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The Stanchies: A nickname is born for the Abby line after Canucks’ shootout win over Blackhawks
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Photo credit: © Matt Marton-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Oct 18, 2025, 01:42 EDTUpdated: Oct 18, 2025, 02:14 EDT
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The Vancouver Canucks continued to make Connor Bedard’s life miserable on Friday night, pushing the North Van product’s career record against Vancouver to 0-5, this time in the form of a 3-2 win in the shootout. There was just something about the visible frustration on his face in this game that made you wonder if beating his hometown team is a special milestone in his life he thought he would have completed by now. A victory he could have perhaps secured if the DJ hadn’t played Where the Streets Have No Name just before the shootout.
Live by the troll, die by the troll.
But instead, Connor had to sit back as the Canucks grinded out their third victory of the year. Not a pretty victory, mind you. Not even a pleasant one if I’m being honest. You certainly wouldn’t bring this victory to meet your family; you’d probably just get a coffee at Starbucks with it and then call it a day. Maybe if you had literally nothing else to do on the weekend, you’d see a movie with it, but on a purely platonic level.
Two points is two points, however, and while I don’t think the Canucks are playing particularly well to start this season, I will always give credit to any team that walks away with four points in back-to-back games. It was a game of back and forth with Chicago controlling the play for the first and third periods, while the Canucks took over in the second period and in overtime. There was very clearly a point in the third period where you could see the Canucks kind of settle in to at least secure a single point, but anytime they made a mistake, Kevin Lankinen was there to shut shit down.
Lankinen finished the night with 31 saves on 33 shots, 14 of which were of the high-danger variety. It was the kind of solid game you get from your backup, where you go, “that’s a solid game from our backup.”
In other news, Elias Pettersson continues to be snake bitten, Conor Garland continues to stake his claim as the Canucks best forward, and Quinn Hughes was back to playing 30 minutes in a hockey game. All of which is to say it felt like coming home, really; comforting to know that Quinn Hughes will still play 85% of the overtime if you need him to.
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for Vancouver, as they play an early game on Sunday, playing every other day until November 5, a stretch of almost three weeks.
Which is why it’s even more important for them to snake out points in games like these. They are going to have to get used to playing tired/watching Quinn Hughes play for three hours a night over the next little while, so what better time than now to start getting used to extended hours?
Speaking of which, this is a back-to-back game for me as well, so let’s get this started.
Best revenge is a dish best served kept in the freezer for a while until you forget about it and then throw it out
Which Canuck decided to dispense street justice on Jason Dickinson for the hit that concussed Filip Chytil last year? Kiefer Sherwood had the juiciest sound byte about revenge, surely he would be the one to step up and fight off the draw!
Or Ilya Mikheyev can get a scoring chance instead:
To Dickinson’s credit, he lined up for the opening faceoff, so he gave the Canucks their chance to hand out their street justice should they want it. But nothing happened.
And I’m not saying they had to fight him. I think we all remember the worst revenge fight of all time when Vinnie Desharnais “fought” Tanner Jeannot to take the Canucks pound of flesh for the hit that injured Brock Boeser. I felt bad watching both men walk through that jersey-pulling contest play out.
But it would have been nice if someone had thrown one really solid hit on the former Canuck.
All I’m saying is if Raffi Torres was on the Canucks we would probably be planning a Netflix documentary on the hit he would have thrown.
Best it’s ok he’s ok
During the start of the game, it looked like Quinn Hughes fell and hit his knee in that Family Guy way where you have to sit and hold your leg for five minutes due to the pain:
Quinn Hughes would be fine, but I am including this because this is Vancouver. For all we know Quinn Hughes will announce he has an injury never suffered before by a human being three months from now, and it happened on this play.
“His knee actually separated and his body fused brand new bones and ligaments. But now the new ligaments have become sentient so we need to figure that out.”
Best annoying little bro
Tyler Bertuzzi was a key player in this game, both in terms of being a pest in the crease, and with sneaky little slashes that required Kiefer Sherwood to punch him just once with a fist of justice:
Honestly, I liked Bertuzzi’s game on the night. It was the kind of night where if he’s not on your team, you are 100% swearing at your TV and texting your group chat that this guy is the absolute worst person in the world. His moustache just adds to the whole effect, to be honest.
