Nils Höglander blocked a shot early and took it hard, struggling from effective whiplash at the boards. He took a good while to recover from it. The thing about the luck of the Irish, or in this case, Swedish, is that it was definitely not always present in this game.

On the subject of Swedes, here’s a nifty drop pass moment between Jonathan Lekkerimäki and Quinn Hughes because I:

Tensions were high early on, and Elias Pettersson decided to get friendly with Logan Cooley, and Höglander got involved. Don’t mess with the Swede line unless they’re falling down one after the other in a comedy of errors.

Conor Garland got absolutely rocked in this entire game, especially in this first period, and especially by former Coyotes linemate Nick Schmaltz. Funnily enough, both of these scrappy wingers wear #8, and by the time this above hit happened, Garland had already been run down by Utah’s net by Schmaltz once. Nothing “screams reunions with friends” like passive aggression. Talk about Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

And a ladder is what you need in order to reach Tyler Myers. Myers, who I’m told goes by Chaos Giraffe as his street name, took a puck-over-glass penalty and was off to the box before he even needed to be told. Tyler Myers knows who he is. Tyler Myers knows what he did. I understand the purpose of delay-of-game penalties, and yes, I think they’re stupid when the player is pretty clearly just trying to chip the puck out while stuck between a rock and a hard place, but that’s a manifesto for a different day. The Canucks penalty kill is one of the things they really have going for them right now. At least they have that.

The highlight of the first period was the Canucks roster collectively deciding to make Utah Winger Lawson Crouse their problem and Lawson Crouse deciding to be that problem even harder.

Lankinen makes a fantastic save here, and Teddy Blueger does not take very kindly to Lawson Crouse making contact with him, and rightfully so. Thus comes a scrum. I can’t remember the last time I saw the Canucks stand up for their goalie like this, which is depressing, but at least they did it. It’s the small wins that count when you can’t get the big one.

Speaking of small wins, Pius Suter and Michael Carcone run off from the group and pair off in their own little 1v1 battle.

Which kept going…

And kept going…

Do you guys want us to give you some time alone or something?

I told you Lawson Crouse would be back, didn’t I?

Am I a little jealous that Utah has a player who isn’t afraid to go right to net front? Maybe. You may have an army of mammoths, or yeti, or outlaws, but we have a Conor Garland.

I also won’t say no to Victor Mancini establishing an identity as a Canuck, and I am greatly looking forward to that identity being the following:

As a token of apology, here’s…whatever this is from later on in the period? This game is extraordinarily silly sometimes. 

The Canucks have their penalty kill all figured out, but now they desperately need a power play coach. Are they taking assistant applications at the moment?

Honestly, even this gal seems like a better option than what the team has going on right now. She probably will work for treats instead of a salary.

This game progressively got less exciting as it went on, especially in the second period, and I think this story is told by its total penalty minutes:

This is 4-on-4 hockey that happens. No further comment.

It’s what happens right after the 4-on-4 that matters. Carcone picks the puck up from a stretch pass, shoots, it bounces off Lankinen’s pads, and Dylan Guenther manages to score off the rebound…except he really doesn’t.

The officials called the no-goal right away because Carcone quite literally fell into Lankinen. This is maybe the most goaltender interference-y goaltender interference I have ever seen, which makes sense that it was called off right away. But “sense” and NHL officiating do not always go hand-in-hand, after all. Just ask Filip Chytil.

The Canucks head to the powerplay after Lawson Crouse is called for hooking on Victor Mancini and…

That’s a power play goal from Captain Lexapro himself, assisted by Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk.

The sweet feeling of vindication that the Canucks scored a power play goal off of Crouse’s penalty didn’t last throughout the whole game, but it was nice to revel in the moment.

John Shorthouse has the ability to often voice what many of us are thinking but are too afraid to say about this team. Not Shorty. He is brave, and he is mic’d up.

Sometimes, however, silence speaks a thousand words.

He’s just letting it linger, much like The Cranberries’ 1993 smash hit.

Careful, it’s dangerous to venture alone. Here, take Brock Boeser leading a 3-on-2 rush and remembering he is, in fact, allowed to shoot at the net.

Garland blocks a shot off his skate, struggles to continue to skate, continues to defend the Canucks zone and manages to get the puck out into the o-zone before finally making it to the bench. Of course, it’s all with some help from one of his most loyal linemates, Dakota Joshua.

Boom. Conor Garland. That’s my mic drop, folks.

Logan Cooley gets sent to the box on a minor penalty for holding against Elias Pettersson. It shouldn’t be a crime to want to hold Elias Pettersson, he seems very kind. Unless it’s holding in this context. That’s very much not allowed. Again, I did not realize full on bear-hugs were in the NHL these days, but I can understand the urge.

Logan Cooley only goes on to score Utah’s go-ahead goal. Go figure. Vancouver does nothing to stop these meddling kids.

Boeser takes a nasty – albeit clearly unintentional – high-stick from Clayton Keller. For a moment, it seems even nastier and rather scary, because there’s confusion as to whether Boeser made contact with a skate blade or not. He didn’t, thankfully, but he did take one heck of a bonking – which is an official medical term.

Clayton Keller goes to pretty boy jail for the aforementioned bonking incident, and suddenly the Canucks have a four-minute power play. They’re back in the game!

Except they’re not.

They put together a slow, uninspired power play, wasting the gift that a 4-minute advantage can give a losing team. Officials should be able to take power plays away from teams if they suck at them. You get this back when you learn to cherish it.

I get it. This was their second game in 48 hours and their 5th in 7 days. The team is tired, out of steam, with a tired man advantage. It doesn’t suddenly make it not a squandered opportunity.

Watching this goal, it’s hard to figure out what goes wrong here other than just…Filip Hronek having issues with his peripheral vision? I love Hronek. He’s had a great week otherwise, and he certainly airs out his frustration on the goalpost. But it’s baffling to me how he goes to pass to Hughes and ends up passing directly to Nick Schmaltz instead. I understand your body moving faster than your brain and on instinct, which is how I live most of my life, but I cannot understand Hronek not looking up before he passes to Hughes for the life of me, or at least sensing that someone else was right there.

The final shots are 23-19 for Utah. The Canucks made a valiant effort, but no amount of recovery will excuse their shot production through two-thirds of this game.