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The Stanchies: Canucks start the new year off on the right foot with 4-3 loss to Kraken
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Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Jan 3, 2026, 03:18 ESTUpdated: Jan 3, 2026, 03:53 EST
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The “Thirst for First” continued on Friday night in Vancouver, as the hometown Canucks fell 4-3 in a shootout loss to the visiting Seattle Kraken. Team tank’s job? Completed, for the most part.
Team entertainment’s job? I’m pretty sure that corpse has been floating down the Fraser River for a couple of months now. Occasionally, ducks swim near it before flying away, and I don’t know if that’s the beautiful cycle of life or just sort of sad.
The point is, the results for Vancouver continue them on the path toward a high draft pick. The only way it could be better would be if their road and home results were swapped, because even though losing is for “the greater good,” I am starting to feel worse and worse for people in attendance for these games. I can just imagine someone bringing a family member to the game for the very first time, while you patiently explain that no, this was good that they lost, and yes, shots from the point into traffic ARE considered the pinnacle of excitement in some countries.
With Conor Garland and Marco Rossi joining the walking wounded, Vancouver continued to look much as it has for much of this season, like a late-90s website. And as has often been the case this season, the effort was there, but the results of a victory just slipped out of their grasp despite a spirited comeback in the second half of the game.
Sometimes we talk a lot in the intro because something big happened in the game, or something thematically relevant went down, but on this night, it was about as plug-and-play as they come. Canucks went down early, worked hard on the forecheck to grind out some goals to tie it up, before losing in the shootout because the Canucks are cowards and refuse to listen to my idea of using closers in hockey. But I digress.
With the Boston Bruins in town tomorrow, the turnaround will be quick, so let’s sign off on this game and get you back to your regularly scheduled programs, i.e. doom scrolling on your phone so you don’t have to be alone with your thoughts.
Best he’s right, you know
The big news before the game was Linus Karlsson signing a new contract that brought with it some security and a little bit of that life-changing money. I also assume I’m going to win on my lotto tickets. Statistically, “1,2,3,4,5” has to win one day, and I’ll be ready.
And, much like the Max Sasson re-signing, on a human-interest level, you absolutely love to see this. Both players worked their way through the system despite many people doubting their ability to land in the NHL. Both players helped the farm team win the Calder Cup and will one day receive a ring to celebrate it in 2031.
And both players have earned it, quite frankly. In a world in which hard work doesn’t often lead to the results you’d wish for, it’s nice to see an old-fashioned victory like this for sports humanity.
But as Drance says, if you want to look at how the hot dog is made, I do agree there are definitely things to question from the Canucks’ point of view on it. Don’t get me wrong, end of the day this cap hit will most likely mean nothing to the team in the near future, but from a process point of view, you can’t help but remember the days of Benning overpaying for bottom six talent and plugging up the salary cap where it wasn’t needed, and wonder if this current regime can avoid the same mistakes.
Overall, though, my takeaway is that this is a great day for Linus Karlsson and well earned on his end.
Best working through their issues
The first period was like any good Jason Statham movie: a hardworking man trying to live a normal life, until circumstances brought him back into a past life of violence and destruction by the time the third period rolled around. And by violence, I just mean working hard, cycling the puck in the offensive zone, but that doesn’t really sell on the movie poster.
On a side note, we really need a new action movie surrounding hockey because I feel like the world is ready for another mascot trying to murder someone in a meat slicer.
For what it’s worth, the Canucks probably deserved to win this game, as they carried most of the play on the night. And if ever there was a night one of their struggling wingers was going to break through, it was going to be in a contest like this.
The first period saw the Canucks jump out with purpose, as Brock Boeser had the nicest pass of the opening frame with this nice setup across the ice to number two centre Max Sasson:
One part of Sasson’s game I like is how he wheels through the middle to give his teammates a target to pass to. A lot of times, the Canucks can get stuck in the mud, and they stop moving their feet, so they don’t often generate these scoring chances where a guy is coming through the slot with speed. At the end of Quinn Hughes’ reign in Vancouver, it just felt like watching him skate around while everyone stood still watching, which is part of what made for some of the more tedious hockey you’ll watch this season.
