logo
CanucksArmy has no direct affiliation to the Vancouver Canucks, Canucks Sports & Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA
The Stanchies: Canucks’ top players shine in injury-riddled victory over the Capitals
alt
Photo credit: © Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
The Stanchion
Oct 19, 2025, 18:37 EDT
Comments
I can’t think of a time for hockey I dislike more than Sunday morning during football season. This should be a time for barely being awake for the morning games as you drink coffee and settle in to watch NFL RedZone for eight hours straight, praying you can dodge any and all chore-like responsibilities in your household for the day. “I’ll get to the garbage later!” is a war cry many of us are familiar with on days like this.
On top of that, matinee games have never really been kind to Vancouver Canucks fans, as oftentimes, these start times end up being a boring slog of hockey. Now add in the fact that the Canucks have struggled to show up at the start of every game so far this season — not to mention the fact they’re in the midst of a gruelling road trip travel-wise — and you’d have every reason to wonder why you rolled out of bed to watch this one.
The good news is, the Canucks showed up in Washington, taking a 4-0 lead before ultimately tiring out and clawing their way to a 4-3 win.
The bad news is the Canucks lost Filip Chytil to a questionable at best hit from Tom Wilson, then Jonathan Lekkerimäki to what looks like a shoulder injury after he tried to land a hit on Matt Roy, and then later Teddy Blueger to complete the hat trick of misery as he left the game with six minutes left to play after what looked like a non-contact leg injury.
And while the team clearly withered away like a Nightfallen without a steady source of arcane energy, some huge plays from Thatcher Demko, Elias Pettersson, and Conor Garland allowed the team to escape with a victory, despite Evander Kane’s drop pass of doom attempt in the dying seconds of the game.
We are still using the Dan Russell rule of waiting 20 games to make grand statements about the state of this team, but it’s safe to say the Canucks have been lucky to start this season. They haven’t generated a lot of high quality scoring chances, have been shaky defensively at times, but luckily the PDO machine sometimes goes brrr in your favour.
Which isn’t a damning indictment, mind you. Over the course of any season, some teams will ride a bit of luck to get some wins, it’s just how she goes. But the key for this team will be after 20 games if we can get a grasp of just what kind of team we have on our hands right now as I don’t think we have a full picture yet of what an Adam Foote coached team is all about.
Until then, however, it’s ok to celebrate their efforts in securing three straight wins on a tough road trip because lucky or not, you cannot accuse the Canucks of not giving it their all in their victory over the Capitals.
Let’s make some gif money.
Pre-game lineup update
Best there you are Peter
You know you’re off to a quick start when you score a goal before the lineup graphics are even finished flashing on the screen:
Hronek makes the aggressive pinch along the boards to make a play on the puck, and the end result is that Jake DeBrusk ends up with the biscuit. And as any smart man will tell you, the best play you can make in life is to throw the puck in the corner somewhere near Conor Garland.
And Corolla does his usual Corolla things and makes a perfect pass to Elias Pettersson, who then uses the kind of clinical finish fans have been begging for. No pulling up and making a pass to the point, no circling wide around the net; instead, he exudes solid “eff you” energy and unloads a perfect shot. That’s the kind of shot from that guy on the other team in beer league who is clearly several levels of skill ahead of the division, wanting everyone to know he could win this game by himself if he wants to.
I also think it’s a good sign that Elias Pettersson no longer has that “falling to the ice to weep tears of joy while the team gathers around to celebrate him” energy we saw last year. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with breaking a slump or feeling good after finally getting a goal. A giant dump of “relief energy” can do wonders, as I am sure we all remember Alex Burrows breaking his stick over his leg to snap an eight game losing streak back in 2008.
But you want to use that sparingly. You need to use it once, maybe twice in a season. So the fact Elias Pettersson has started the season and been incredibly unlucky to not have more goals at this point, it’s nice to see him get a goal and act like he knew it was coming, it’s no big deal.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Wyatt, how can you turn this Elias Pettersson goal into a series of clips to start your early ‘Garland deserves Selke votes’ campaign this season?”
Just watch me, baby.
Now, clearly, Conor Garland is a line driver. We all know that. DeBrusk knows he can throw it in Garland’s general direction, and odds are the team will end up with possession of the puck.
