With the second game of the Quinn Hughes era in the books, I think we can safely say one thing: Zeev Buium will never lose a game ever again.

Yes, your favourite local sporting hockey club defeated the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden to the tune of 3-0, and there are two ways to look at it.

One, the Vancouver Canucks are going to go on a heater, riding on the back of Thatcher Demko, rising out of the bottom of the standings to land back in their comfort zone of the 10-15th pick in the NHL draft, as is tradition.

Or two, the Canucks are simply building up value with their potential trade deadline assets and are merely increasing their future haul of draft picks and/or NHL-ready 23/24-year-olds.

Now I know what you’re thinking: you’re assuming it’s option one, it’s always option one with this God forsaken franchise. They’ll start sniffing the playoffs from a long way out and before you know it they won’t trade anyone at the deadline and they’ll talk about how they owe it to Tyler Myers to win a Cup or something, so they had to keep everyone, how could you expect them to trade anyone when Tyler needs that Cup, why are you being so selfish, why do you hate Tyler, don’t you love Tyler??

But no. It’s a new era in Vancouver. The Undfeated Zeev Buium Era does not deserve such cynicism. I will say that the Canucks winning the last two games is not something I think is a good predictor of future success. If the end of the Quinn Hughes era was a handful of games the Canucks lost that they probably should have won, these last few games sort of feel like the other side of the pendulum. Vancouver scoring on a couple of shots and riding off into the sunset usually doesn’t predict long term success, at most it predicts one glorious season where you lose in the second round of the playoffs before your entire locker room implodes within two years, your centre depth is burning in a pile of rubber tires, and your generational defenceman team captain has quietly slipped out the back door.

Where was I again?

Right.

Look, the idea that Bubble Demko emerges to win a ton of games should frighten all of you; it’s practically the script for season two of Welcome to Derry. I get that.

But teams are bound to win a few games in a season, so we’re still pretty much locked in a world in which Vancouver putters along while we watch the young kids develop.

All you can do is hope for the best, am I right?

Yes, I chuckled nervously writing that.

Let’s just dive into the game.

The Canucks got off to a good start in “Operation: Trade for our veterans” as Evander Kane opened the scoring almost immediately after the puck was dropped:

I don’t imagine Brock Boeser thought sending in a puck along the boards for Evander Kane would lead to a breakaway goal, but linesman Devin Berg set a tremendous pick to make this play happen. And if there is one part of Planet Ice’s game where he excels, it’s in the offensive zone, as the finish on that goal is a true chef’s kiss moment. Kane opens up the hands a bit, gets Jonathan Quick to bite, and then keeps cutting across the crease to finish off the play.

It’s the kind of goal where it feels like it’s worth a first-rounder at the trade deadline. That’s clearly the kind of player to bring in to cement your playoff roster. How do you not watch that and realize that?

All I’m saying is if I’m the Canucks, I’m dropping the video of this goal in the GM group chat, along with the eyes emoji, but not before sending a Max Miller recipe to the chat by accident. “I can’t believe they used to call it Pompkin Pie!”

If I have one request for Sportsnet, it’s that they lean heavily on the things that give this fan base actual joy and excitement.

A great example of this? Early in the first period, noted large man Tyler Myers faced off against noted larger man Matt Rempe. As the two rumbled towards the puck, it was the chaotic giraffe who won the battle, sending Rempe tumbling to the ice, as seen here:

Tyler Myers didn’t even move when they collided; instead, it was Rempe looking like he ran headfirst into a train tunnel painted on a wall. That’s the kind of video clip that will keep you warm on the long nights of this season. We want to see this from every angle you’ve got. We want it in slow motion. We want to see the sneer on Tyler’s face and the look of a man discovering he’s mortal for the first time in Matt Rempe when he is being flung through the air.

But what do we get instead at the next break in play? Brock Boeser getting hit with a puck and having a bit of an owie:

Brock was fine. He played his next shift. He probably got high off of smelling salts and was good to go.

That is not the replay we need in these trying times. We demand the good stuff. You have to work with us here. We no longer have the high supply of Quinn Hughes ankle breaks on demand anymore.