And in what has become a staple of the Canucks games as of late, Five of Five Maestro Drew O’Connor got into the mix early, as his low shot for a rebound ended up giving Kiefer Sherwood a good look at Joey Daccord:
Jokes aside, Drew O’Connor is legitimately one of the most consistent Canucks at five-on-five hockey this season, which is both surprising and a touch alarming if we’re being honest. Clearly, we’re all happy for him, but you have to think others can step up to the plate a bit? Brock Boeser’s struggles continued in that regard as he had his third game in a row at the bottom of the expected goals percentage at five-on-five for the Canucks, while DOC, along with linemates Kiefer Sherwood and David Kämpf, led the team in that category.
Speaking of trying to make their impact, Nils Höglander also got a good look on net early, coming in off of the wing and trying to go short side on Joey OK:
Which was followed up by Zeev Buium doing a good job of shielding Jacob Melanson off of the puck before turning the play the other way and getting the puck up to Liam Öhgren:
I assume Aatu Räty shot the puck there out of fear of being healthy scratched again, as he wanted Joey OK to cover the puck to give him a faceoff he could win to prove his worth.
Best calm as bleep
Even on my best days when I was younger and working at Blockbuster Video, did I ever have this much composure with a customer barreling down on me demanding to know if someone had returned a copy of What Women Want yet?:
Matty Beniers is a skilled player, too; it’s not like Demko was out here trying to casually flip the puck over the stick of Steve Bernier. Yet there he is, walking out of his net with the aura of Tony Soprano picking up his newspaper at the bottom of his driveway. It’s incredible.
I still prefer the Dom Hasek method of taking them out at their knees, but this is a solid second option.
Best life’s like that
The Canucks had sixteen shot attempts midway through the first period and had all the momentum, including Elias Pettersson’s lone shot on net in the entire game:
With Garland out, someone needs to pull off the sneaky pick-six puck intercepts, and while I have full faith in EP40’s ability to do so, I find myself once again asking him to get five shots on net in a single game.
I’m not even being greedy and asking for double digits. I’m not out here telling him to get thirteen shots. Just get five. Five whole shots on net. Please.
Best doing the dirty work
As for Thatcher Demko, he stopped 25 of 28 shots on the night, and it wasn’t a particularly hard night being asked of him. Vancouver had fourteen high-danger attempts compared to Seattle’s paltry five, but that didn’t mean Thatcher didn’t have a handful of banger moments.
One of his best stops was on Jamie Oleksiak of all people, as he made a tremendous right-to-left save to stone the tall Kraken defender before the puck bounced off of PO Joseph’s skate and out of trouble:
And Demko made sure to save a lil’ something something for Jared McCaan on the power play, falling backwards on the puck after the initial shot in the slot, giving the former Canuck just enough hope that he might have scored:
As you can see from the highlights, the Canucks pretty much led the way in the first period, which is why it was obvious Seattle would score first, because sports are dumb and rarely make sense.
Best Little Buff Boys
Before we get to the Seattle goal, I do want to point out how close Zeev Buium came to being sent to the netherworld were it not for Adam Larsson pulling up on this hit:
Buium is lucky this isn’t the 1990s, as Scott Stevens would have possibly ended his career for daring to circle behind the net with his head down. Hell, Raffi Torres was probably sitting at home jumping up and making hissing noises at the TV at the opportunity Zeev was handing out there. Zeev is lucky Adam was nice on that hit and didn’t bring the beer-league energy of a divorced dad “going through some things,” you see in Surrey rinks. “Seriously, he’s a really nice guy off the ice, I swear.”
Zeev’s shift continued after that hit, however, and he ended up being stuck in the Canucks zone, earning the dreaded Sportsnet “two minutes or longer” shift length bug, before Cale Fleury scored his first NHL goal since the Brian Mulroney administration:
Not much to break down on it, either. Cale see puck, Cale slap puck, Cale score puck. With a perfectly placed shot to go along with Tom Willander grinding up on Demko like it’s a Friday night at the Penthouse, it’s no surprise Seattle made it 1-0.
