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The Stanchies: Canucks lose to Wild on busy night in the world of sports
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Photo credit: © Nick Wosika-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Nov 2, 2025, 01:04 EDTUpdated: Nov 2, 2025, 01:08 EDT
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With the Toronto Blue Jays, Vancouver Whitecaps, and BC Lions all involved in playoff games on Saturday, you might have come to the conclusion that an early season regular match up between the Vancouver Canucks and the Minnesota Wild would be a distant fourth on the excitement scale.
And you’d be right, good call, you nailed that one. Never let someone make you question your gut instincts ever again.
With the amount of injuries the Canucks are dealing with, along with the fact that Minnesota is where happiness goes to die, perhaps the only surprising thing about the game was that it ended 5-2 in Minnesota’s favour, instead of the usual 2-1 loss it tends to be.
I’ll also give credit to Minnesota in this one, as they used their skill players to break down the Canucks defence, and actually looked like the more exciting team.
As for Vancouver, let’s just say they should be happy that people had a lot of other viewing options this evening. Again, the context of a team missing a lot of its top players is very much a valid reason for the kinds of games we’re seeing from the team, but it doesn’t mean I can sit here and tell you about what an amazing night of hockey we just witnessed. When a game ends at seven high danger chances to six, that’s about a clear a sign as any that you’re either watching a defensive clinic, or a contest between two struggling teams trying to gut out a victory.
And so it was a close game until it wasn’t, and Vancouver didn’t have the horses to get back in this one. Surprisingly enough Drew O’Connor of all people led the resistance in this one, as he had himself a two goal night. We also had the amusement of having it clarified that yes, Brock Boeser got hit in the penis with the puck last game, not his balls, an important clarification so that people don’t accidentally chant “balls of steel” for him. “Carbon rod” or “In rod we trust” would be my suggestions, as I do anything in my power to delay diving into this game.
But much like Les Miserables taught us, “If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!” so let’s get on with this I suppose.
Best let’s get it started
According to Elite Prospects, Kirill Kaprizov is a talented hockey player. So it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s out here saucing a pass through the air perfectly to Marcus Johansson’s stick through the neutral zone, angering Romulans everywhere:
The good news is that Thatcher Demko would never let in a silly shot from that angle. Simply impossible. I almost wonder why Marcus bothered shooting it at all. It almost embarrasses the game of hockey that he tried that.
As for the Canucks, their best chance in the first period was when Fil Hronek jumped up along the boards to steal the puck and set up MacKenzie MacEachern for what I assume was the lone high danger chance listed for them in the opening period:
And once again we find ourselves with a period of hockey in which the Vancouver Canucks generated a single video clip of offence.
Sometimes I try and have fun and dress up a period of hockey either through finding amusing gifs from the game, or by doing a deep dive into how Tony Soprano didn’t appreciate Silvio Dante nearly enough, so let’s get into this: Everyone needs a Silvio Dante in their life. In this essay, I will argue that-
Best first time?
Technically any long term injury can be day to day! That’s the beauty of it. It’s the “we don’t like putting a label on our relationship” of the hockey world; It gives you the wiggle room you need during hard conversations.
And without Quinn Hughes the Canucks have predictably struggled on zone entries, as they no longer have their guy who does the majority of the heavy lifting.
Which is where we see plays like this from Drew O’Connor, where he can use his speed to gain the zone, but ends up turning the puck over:
Drew’s ability to skate allows him to push teams back on their feet, which is how he can gain the zone with momentum. After that, I think that’s where Calendar can struggle. He can sometimes become a bit of a one man band where he just skates his ass as hard as he can, but doesn’t really have a plan once he’s done.
Which is what happened here. He skates hard and then pulls up, but can’t find a trailer to get the puck to. So eventually he just puts his head down and throws the puck into an area where it would be really neat if a teammate was waiting for it.
And it would be! When the no look pass to a dangerous spot on the ice works, it’s fantastic. Nothing better. The plan came together. You fist bump the guy at the bench and tell him you knew he was their the entire time. But when you it fails, it can lead to turnovers like this.
So there has to be a certain level of return on your no look passes where it won’t look bad on your resume.
Hank Sedin misses a no look pass? No problem, that’s the cost of doing business for the usual 95% accuracy he has on those.
A bottom six player who finds themselves passing to the ghosts of Christmas past more often than not? That’s where you start to worry about their ability to generate offence at a reliable clip in the NHL.
Until you score two goals on the night in an act of pure spite towards a local writer.