Don’t take this from us.

Aside from Evander Kane’s – aka the best trade deadline asset in the league – goal, the first period was very much a low-event affair. Both teams had a solitary high-danger chance apiece, and it felt like both sides were feeling each other out to see which side wanted to lose more.

The Canucks obviously wanted to lose for draft positioning, but the Rangers also really like losing on home ice to make their fans hate the game of hockey, so it truly felt like an immovable object meets an unstoppable force type of situation.

Vancouver’s best chances came on the power play, where both Brock Boeser and Conor Garland attempted to enter the zone quickly, foregoing the usual foreplay of 30 seconds of puck movement, and instead chose to rush towards the net:

Obviously, with Quinn Hughes gone, the Canucks power play is going to be a work in progress as the team finds its new identity. Not that “Quinn Hughes looks off Elias Pettersson, skates around for 40 seconds, gets frustrated and shoots a wrister from the point” was an elite strategy, but it will be interesting to see what this team does on special teams moving forward. Maybe when Elias Pettersson is back in the lineup, he becomes the focal point of the power play, maybe that unlocks something in him and gets his confidence back?

As for the Rangers, they had a chance on each of their three first period power plays, even if none of them were particularly dangerous.

Their best chance on their first power play was when they worked the puck down low and tried to slam home the puck in the crease:

On their second power play, JT Miller dove in an attempt to slide in a rebound off of a point shot, to no avail (at least it looked cool?):

If I’m JT Miller there, I am 100% saying to the bench, “I was so close dude, I had him dead to rights.” when I get back to the bench. When you dive to get a shot on net like that, you earn the right to say that to a teammate. Sure, they absently nod their head, and it feels like they’re just placating you, but damn it, you take it.

And on their third power play, JT Miller enters the zone before spinning off and finding Vinny Trochek in the slot for a dangerous shot on net:

That was probably the Rangers’ best chance of the first period. John Shorthouse described Thatcher Demko as “fighting off” that shot, and I agree; the Canucks goaltender basically fended off the puck at the last second to prevent a goal. I don’t know what Street Fighter character Demko would play in a movie, but I think we all know it’s Blanka.

And that was the first period. As I said, a low-event period that was a mixture of special teams and Evander Kane proving once again that he’s the missing piece for a Stanley Cup run for a contending team.

Liam Öhgren got the second period off to a quick start for Vancouver, as he got his first goal as a Canuck after chasing down a Linus Karlsson clearing:

This is one of my favourite types of goals, where you beat the goalie and the puck just sort of dribbles in while he stands around, looking kind of confused. Like, he’s sure he got the puck, but he’s also not sure, and now the panic is setting in as he realizes he, in fact, does not have the puck, and oh, there goes the red light.

I like how Liam Öhgren is looking off the puck as if he’s going to pass to someone, even though there isn’t a teammate in the immediate vicinity. I like the swagger of a move that says, “I might pass this puck to nobody, just kidding, eat my shot” as he then powers a wrister through Quick.

I also like how Quick knows something is wrong, and when Öhgren skates in to see if he needs to help the puck get over the goalie line, the Rangers goalie just makes a save animation in the hopes that he gets a piece of the puck, even though he still has no idea where it is. He just knows Öhgren is skating with purpose, and that means he’s in danger.

The second period was better in terms of scoring chances, and it probably should have been 3-0 after this Kiefer Sherwood breakaway chance:

It’s hard to tell how much of the Canucks’ counter-attack rush offence in this game was due to their brilliance and how much of it was due to the Rangers being the Rangers, but it’s probably somewhere happily in the middle?

Either way, it’s nice to know Jonathan Quick continues his streak of making at least one highlight reel save against the Canucks in every single game he’s ever played against them. It brings me comfort to know we can rely upon this.