Jake also knows that now that Rick isn’t here to scream at him, he can go for a skate, and Elias Pettersson and Conor Garland will probably find a way to get him the puck at some point:
DeBrusk is denied, but this is a man who has opened many a pedestrian pack of Pokémon cards; he knows not to get discouraged by early letdowns.
The reason I enjoy Garland so much, however, is that his hockey IQ is so incredibly high. He is always assessing the play on the ice in a way I imagine is much similar to how the Terminator enters a bar. He scans the ice, looks for danger, and sizes up whose leather jacket will fit him best.
Or in this case, he realizes Tom Wilson is a human piss missile, so you have to be aware of him at all times:
Jake DeBrusk applies good pressure on Tom Wilson and deflects his pass, which angers Mr. Wilson, so he tries to hunt down Conor.
If you’re a Caps fan, you are yelling at me that it’s some sort of ninja-esque front-facing slew foot from Conor Garland. And while if I were really bored, I could be here for a debate on if Corolla hung a knee there (you’d still be wrong), I mostly see someone saving their own life to get out of the way. But don’t worry, we get to argue about Tom Wilson for hours later in this article, so we shall move on for now.
The main takeaway from this section, is, well, takeaways. Revis Garland Island has been a thing this season, as he has been the king of intercepting passes this season for Vancouver.
You want to find a forward deep behind the Canucks defence? Garland will take away the middle of the ice and take that puck, thank you very much:
Garland is just a very smart hockey player who is constantly making the right play on the ice. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, he is a hockey coach’s dream.
Best Castle Fun Park Line
The CFP line might have to do some lifting for this team with all the injuries, and while they had a quiet game on the night (or day, I suppose), they still generated some chances.
Their best attempt was this Arshdeep Bains breakaway shot that Charlie Lindgren stopped:
Take note of the play of the tip Linus Karlsson makes on the stretch pass to deflect the puck perfectly onto Bains’s stick. Absolutely sublime touch shown by Linus on that one, as the Castle Fun Park line continues to be, well, fun for lack of a better word.
Best century mark
If you’re Tyler Myers and you want to get your 100th NHL career goal, the best way to do it is in a pile of chaos:
The second that play extended into chaotic energy, I knew it was going to be the Chaos Giraffe’s moment to shine. The fact he just calmly skates in and then just quietly puts the puck in the net while bodies are flailing all over the ice is the perfect way for CG57 to score, I think we can all agree on that.
Best piling on the pressure
With a power play late in the first period, Conor Garland wins a puck battle behind the net and eventually gets the puck back. Now, Conor Garland uses a short stick, it’s what gives him a lot of his magical powers. You can sneak in and out of Hobbit holes with Sting in your hands and do real damage, but what it doesn’t allow you to do is flex out a 99mph shot. It’s why teams don’t have to respect his shot on the power play because the odds of him going full Sami Salo are next to nothing.
Which is why most of the time he either tries to make a nice pass, or in this case, uses the EA Sports tried and true method, shooting low and hard to generate a rebound to take advantage of questionable goaltending AI. And when you have blue paint specialist Jake DeBrusk in the area, and Kiefer Sherwood floating around nearby, that’s the kind of play that can generate a goal or two:
As with all things Garland, it’s about using the highest percentage play. There’s nobody open, so you might as well try to bounce pass a rebound in the general area of two of your friends.
Best Aaron Rome remix edition
With the Canucks up 3-0, this was clearly prime time for Tom Wilson to “wake his team up” which usually comes in the form of a huge hit.
And look, we’re going to be talking about this next play a lot. I feel like it’s almost a John Oliver bit where I need to explain to you what the hit is, where it came from, and how we can avoid it again in the future.
So first thing’s first, I appreciate what Tom Wilson brings to a team. He’s tough, he’s got skill, and he plays the physical game very well. I can’t sit here and talk glowingly of Raffi Torres if I’m going to turn around and start fainting in distress at the first sign of Tom Wilson being a jerk.
But I also fully accepted that with Raffi Torres, he is always riding a line of criminality. He’s like a character on Soprano’s that you can’t help but love, but you also know they live a questionable life style and should probably be in jail. When he got suspended, you were like “Yeah you know what, fair enough.”