Now up next we have Max Sasson trying to use his speed to generate a zone entry, but he gets shut down and stripped of the puck along the boards:
So while we wait for the latest round of “How do you pronounce Sasson’s name? to come to a conclusion, we shall sit back and watch a team that, yes, probably misses Quinn Hughes’ ability to generate zone entries at will.
Best rushin’ asset
Tom Willander continues his NHL journey, and while “perfectly cromulent” continues to be his calling card, this might have been the best game of his NHL career to date? Nothing mind-blowing, mind you, we’re still landing hard in the cromulent drop zone, but I thought he held his own in this game.
He also had one hell of a rush, looking like a young Ed Jovanovski throwing caution to the wind, and just skating end to end before being denied by the post:
There is a world in which Vittorio and Tom take turns rushing down the ice trying to score end to end goals, but that is probably a world in which the coaches scream at them a lot and demands to know why they hate him.
Best digging your own grave
With Arshdeep Bains serving his second penalty of the period, the Wild finally opened the scoring in this one off of a Vladimir Tarasenko goal:
I’m going to be straight with you, the chaos was not being harnessed by Tyler Myers this night. If anything, it was actively working against him, as Joel Eriksson-Ek was out here juggling the puck like a future Banana Ball player, before making the perfect pass over to Tarasenko.
Unfortunately for Vancouver, Myers and O’Connor both stepped up to make a play on the puck, which is what we call “getting thirsty” in Rocket League. And fair enough, the puck was loose, you can see why they’d try and make a play for it. But when both Canucks players stepped up, they let Tarasenko get in behind them free and clear.
And this was something Minnesota did really well the entire night. They would enter the zone and control the puck and get Vancouver chasing, and then before you knew it the Wild would find an open player beside the net for either a goal or a high danger shot on net.
An effective strategy, but as Les Mis taught us, “he never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
Right?
You get it.
Best don’t call it a comeback
The Canucks “best” period was in the second, as that’s when they generated their most shots, and even hit four whole high danger chances.
Their shot generation wasn’t what I would term exciting hockey, as a lot of it was “I guess I’ll get the puck to Fil Hronek” which is what at work when I’m asked to make documentation. I’ll get Fil right on it, boss.
First up we had Evander Kane skating down the ice, before losing the puck back to Fil, who stepped in to deliver a solid piss missile attempt:
Then we had Elias Pettersson do a slick back pass to Jake DeBrusk, who then skated to the middle of the ice before making a pass to Hronek:
The majority of the offence was generated via from the right point, which is what happens when you deploy the “why not Fil?” strategy:
Thoughts and prayers from the point has been a staple of this team’s offence for many a year now, and I don’t see that getting any better with the current state of the team. The Canucks get stuck to the outside of the ice and they do not have the skill to break teams down into making mistakes that let them generate open looks on net.
Best a Calendar has many pages
It was only a matter of time before one of Drew O’Connor or Lukas Reichel scored a goal, and on this night it was Drew. And it was off of a MacKenzie MacEachern rush, as we all knew it would be:
Hey, I might have my trepidations about Drew O’Connor generating offence in the NHL, but if you put him with speedy boys and let them do speedy things, I have a lot of time for that. Just get that puck and rush it down the nice, let’s go full Dukes of Hazard with it. Nothing complicated about this offence, but it was effective. Shoot puck on net, bash in rebound.
Best almost got it
It’s almost as if great positioning is 90% of what makes his saves great. If Thatcher Demko is making a five-alarm save then something has gone incredibly wrong, not just in the game, but on earth itself.
And good positioning was needed on this night, as the Wild continued to find open looks on the net by moving the puck around the zone and having a player near the net quietly sneak to the side for a high danger shot.
A good example of this was off a Brock Faber rush to the net where Marcus Johansson was waiting on the opposite of the net and was able to jump on a loose puck, forcing Demko to make a glove save:
Now that play involved a bit of luck, as Faber wasn’t necessarily passing to Marcus,
But on this next play, watch as the Wild move the puck around before Hartman throws a precocious pass down low to Kaprizov, who is once again open by the side of the net:
Then you had the Wild once again gaining the zone and moving the puck around, waiting for the Canucks to break down, which allowed them to find Tarasenko where? By the side of the net:
On this play you see Bains overplay his hand by rushing over to the right side of the crease, so he’s late in getting back to defend the left side. These are the breakdowns the Wild relied on in this game with their puck movement, and it was working well for them.
And that’s how the game kind of went. Vancouver would generate some shots on net, but nothing very dangerous looking, while the Wild would keep getting more and more looks on net where it just felt like it was a matter of time before they scored.