Best waiting for January Jake
To be fair, this might have been a shot or a pass, but the point remains that December Jake was still in DeBrusk’s system early on. And not to harp on Boeser, but when you see two struggling wingers in Jake and Brock, I think the healthy scratch motivated Jake to the point where DeBrusk has been the better of the two in the last several games. I know DeBrusk’s game rounding into form lends itself to being more highlight worthy (he can generate some nice rushes to the net) compared to a Brock Boeser heater in which he’s getting shots on net, but we’re still waiting for Brock to even get to that point in a game.
Best KISS rule
To be fair, Drew O’Connor is the most lethal guy on the team for Vancouver right now, so I understand trying to feed him the puck:
Things to note on this shorthanded play from Vancouver:
  • You can almost see the exact moment Drew O’Connor realizes Ryker Evans is going to pass without looking along the blueline. The second Ryker puts his head down and spins into the pass, Drew jumps the lane and makes the perfect intercept. Incredibly played from DOC.
  • You cannot find a more awkward 2-on-0 than one in which both skaters have their shooting side in the middle of the ice. This was first date at the movies levels of clumsiness as both guys fumbled along with the puck.
  • Give credit to Shane Wright’s hard back check, as even with the awkward offensive rush from Vancouver, if he doesn’t get his stick in the passing lane at the end, DOC might have had a tap-in.
After another rush attempt on the same shift from Sherwood and O’Connor, Seattle would eventually score on the power play off of the counter counter attack, with Jordan Eberle finding Chandler Stephenson for the one timer near the faceoff circle:
This is a case of DOC and Sherwood getting a little too big for their britches, as they had nothing left in the tank after the second attempt at rushing down the ice. Drew can barely make it back into the play before Seattle scores to make it 2-0.
Greedy little buff boys, greedy!
Best making up for it
Perhaps feeling the shame of blowing out their gas tank shorthanded, Kiefer Sherwood would respond quickly with a goal of his own, after converting a rebound of a Jake DeBrusk shot:
That’s a good zone entry from Brock Boeser with Sherwood, and much like Max Sasson in the first period, it’s Kiefer moving his legs that lets him float into some empty space to jump all over the Jake DeBrusk rebound. And kudos to Jake as well, he skated hard into the slot to get a shot on net, and that’s what the Canucks need from him. No one loves his blue paint game more than me, but Jake needs to be effective all over the ice, and skating with purpose is one of the major ways he can do that.
This goal was then followed up by the play of the year, however, as David Kämpf would come waltzing in, undressing two Kraken defenders, before kicking the puck off his skate to his forehand a la Pavel Bure, and going bar down with perhaps the hardest wrist shot I have seen this year:
No, but that would have been pretty cool though, right?
Best responding to responding
Ben Meyers would then promptly restore the two-goal lead for Seattle when he would crash the crease and tap in the pass from Ryan Winterton, which my mind wanted to type as “Featherbottom,” and I don’t have any idea why:
That’s pretty much how 75% of the goals are scored in any NHL video game ever right there. Cross-crease one-timers rule the day.
I agree with both Lachlan and Daniel in that Max Sasson’s lack of strength is going to be a hindrance to his NHL long-term centre aspirations if he can’t outmuscle other NHL centres, and that Evander Kane just sort of floating away at one point probably created a bit of confusion on the play?
“Dad left to get milk” is a bold defensive strategy to use in the NHL, that’s all I’m saying.
Best tit for tat
Folks, may I introduce January Jake?
Setting up shop on Ryan Featherbottom, the man who just helped score against Vancouver, to tap in his own cross crease one timer felt poetic.
And yes, that is one much-maligned Brock Boeser feeding the pass in the general area of Jake, knowing that scoring in Tim Horton’s is one of his favourite things to do. In fact, the puck sort of pinballs around Jake’s skates and Joey OK’s pads, before bouncing in.
It’s the exact type of goal January Jake scores, to be honest. Not December Jake, though. December Jake is the worst person I know.