And with Tom Wilson, this play on Filip Chytil is 100% one of those hits that rides the line of clean hit vs why is this man trying to murder someone:
Chytil did not play again after this hit, but we will remove his concussion issues from this discussion. As horrible as it is to have that injury history involved in this, at the end of the day you’re not going to make a ruling based on a players health heading into a game.
So it comes down to whether or not you think this is a penalty. The officials in the game ruled it a clean hockey hit. The kind of hit Don Cherry would have proudly thrown on his Rock Em Sock Em VHS tapes set to a really cool techno track, followed up by a series of clips of Allan Bester glove saves.
And I agree, this kind of hit is something that you’ve probably cheered on in your life when your guy does it.
But it comes down to should it be a penalty?
And to me, this is very close to the Aaron Rome situation. For those at home who guessed “six games” before I brought up 2011 this year, well done, you win.
My point is, Aaron Rome landed a similar hit on Nathan Horton. Both plays involved a player making a pass and then being hit shortly afterwards. Both plays involved the guy getting hit leaving the game due to injury.
Aaron Rome? He was handed a five minute major, and then suspended four games in the Finals, which as the NHL has taught us, playoff games equal four games of regular season hockey. So with NHL math that’s a five minute major and sixteen games of regular season hockey.
All this for a guy who had never been suspended once in his entire NHL career up to that point.
Now, Tom Wilson has been suspended six times in his NHL career, one of which was a 20 game suspension for a hit to the head. In both that hit, and the hit on Sunday, it’s pretty clear Tom Wilson was eyeing down his target the entire time:
Clearly the hit against the Blues was a head shot, so I am not here to argue about the severity of the two hits. My only point is that Tom Wilson has sort of lost the benefit of the doubt here with me, so when he is looking to make a big hit, it’s hard to argue that he isn’t leaning more on the side of civil disobedience.
However, because Colin Campbell’s son isn’t playing or managing the Capitals in any way, I sort of assume the Department of Player Safety will wave this away, barring a miracle:
End summary, 2011 never dies, Colin Campbell, Vancouver will never forget that the league utilized “frames per second” for the first time in NHL history to justify a suspension.
We know what you did.
Best bad things come in threes
To make matters worse, Lekkerimäki was injured earlier in the first period when he ran into 6″2, 220 pound Matt Roy:
As someone who has had two terrible AC separations, whenever someone’s arm hangs limp like that after a hit, I assume that’s the cause of it.
Now the fact he could still use his arm to shovel the puck out of the zone is hopefully a sign it isn’t too severe of an injury, but also adrenaline is a hell of a drug, so we will have to wait and see what the official word is.
Best young guns
Looking like Emilio Estevez in his prime, Vittorio Mancini extracted some level of street justice when he took on Brandon Duhaim in what the kids are calling a good old fashioned brouhaha:
Using the scientific method of “what did the people on hockey fights say?”, it currently has MANcini as the winner of the fight at 62%.
Best footing the bill
The short story on this is that dining enthusiast Evander Kane helped the Canucks get to their fourth and final goal of the night when he booted the puck over to Teddy Blueger for the finish:
The long story is much more in depth, however. This play starts with the Canucks being aggressive, basically.
Marcus Pettersson aggressively stands up at his blue line to poke the puck away from Tom Wilson.
Tyler Myers aggressively steps up at the offensive blue line on Aliaksei Protas to push the puck back into Washington’s zone.
Aliaksei Protas aggressively refuses to play defence on the ensuing play, instead choosing to sit back and watch from afar outside of his zone.
Tyler Myers aggressively runs over his own teammate Kiefer Sherwood as if to say “I’m so crazy I take out my own guys, so what do you think I would do to you guys?” to intimidate the Capitals.
Evander Kane aggressively tries to beat the entire Washington Capitals team before kicking at the puck using a technique I assume Thomas Muller taught him over the weekend in his role as Captain of Every Single Sport in Vancouver.
And then Tedddy KGB aggressively gets the quick shot off, leading to the goal.
