
  • He re-affirmed that the best-case scenario for this season is they get a 2nd line center, recover from injuries, and “if you get in the playoffs, you just never know.” which has been the war cry of this team for the last, what, 13 seasons? Which at this point they really just need to embrace this lifestyle. Enough with the “meet pressure with pressure” or “compete is in our nature”, it’s time to go all in. “Crazier things have happened?” should be written on the wall as the players walk to the ice. “You never know!” emblazoned on the locker room floor. “St. Louis did it once!” sewn into their gloves.
  • Jim mentioned not making trades for “draft picks that may or may not end up playing someday” so if a Quinn Hughes trade does materialize down the road, prepare yourself for players who can play right away. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you win a deal and bring in top level talent, it’s just historically you rarely get those kinds of deals completed because usually the team bringing in a Quinn Hughes is looking to a Stanley Cup now, and won’t be willing to give up a lot of good players in their prime. There is a reason we always talk about the “Dave Gagner was not a throw in” lore in Vancouver. Marian Hossa for Dany Heatley trade is one of the rare times where two teams traded players in or near their prime, with both players going on to perform at a high level for their new teams. Which again, this is the exception rather than the rule. More often than not, yeah, your GM will trot out and explain how Dave Gagner was a vital part of the trade and would not have happened without him.
  • The final talking point was the question about if Rutherford had full autonomy from the owner, to which he definitively stated he does. There will be some doubt on this, as the rumours and allegations surrounding the Jim Benning era about who was really driving the bus have reached infamy at this point, and as Patrick Johnston wrote, Mike Gillis had potential trades impacted by ownership. Maybe there is some Tony Soprano-esque cachet that Jim Rutherford brings to the table where he can do what he wants. But on the flip side, we only tend to hear about resistance from ownership when the dreaded rebuild talk is brought up, and as it appears right now, Rutherford’s vision for the team is still very much in a quick turnaround mode. It’s only when you push back against that do you suddenly find even golden child Trevor Linden on the outside looking in, wondering what happened.
My main takeaway from this interview is that it just all sort of feels like the same thing we’ve heard year in and year out, which is where the main fatigue of this lies. There will always be the people who support the Canucks no matter what they do, and are always willing to believe in whatever the current plan is. “Anything can happen in the playoffs!” is a legitimate strategy in the eyes of some, and they will be the first to tell you to relax about this interview, which hey, fair enough, have at it.
On my end, though, it’s tough to watch a team walk through the exact same steps they have done in the past decade, and hoping everything lines up properly this time. Short term gains has been the name of the game for far too long in this city, and after battling with people who assured me “give it time!” season after season after season, I do find myself wondering when will we ever get to the point where an actual rebuild with a viable plan gets put into place. Getting lapped by teams that did a proper rebuild is only going to worsen over the next few years, and now add in the fact that this might be a scenario in which the owners themselves will never get behind a complete rebuild, and it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel no matter which management is in place.
And as it stands now, “Hey maybe Celebrini and Bedard will wanna play for Vancouver when they’re free agents!” is a damning statement from the fan base about how it sees the best way to turn things around in this city.
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