But when he’s on your team? You’re all in on this type of player.
The end result of the one-punch combo, however, was 4-on-4 hockey, a Kelly Sutherland favourite. And who likes open space on the ice? Quinn Hughes!
Please enjoy this offensive highlight of Quinn Hughes dancing through the offensive zone to get a shot on net because that was the last time the Canucks looked threatening in the first period.
Instead, we saw Chicago carry the play for the opening frame, which again isn’t too surprising considering the Canucks are probably tired, and because they’ve made a tradition of starting off slow each game this year.
So instead of the Canucks leading the charge, we saw Tyler Myers chuckle to himself and realize he’s in danger when a puck came around the boards, putting him in a 3-on-1 situation:
Andre Burakovsky feeds Connor Bedard with a nice pass, but he heels his shot, so no damage was done.
But then Wyatt Kaiser got a breakaway after a bad pass attempt from Filip Hronek over to Marcus Pettersson was picked off, forcing Evander Kane to back-check. Something that, whenever it happens, makes me say out loud, “Well I guess we’re doing this, eh?”:
I will say that Kane was skating the entire way, but it’s safe to say he hasn’t exactly been blowing anyone away with his speed this season.
All I’m saying is that at times, he makes a JT Miller backcheck look like Pavel Datsyuk on ice.
Best down early down often
Chicago scored the first goal of the game on a power play, when Burakovsky made a brilliant pass to Ryan Donato, one of those “don’t write Ted Donato, don’t write Ted Donato” moments where I very clearly end up writing Ted Donato at first:
The Canucks penalty kill just kind of wilted away like that basil plant you bought from Safeway that you promised yourself you’d take better care of this time. But did you water it? Nope. You said you’d get to it later. But there never was a later, was there? You let it whither away and die just like your promises to yourself to people please less in life, and make your happiness a priority. And now we’re standing here, looking at a dead plant, trying to come to terms with the fact you can’t even take care of a basic herb, so what gives you the right to think you could ever raise a child?
1-0 Blackhawks.
Best if it works it works
Speaking of Tyler Bertuzzi, he was a constant thorn in Kevin Lankinen’s side, setting up shop in the crease, creating several moments where you wondered if goalie interference was going to be called.
And again, it’s awesome having a player like that. Jake DeBrusk kind of does the same role, except not as greasy. He’s more of a lovable step brother compared to Tyler Bertuzzi’s drunk uncle that calls you up out of nowhere to ask if he can borrow a hundred bucks.
But both are effective with their blue paint game, as Tyler Bertuzzi used his to not only get Lankinen to drop his stick, but then moments later to make it 2-0 Chicago:
Drew O’Connor and Filip Hronek sort of snip snap snip snap with their coverage, which lets Bertuzzi go to the net all alone to tap in the rebound.
Best revenge game
When Ilya Mikheyev was a Vancouver Canuck, he never had a functional knee. So the one trademark of his game, elite speed, was never really there. He would just sort of throw a puck in Elias Pettersson’s general direction and hoped it would sort of take care of itself.
Well he appears to be fully healed now, and while he will never really burn you tons of points, he did get five shots on the night for Chicago and looked a hell of a lot better than he ever did for Vancouver. Heck, he even set up shop in front of the Canucks while they politely moved out of the way to let him get a couple of whacks at a rebound:
At his best, he’s most likely going to put up 15-20 goals a year, and you can at least see some of that player the Canucks oddly bought high on and sold low on.
Best surviving Kelly is half the battle
With the Canucks shorthanded, leave it to MP3 to walk in and almost go bar in in a floating wrister:
I can only assume this inspired Elias Pettersson to get out there and hit a post as well:
Conor Garland was the Canucks best skater for me, but Elias Pettersson was right behind him. He didn’t get any points on the night, but once again this was one of those games where it felt like he should have had at least a couple.
I still think he needs to shoot more, less Hank, more Dank, but he’s generating scoring chances. He’s making plays. It does feel like once he gets a goal he might go on a bit of a streak here.