So while the play is chaotic as all hell, the Canucks pushing the pace and getting on top of the puck is what pushed the chaos in their favor.
Best Selke votes rising
You know what’s probably pretty effective on the penalty kill? Conor Garland’s sweet, delicious brain.
And here he is using it two times to disrupt passing lanes, leading to zone exits:
I have only been invited to vote on NHL awards once in my life. And I used it to give Conor Garland a third place Selke vote. I don’t know if that got me banned from voting last season, but damn it, I stand by it.
Best Castle Fun Park ride out of commission 
Hey, sometimes the Go Karts can be dangerous:
Bains runs out of time and space and ends up running the goalie over, and rightfully earns two minutes in the box to think about what he did and to feel shame.
Drew O’Connor, however, viewed this penalty kill as a time to showcase one of his favorite skills; Getting a breakaway and not scoring:
Don’t get me wrong, I heartily enjoy a good Tyler Motte/Jannik Hansen player, the guy with wheels for days but only converts on a handful of breakaway chances every five years. And hey, kudos to Kiefer Sherwood for his dogged puck pursuit and eventual pass to DOC for that breakaway.
But there is also an inner pain you carry when you watch these guys continue to not score. Would I have scored there? Of course not, I would have fallen and gone head first into the boards. But damn it, Drew, you’re supposed to lead the way.
Unfortunately for Vancouver, Washington would score moments later, signaling the start of the “ah shit we are SO tired” era of the Canucks in this game:
Again, Tom Wilson is a skilled dude. That’s a tremendous pass over to Ryan Leonard for the goal. But that was a late hit on Chytil, the NHL told us that in 2011, that’s all I’m saying.
Best leading without a letter
Playing with Conor Garland must feel like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s morning. Drew O’Connor loses the puck in his own zone? Don’t worry, Garland will win a board battle and generate a zone exit that leads to a rush chance for DOC:
I like this play because it shows Drew trying to get the puck out along the boards in the exact same spot Garland does it, and it just shows the two different styles at play. DOC tries to do his dekes, which fair enough, but then Garland shows the deception and mind games he uses in his style. He fakes smashing the puck with his backhand along the boards and intstead pivots his body to make the clean pass to Drew for the zone exit with possession.
I’ve mentioned in the pass that Quinn Hughes is a Pirlo type player in hockey, that guy who hangs onto the puck and is the king of possession. Well early on in this season, Garland is wearing that Pirlo crown, giving the Canucks a possession edge whenever he is on the ice.
Best is what it is
I think at 27 years of age, Drew O’Connor is what he is: A big body with good speed who can generate chances but doesn’t quite have the finish:
Which hey, that’s still a valuable skill. He will score on these plays every now and again, and it’s good to have a guy that can push a team back on its heels with speed.
I just don’t think this is going to translate into a massive transformation offensively anytime soon. His career trajectory probably looks like a Shawn Matthias arc, which is still a tremendously successful career.
I also would be very happy to be wrong and have these words thrown in my face one day while kids line up along the viaducts and throw Costco hotdogs at me, calling me a big dumb idiot.
Just kidding, kids can’t buy hotdogs at Costco anymore, you need to have a membership card for that now.
Best feeling it
Elias Pettersson is still in his “work in progress” mode, but I always think it’s a good sign when he’s using his dekes in a game:
Nothing wrong with busting out a little razzle-dazzle on a basic backhand now and again.
Best pushing through the pain
The Canucks very clearly tired out in the third period of this game, which when coupled with a team’s natural desire to ride out a multi-goal lead, ends up putting pressure on your goalie to make the big saves.
And once again, Thatcher Demko looked remarkably liked Thatcher Demko in this game:
Making the saves when he needed, and his teammates also deserve applause for willingly throwing their body in the way of every shot possible to block it.
It wasn’t a pretty third period, and it felt like they might let this one slip away, but I think it’s a disservice to criticize the team for any of that. This was a tired team down three skaters doing everything in their power to push this one past the finish line. Gutsy effort from the Canucks on Sunday from where I’m sitting.