Did you hear December Jake stands on the left side of the escalator and refuses to move?
Best I wish he was joking
I honestly have a dream of an entire line being traded at the deadline, just for the pure dramatics of it all. The NHL could use some batsh!t crazy things like that happening; it truly could.
And hey, this line would be extremely affordable for a deep team looking to bolster its bottom line.
If you think I’m joking, I want to be clear that this line showed the most offensive creativity of any line on the night. At one point, Kämpf was trying between-the-legs no-look passes to Sherwood:
Moving the puck around at will, finding good looks on net, this line was downright dynamic!*
*Dynamic for a game between Vancouver and Seattle.
Best proving your worth
Feeling good about life, January Jake decides to get his third point of the night, as he pulls up quick on a zone entry to find Fil Hronek for the point shot, which Linus Karlsson is all too happy to clean up:
I know Linus has been on a bit of a hot streak, and the Canucks are hoping this is the real final form on him, so while we wait to see where the truth lies, I am just going to enjoy the ride. I have always liked Karlsson’s game, as he has shown a real NHL finish around the net, which is always a commodity in a league that tightens up and clamps down come playoff time.
And the rest of the third period, honestly, was two teams working hard, trying not to get scored on. I don’t have any highlights to show because it was a bunch of chip-and-chase hockey with effective line changes. And I don’t think anyone has ever yelled, “honey, take a look at this effective line change Wyatt just showed a clip of”, so let’s just jump into overtime.
Best making them see it
Elias Pettersson was both interfered with and also sold it like he was in the main event of Wrestlemania:
The one thing I can agree with is that “soft interference” occurs all game long, and the officials only seem to call it when they’re bored or when it impacts the game to the point a team gets a scoring chance out of it.
And here, yeah, Elias Pettersson is taken out of the play. Even if he doesn’t fall to the ice doing a full 360, falling just short of leaving a pee trail on the ice to really sell it, he is impeded from making a play on Vince Dunn. So I kind of get Elias going out of his way to make sure the official knows he wasn’t able to make a play due to it.
Which meant the Canucks got a power play, and they had two really close chances to win it.
The first was Fil Hronek having two good looks on the net, and oh my god, I am going to scream about the second look after you watch the clip:
Look, I get the theory of walking in, faking the shot, and dragging the puck so you can freeze a defender in a shot-blocking animation, giving you a shooting lane.
But sometimes you just have to walk into a puck and launch a piss missile.
You want to block this shot? Sounds good, eat rubber. See how badly they want to win. Lean into that son of a bitch. There is a universe where Fil Hronek walked into that puck and launched a nuclear bomb of a shot, and I wish that was our universe right now.
The other good chance was Elias Pettersson trying to feed January Jake in front of the net:
That’s about as close as you can come to scoring without hearing the goal horn go off, as Vancouver can at least rest easy knowing their power play was working well on the night.
Best all good things must come to an end
Vancouver ended with the right result; however, when Matty Beniers enjoyed life for a brief moment where he didn’t have to worry that Tyler Myers was going to murder him:
That was the lone goal of the shootout, giving the Kraken the two points on the night.
Would Kevin Lankinen have stopped that?
Would it have been badass if Kickstart Your Heart had played over the loudspeakers, announcing Kevin coming into the game as the closer? Damn skippy.
Does it make sense to bring in a goalie cold like that for the shootout? Of course not.
Does that stop me from dreaming of said scenario? Of course not.
The actual tragedy in this game came when the Vancouver DJ played “Hello” by Adele before a Kraken took a penalty shot. Not to get too worked up, but these games lack excitement as it is, so when they finally get to a breakaway contest, your instincts were “you know what would really get this crowd amped up about a big save? Making you think about a relationship that fell apart that you’re not really over, but you love them so much you hope they’re doing well now.”
When in doubt, hit the Darude – Sandstorm button. It’s very easy.
Next game is Boston on Saturday night; go to bed.
Best it is what it is
Look, Quinn Hughes is going to post a 100+ point season next year, just accept it at this point.
Best over before it began
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