Best blue paint wars
The Canucks then took their turn getting a greasy goal in the crease when Jake DeBrusk smashed home a rebound on the power play:
It was Vancouver’s lone power play goal of the night, as they went 1/6 on the evening, but at least it looked decent? There were a couple of stinkers in there, but for the most part, it appears they have a functional first unit. At the very least, they don’t have a unit where you worry they might show up on TMZ the next day for fighting at Costco after the game.
Best trust the process
This is a perfect example of Elias Pettersson making high-level plays while also showing why Conor Garland drives the line:
This play doesn’t happen without Conor making that pick-six to force the puck back into Chicago’s zone. It’s no coincidence that Garland loves sharks because he clearly models his game after them. He’s always circling the water, waiting for a chance to catch his prey unawares, and on this play, you see him cut over and make the poke check, which gets the puck to EP40 along the boards.
And Elias? He makes a great pass on that play. He shows patience with the puck and waits for a passing lane to open up so he can find Victor Mancini in the slot. And like a young Christopher Moltisanti, he falls short of his goals, but you can see the promise there.
On the opposite end of the Garland scale is Evander Kane. Which look, I’ve already said he probably needs time to get his game back in gear after surgery last January, I get that. But in the meantime, his back-checking is going to end up frustrating fans, as this was a game where three times Kane was chasing down a breakaway:
That’s the kind of back-check you use at Minoru, damn it.
Best AsSasson’s Creed
The Castle Fun Park line continues to be a fun storyline for the Canucks this season. And while we don’t know how long they’ll last, and they might not get a ton of minutes (they averaged around eight on the night), they are certainly making the most of it. Whether it’s winning their matchups or simply scoring goals, the Calder Cup bros are making it hard for the Canucks to break them up:
Arshdeep Bains uses great board work to let Linus Karlsson sneak in and take the puck, who then feeds Fil Hronek, who finds the hard-skating Sasson for the tap-in.
Hey, the Canucks might not have hit Jason Dickinson, but Max Sasson outplayed him and scored a goal on him.
And again, who knows how long this trio will stick around for. All I know is I enjoy the hell out of their game, especially Max Sasson. That high-end speed is something the Canucks have lacked for years, even if we don’t know if he will ever surpass the Tyler Motte bar.
Best weird new tradition
Fun fact #1: Mikheyev got the first shot of every period on the night, aside from overtime:
Fun fact #2: Connor Bedard’s shot is much much more dangerous:
That’s the literal definition of fighting off a shot. With Mikheyev, Lankinen was all “oh look at me and my fancy glove, let’s lift it high in the sky for everyone to see!”
With Bedard, Kevin was like “Oh my god that was the fastest shot I’ve ever seen, oh god oh god, where’s the puck, I can’t feel my hand.”
Best sarcasm detector
Once again we find ourselves watching Evander Kane back-check:
It’s not often you let a 6″8 defenceman get a breakaway, yet here we are. Louis Crevier somehow finds a way to get in all alone on Lankinen and was a post away from scoring.
Kane’s back-checking got progressively worse on the night as it started with him skating back the entire way, then it transitioned into the JT Miller coast for the last few strides. Then it turned into Kane taking a ludicrous angle to try and stop said breakaway, before just sort of watching and going “I’m sure Kevin’s got this, what are the odds this giant man scores.”
Which, hey, give credit to Kevin. The Canucks could have easily lost this game if Lankinen let in a soft goal, but every time Chicago pushed for the go-ahead goal, he either let the puck hit the post, let the referee call it off due to goalie interference, or he made a good save:
Best Garland truthers unite
When the game is on the line and you need a goal, you find yourself wanting Conor Garland on the ice. That’s something I used to feel about Elias Pettersson, but that trophy is with Garland for now. That can change, of course, and I know Elias Pettersson can still be “the guy”. But for my money, Garland has been the best forward on this team this season. When you need a forward to control the puck, or settle things down, or make a big play, it’s Garland doing it the majority of the time. He drives any line he’s on, he really does.
I also just really enjoy watching him make pick-sixes. You want to try and make a pass against the Canucks, odds are, Garland will intercept half of them:
Garland not only steals the puck but then throws a filthy saucer of a backhand pass that ends up right on Hronek’s stick.
Corolla just has a very high hockey IQ. He is constantly scanning the ice and making plays by anticipating where the puck is going to end up, which lets him get the puck back like this.