Best here comes the pushback
Jakob Chychrun pulled the Capitals to within two goals after Vittorio MANcini got caught swimming a little in his own zone:
Mancini kind of utilizes the Erik Gudbranson technique of hockey where you think “I’m tall and handsome, surely nothing can go wrong here.” as you gaze upon the action unfolding around you. To his credit, his team basically left him alone in front of his net though, so I think he just went Hodor-mode and tried to hold the door as best he could by staying central to everything, which allowed Chychrun to find that back door angle.
Best center of the problem
The best part is the entire league is always looking for center depth, so the prices will only get worse as injuries around the league start to mount.
And missing from Jay’s list is Teddy Blueger, who, with around seven minutes left in the game, pulled up lame with what looked like a non-contact leg injury:
I assume they will keep the Castle Fun Park line together, so is Nils Aman the official second line center for the Canucks? Is Aatu Räty the guy?
Best raging against the dying of the light
Referee Jean Hebert, perhaps inspired by Conor Garland’s defensive prowess, had a huge takeaway on Tyler Myers late in the third period, leading to Thatcher Demko having to come up with a massive save:
Which then led to Conor Garland being inspired by Jean Heber being inspired by Conor Garland, when he first took away a pass over to Ovechkin, and then later in the play spinning and firing a no look backhand pass to Jake DeBrusk for another semi-breakaway:
Which then led to me being inspired by Conor Garland being inspired by Jean Hebert being inspired by Conor Garland.
Best last gasp
John Carlson then made it a one goal game with a perfect shot from the point with the goalie pulled:
It looks like Demko kind of flubbed this one to be honest. It seems like he had good sight lines on the puck and it just sort of gets through his glove, but it’s hard to criticize Demko on this night. I can try if you want, though?
Man, I bet Demko likes blueberries. What a weirdo.
(Please note, this only works if you hate blueberries like I do.)
Best putting in the work
Like I said, the best part about Pettersson’s game is that this sort of thing is becoming the norm:
He’s just out here making big plays, whether it’s offensively or defensively, and it’s becoming normalized again.
Don’t get me wrong, he still has a lot of room for improvement on the offensive side of things, but blocking two shots, one of which is using a Kirk McLean technique, is absolutely huge for him.
I don’t know if Adam Foote agrees, as Elias Pettersson still ended the night with less 5 on 5 ice time than Blueger, though?
We will wait our Dan Russell 20 games before we dive too deep into that, but Foote’s deployment of EP40 is certainly a leading contender for a topic of discussion.
Best oh my god what are you doing moment
I understand the team was down three players, but I truly do not wish to see Evander Kane defending a lead late in the game anytime soon.
Again, I am giving time to recover from surgery in January and get used to his new team, I truly am. But within that context, you can still fairly say that he hasn’t looked good defensively. He just has a very casual approach to defense, much in the same way I have a casual approach wanting to listen to the random stranger on the bus tell me about their day; We both don’t want to be there and we’re hoping to slip away unnoticed.
The problem is that Evander Kane was very noticeable on this play because he chose to drop a no look, 99mph backhand pass to Defensive Elias Pettersson, who was about a foot away from him:
The result of this pass was the Capitals got extended offensive zone time with the puck, and easily could have scored were it not for, you guessed it, Conor Garland. The warm blanket himself not only deflected one, but two passes at the end of this sequence to force an offside call and get a faceoff outside of the zone. If there was coffee here, Garland would be allowed to have it because only closers get coffee.
As for Kane on this play, some people suggested EP25 yelled for the puck, and while it sounds like he says “hey hey hey”, that’s still on Kane to not make that pass. The best play there is clearly chip the puck off the boards without icing it, and then go for a change as Kane had already been on an extended shift at this point. There are only a couple of scenarios in which I think a player should make a drop pass instead of getting the puck out of their zone when trying to close out a game, and one of those involves monster trucks driving onto the ice so it’s not very likely to occur.
Dropping the puck with a no look laser pass trying to hold down a one goal lead is something you never want to see. If Kuzmenko had done that under Rick Tocchet, we’d be looking for his body to this day.
Best lining up the new contract
Kiefer Sherwood is looking to buy a bigger house.
Best lock it in
Keep these lads on speed dial if the team struggles on a future road trip, that’s all I’m saying.
Sponsored by bet365

Editorials

Breaking News