Best it was just a matter of time
Amusingly enough, the Wild’s next goal was firmly from the thoughts and prayers playbook, as they threw a shot on net from the point off of a faceoff and tapped in the rebound:
And while it wasn’t puck movement that killed the Canucks on this play, it was once again a Wild player who just sort of slid to the side of the net untouched and was able to get the goal
The Tyler Myers and PO Joseph pairing struggled to the point that I don’t really want to see it again for a game or two? I think we just need some time apart to see where we’re at in life. I just feel that Tyler Myers needs a partner who understands the Chaos Giraffe lifestyle, which means expecting the unexpected. You need to know how to ice a puck while also understanding that monkeys wielding flaming swords might appear at a moments notice.
Now after that goal, moments later on the powerplay, Matt Boldy just missed scoring from the side of the net as well:
Obviously a power play lends itself to breaking down defensive coverage, but it was just another example of the Wild finding success moving the puck east to west on the night, and finding open looks.
Best starting to fade
But sometimes you don’t need to find an open guy by the side of the net. Sometimes you just go end to end all by yourself, as Vinnie Hinostroza did on the Wild’s third goal:
Yes, that is Tyler Myers going full pylon on this play, using the dark arts of Erik Gudbranson to try and poke check his way out of trouble while not moving at all. I think he was tired on this shift, hence the hail mary “Oh shit, oh god, please let this poke check work” strategy he attempted to utilize, but as Arc Raiders has taught me, just because you want a safe evac doesn’t mean you’ll get one.
I also think we need to have a talk about assists in the NHL and how if they don’t directly lead to the goal in a timely fashion, you don’t get one. Brodin got an assist for this, and that upsets me.
Best I retract my earlier statement
There is something incredibly deflating watching the Minnesota Wild score on what the Canucks would consider a staple of their offensive strategy, ie the “hey at least we can get a faceoff” shot from the side boards, ie the cousin to the “thoughts and prayers” offence:
A goal that Thatcher Demko would want back, and one that won’t happen often, but I offer my apologies to Marcus Johansson for mocking his earlier shot attempt from a similar area earlier in the game. The Wild have struggled this season so it’s only natural that the PDO monster would rear it’s head the other way once in a while, and it’s safe to say Minnesota got lucky on this play.
That being said, they were also just the better team tonight because even when not scoring from prime Jake Virtanen angles, the Wild were just flat out generating much better looks on net:
Johansson gets that on net, that easily could have made it 5-1 right there.
And yes, that is Myers and Joseph struggling on another play. I told you this was not their night.
Best mom’s spaghetti
The Cnaucks would get their last goal of the night off of a faceoff in which Drew O’Connor simply walked into Mordor and shot it on net:
The Drew, Aatu, and Mackenzie line was the best on the night for Vancouver which is very much one of those “Fantastic for them, but probably not fantastic for the team” type of compliments. It’s on par with someone telling me that they appreciate that at least I tried to dress up nicely for dinner.
It was also another quiet night from Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser and Jake DeBrusk, who aside from maybe one or two shifts, you didn’t really notice much from them. Even on the powerplay it felt like a bunch of dudes who REALLY didn’t want to have to shoot the puck unless they had to, and even then are you sure they can’t pass the puck just one more time?
Best clip of the comeback attempt
The best chance from Vancouver in the third period? A rush started by Jake DeBrusk, sending the puck to Reichel, who gave it to Kiefer, who sent it to Myers for the chaos bomb:
And while that’s a perfectly nice rush to watch, and I have nothing against it and would certainly be very open to having lunch with it to talk about our week, it also can’t be the highlight of your third period comeback.
Don’t get me wrong, the Canucks had some good offensive zone time in the third, but that felt like more of a result of the Wild sitting back and defending the lead, more than the Canucks really clamping down. Because even when the Canucks set up shop, they couldn’t get into the middle of the ice. The Wild kept them stuck to the outside, so the end result of most of the offensive forays from the Canucks were shots from the point, or a lost puck battle that led to a zone exit for the Wild.
Best turnabout is fair play
The game was already over by this point, but since I am dedicated to showcasing you both the good and the bad in gif form, here is fifth and final goal from the Wild:
A thoughts and prayers point shot leading to a sniper shot from behind the net from Ryan Hartman. Ball game.
Again, not much to break down in this game. The Canucks are a beat-up team, and the Wild are desperate for wins, and that tends to be a recipe for a road loss in this league.
Onto the next.

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