Best this play is under review
Our old friend Tyler Bertuzzi looked to have put his team up a goal in the dying minutes of the game, but it was called off due to goalie interference:
If this had stood as a goal, I would have been fine with it. If they called it off, I would have been fine with it. But either way, the video evidence wouldn’t be enough to overturn either decision. So essentially, whatever was called on the ice, I didn’t see how you could overturn it:
Nothing in that video screams proof that would overturn any call.
Sure, if this were 2009, Chicago could have pitchforked the goalie in the net while Dustin Byfuglien power bombed a confused and frightened Roberto Luongo into the glass.
But not in today’s NHL, damn it.
I think it was a bit wild of Chicago to challenge that goal, because for the majority of the third period, Vancouver looked TIRED. And Chicago had all the momentum. But because they failed their challenge, Vancouver got a power play. And while they didn’t score on it, it helped slow down Chicago and got Vancouver to overtime.
Best horseshoes and hand grenades
If hypothetical goals were a thing, Elias Pettersson had three goals on the night, easy. Here yet again is Elias Pettersson having a wide open net and just putting it wide:
He’s doing the right things, he’s going to the right parts of the ice, it’s just the Hockey Gods hate him right now. We’ve all been there. You will use your best stuff and get zero goals for a week, then next month you’re watching pucks go in off of your legs and players putting pucks in their own net but you touched the puck last so you get credited for the goal.
Best sleeper cell
You can’t mess with the Chaos Giraffe and expect to not get penalized for holding on this play:
The Canucks power play didn’t score, but once again, Garland felt like the team’s most important forward. It’s not just his hockey IQ; he just has an endless motor. He’s that guy who tries so hard in beer league, and you’re like “relax buddy, geezus,” even though you’re secretly jealous of his ability to never tire out.
A good example of this was late in the game, where a point shot ended up behind the net, but look who appears on the scene to get the puck back? Conor Garland:
His ability to extend plays and keep lines pinned in their own zone is invaluable to the Canucks.
The one thing lacking in his game is, of course, his shot, which happens when you use a one-foot stick meant more for board battles and sneaky little puck stealing.
But the fact remains that when the game is on the line, Garland has stepped up in JT Miller’s absence to fill a role of not letting moments get too big for him and being a player they can rely on.
Best bonus time
The Canucks won in the shootout, but several highlights came from overtime.
First up, we had Conor Garland once again making a big defensive play and re-establishing puck possession for the Canucks:
Again, he is literally circling the ice like a shark, waiting for his next victim.
Up next, we had Brock Boeser get the second-best chance of overtime after Garland and Quinn Hughes pushed the puck up the ice:
Garland drives to the net, and because sharks are scary, Chicago has to follow him, which gives an open lane for Boeser to skate into.
Then we had Jake DeBrusk set up Elias Pettersson for another tap-in attempt, but due to the Hockey Gods straight up hating on the Swedish forward, he can’t quite connect on the puck:
And then, in the biggest “bro, do your dekes” moment of the night, perhaps frustrated by his inability to score a goal, EP40 decides to try and skate through everyone to simply walk into Mordor:
Again, if he keeps playing like this, the points WILL come.
Alas, overtime ended, so it had to go to a shootout, even if we all know it should go to a 2-on-2 overtime, then a 1-on-1 overtime, before finally settling into a shootout. The math works.
Best digging your own grave
You did this to yourselves, Chicago.
Only one player scored in the shootout, but before we get to that, here is Elias Pettersson enjoying almost scoring yet again:
I think he was skating backwards at the end there, so I think his lack of forward-moving momentum would have made that goal null and void, but damn it, the man is trying.
But when it comes to a shootout, I do admit I prefer the Trevor Linden School of Shootouts, in which you come in with speed, pick your spot, and shoot.
Brock Boeser understood the assignment:
Good guys win.
We’re still pretty early into the season, so we don’t dive too deep into a five-game breakdown of this team quite yet. I will say it’s clear they can play much better, and if they want to keep winning, they need to fix their slow starts to a game.
But sometimes you win ugly and just hope you can keep stealing points until you put it all together.
See you Sunday morning, bright and early.
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