There are blowouts, and then there was whatever that was last night.
The Vancouver Canucks got played out of the building, losing 6-1 to the Winnipeg Jets in embarrassing fashion. There were not many positives that could be taken away from this performance. Actually, there was probably only one thing – seeing Nils Höglander break his goal-scoring drought. Once again there was no knowing which Canucks team was going to turn up, and unfortunately for all those who watched, it was the unwatchable version.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

It’s interesting to see that the first period wasn’t as lopsided as the scoreboard suggested. At 5v5, the Canucks actually held a 64.71 CF% share and a slight 53.56 xGF% edge as well. Problem was that they also gave up five high-danger chances against, which really did them in. After that first, Vancouver stopped playing as the Jets took over the flow of the game. The second saw Winnipeg record 1.41 xGF and 75.61 xGF% to further pad their statistical advantage, before both teams just kind of stopped playing in the third. Such a fun flatline in the third.

Heat Map

This heat map should also not really be a surprise either. Winnipeg obliterated Vancouver entirely when it came to scoring chances and high-danger chances. At 5v5, the Jets sat at a 20-13 scoring chance advantage with a 12-5 lead in high-danger chances. Accounting for all situations, that gap jumped to 30-17 and 21-8 respectively. It wasn’t as if Vancouver didn’t have their cracks on the man-advantage either, getting two power plays to Winnipeg’s three. Simply put, they were bleeding and leaky in front of Kevin Lankinen, and it just wasn’t good.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: What a surprise. Nils Höglander led the Canucks in Corsi last night with a 62.50 CF%. He didn’t see much ice time though, recording a team-low 9:58 at 5v5 play despite putting up some pretty decent numbers. Höglander was only on ice for one high-danger chance against, but did only have a 30.97 xGF% thanks to not a lot of offence being generated while he was on the ice. Then again, it wasn’t as if the Canucks were offensive juggernauts last night – Höglander’s xGF% actually was relatively middle of the pack, which is a concern as well. At least the Swede finally scored.
Corsi Chump: Conor Garland brought up the rear in the Corsi department with a 36.84 CF% last night, generally getting caved in at 5v5. It was bad enough to the point where he only produced 0.04 xGF (which was a team-worst) and faced 0.83 xGA to end up with a team-low 4.32 xGF%. That’s right, while Garland was on ice, the Jets were controlling a hefty 95.68 xGF% share. The winger faced a 2-9 deficit in scoring chances and a further 1-4 hole in high-danger chances. Not the greatest, suffice it to say.
xGF: Not a lot of offensive pressure was generated by the Canucks last night, so the numbers are going to look a little bad here. Pius Suter led Vancouver with his 69.61 xGF%, thanks to the second-best xGA on the team with a 0.17. He also was on ice for a 3-1 advantage in scoring chances, which was a rarity given the context of the game. For raw xGF, Quinn Hughes led the way again, but the 0.65 xGF should show just how little anyone was able to create against the Jets last night.
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen was not good last night. However, it wasn’t to the extent that the loss fell entirely on his shoulders. In fact, the Winnipeg Jets managed to generate a huge 4.48 xGF across all situations, showing that the entire team in front of the Finn just collapsed. Given that, Lankinen found himself down a -1.52 GSAx on the night, with 5 of the goals coming off high-danger chances against and the remaining goal being recorded as low-danger. It wasn’t a good game from Lankinen by any means, but this drubbing isn’t a result of his play alone.

Statistical Musings

Please play like stars: One of the biggest standouts on the stat sheet is how poorly JT Miller and Elias Pettersson performed. The two highest-paid players on the Canucks generated the 3rd and 4th least xGF last night, with Miller tallying the second-worst xGF% of 13.25 and Pettersson the fourth-worst xGF% of 25.90. It makes sense, as the pair were also the second and third-worst on the team in CF% as well. They did play against Winnipeg’s top six all night, but it’s hard to argue that Adam Lowry is that much better than Elias Pettersson, or Mark Scheifele is that much better than JT Miller. Well, the results from last night suggest that their opposition was head and shoulders above them.
Bottom 6 doing their best: Last night saw Tocchet use 9 different line combinations for at least 2:30 TOI. And yet, out of all the combinations, only the Sherwood-Suter-Heinen, Höglander-Blueger-PDG, and PDG-Blueger-Lekkerimaki lines managed to finish with a CF% and xGF% above 50%. Again, it’s great that they’re doing so, with PDG-Blueger-Lekkerimaki recording the team’s best 0.42 xGF. But, the fact is that these players are highly unlikely to convert on those expected goals, and if you’re the Canucks, you can’t rely on them to buoy this team’s offensive performance.
Chaos Giraffe chaoses: There was no defenceman that stood out in a worse way than Tyler Myers last night. Against his old team, the towering defender finished with a team-worst 1.16 xGA while facing a team-high 11 scoring chances against, 5 of them being high-danger. Again, it’s not entirely on him, but at this point in his career Myers is not a top 4 defenceman. He can play up in the lineup from time to time, but pairing him with Derek Forbort and expecting him to elevate that pairing is not a recipe for success.

As a team

CF% – 49.59% HDCF% – 27.59% xGF% – 32.90%
The Canucks sucked. But it fits in with the body of work that they’ve been showing all year. They’re an inconsistent team, one that can play with the best of the best and lose against the worst. Winnipeg definitely falls under the best category, and Vancouver simply couldn’t show up on the road. The team’s best players weren’t at their best, and everything just fell flat from the opening faceoff. Maybe this is just what this team is.
Vancouver finally returns home to host the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday.
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