On the Rangers side of things, Vinny Trocheck was able to find JT Miller down low behind three Canucks skaters, but he was unable to beat Demko in close:

The Canucks responded with an Öhgren rush, and based on his earlier goal and small sample sizes, I find myself extremely disappointed he doesn’t score on every rush attempt:

Still, there has been a lot to like about Öhgren’s game with the Canucks so far. Someone said he feels like a slightly better version of Drew O’Connor, and that feels like a good floor to describe him at the moment. Obviously, you hope he turns into a top-six roster player, but at the very least, he’s looked competent for the Canucks, so you just sort of hope being on a new team unlocks the potential in him. It’s like dating someone new; you just naturally assume you can fix them.

Artemi Panarin then had a couple of chances for the Rangers, the first being his attempt at cutting the puck across the crease:

And then Panarin had the Rangers’ best chance of the game when he got the puck in the slot with time and space, but was unable to beat Demko yet again:

See, what the Rangers don’t know is that Demko gets power from making a team’s draft pick get worse.

Which, on a good team, is perfect. You’ve got a top goalie doing top goalie things. Making you draft 31st instead of 22nd is sort of the endgame there.

But going from third overall to… You know what? I promised we wouldn’t talk about this. Let’s move on.

You can almost see Tom Willander’s soul leave his body when the salts hit him:

Kudos to Max Sasson, who, with his new NHL contract, was able to bump Willander on the arm to let him know he is going to get through this. That’s the kind of guy you want riding shotgun with you on the bath salts highway.

Watching Quinn Hughes get rave reviews from the rest of the league now that he’s out of Vancouver is not the most enjoyable timeline to be in. In Vancouver, we KNEW how good Quinn Hughes was, yet it felt like we had to convince everyone who went to bed early that they had no idea how good Quinn was at hockey.

So yeah, seeing people be like “oh my god, this guy tilts the ice so much, he’s so good, who knew??” has been a bit of an “are you ****ing kidding me right now?” moment for those of us in Vancouver. They’re acting like they just found Hughes on the side of the road and he just played his first NHL game ever. It just sort of reinforces how badly the Canucks ownership and management fumbled the bag with this entire situation when you find yourself going “man sure would be nice if Vancouver had a Quinn Hughes” before you remember what life used to be.

All you can do in those moments is watch Zeev Buium and hope he develops into a top-pairing d-man, which is why moments like this will be the sort of thing you pin your hopes on. The moments where Zeev sits back to cover the middle of the ice to prevent a breakaway after a penalty expires:

Again, nothing groundbreaking, but you’re basically watching him develop his game, and plays like these are the types of things you hope to see more and more of each game.

I wouldn’t say he’s a much better player without Quinn Hughes, but I would say they are going to have to rely on him more without Hughes?

In terms of leadership and being someone who can teach Zeev and the other young defencemen, and just in terms of, yeah, he needs to be a steadying presence on the ice. And to his credit, he’s probably been the most consistent defenceman on the team in his own zone under Adam Foote, so seeing plays like this where he calmly breaks up the rush has sort of been the norm for him this year:

It’s never a good thing to lose a Quinn Hughes, but there is something to be said about finding a small joy in being curious to see who steps up in his absence.

I still find it hard to attribute this game to the Canucks being good, or the Rangers being bad, but I will say that the New York offence seemed to rely heavily on just throwing the puck on net from the point:

That kind of offence has been a Vancouver staple the last few seasons, so I had a bit of a Leo DiCaprio moment of pointing at the TV when I saw the Rangers going to this well again and again. They just couldn’t find a way to get good looks on net, and anytime they got a decent shot off from the slot or in the crease, Demko was there to demoralize them.

With the goalie pulled, the Rangers best chance was on a Will Cuylle shot that just hit the side of the net:

But because the Rangers are absolutely brutal at the game of hockey on home ice, that was their best and last effort before Conor Garland iced the game:

To add insult to injury, Corolla pops the puck through Cuylle’s legs to get it into the corner, then puts his entire body into getting enough leverage to sail a puck high up in the air all the way to the other end for the empty net goal.

The best part? Garland sails the puck high over the head of former teammate JT Miller, who can only watch as he wonders why he had to be so mad all the time in Vancouver to make him end up in this situation.

And that was the ballgame. Canucks win another game, and now they’re on to visit former captain Bo Horvat and the Islanders.

Let the Zeev Buium Undefeated Streak continue.