It’s actually comical how inconsistent this team is.

The Vancouver Canucks somehow, someway, managed to beat the Minnesota Wild by a 4-2 scoreline. With Elias Pettersson being a late scratch on this roster, one might’ve been forgiven for thinking that it would be a one-way demolition at the hands of one of the best teams in the NHL so far this season. Instead, it was the Canucks who struck against all odds, the hockey gods perhaps paying them back a bit for being so unfortunate the previous night.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

At no point during this game was Vancouver in control. While the Canucks held a narrow 53.85 CF% in the first, their xGF% sat at 27.76 as the Wild managed to put up 1.03 xGF against Vancouver’s own 0.4. The closest this gap got was in the second period, where the Canucks had a 0.43-0.37 xGF lead. Funnily enough, that would be all they would need to strike three times in the middle frame. The third period featured them turtling with a 44.00 CF% and 27.31 xGF% as Minnesota looked to avoid losing to the worst team in the NHL – and despite giving up 5 high-danger chances alone in the period, the Canucks still held firm to take the win home.

The heat map also reflects just what a one-sided game it was when it came to scoring chances. While the Wild only had a narrow 21-20 lead in overall scoring chances, the high-danger chances were a lopsided 10-2 for the visitors. That much is shown by the two drastically varying hot spots, where Minnesota had a veritable lake in front of Nikita Tolopilo, while Vancouver barely challenged Jesper Wallstedt from high-danger areas. Still, it’s interesting to see that Minnesota only got one goal at 5v5 play, and it wasn’t from one of those high-danger chances they racked up. As for the Canucks, one of their two high-danger chances was converted into a goal, which is a pretty darn good conversion rate.

Corsi Champ: Aatu Raty had himself a night. The Finn saw himself get bumped up the lineup due to Pettersson’s injury and put on a show between Kiefer Sherwood and Evander Kane, putting up a team-best 69.57 CF% while also finding the scoresheet twice. With 2 goals and 1 assist, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Raty also had the second-best xGF5 on the team with 56.27, on ice for a 9-3 lead in scoring chances and 1-1 split in high-danger chances. It’s one of the best games of his professional career, and hopefully Raty can build on this positive going forward.

Corsi Chump: Bringing up the rear of the pack in CF% was Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who recorded a 20.00 CF%. Demoted to the fourth line, Lekkerimäki barely saw any playing time at 5v5 action and was unable to dig himself out of a statistical hole. His 5.12 xGF% ranked him as the third-worst Canuck in that category, with the rest of his linemates joining him as the bottom 3. This was as the Swede faced a 0-3 hole in high-danger chances and the 5th-worst xGA at 0.93. Not the best performance, but it wasn’t as if he was set up for success.

xGF: With all the trade rumours swirling around him, Quinn Hughes has continued to play good hockey. His 58.49 xGF% was a team-best for the Canucks, with the defenceman out there for a 12-4 edge in scoring chances. That being said, Hughes was also on ice for a 1-3 hole in high-danger chances, but given just how much he played and the quality of competition, those numbers do make sense for him. He also led the team in raw xGF, sitting at 0.76 on the night.

GSAx: This was a gem of a performance by Nikita Tolopilo. The Belarusian netminder faced down one of the best teams in the league and came out on top, turning away all but 2 chances against 3.44 xGF to finish with a 1.44 GSAx. It was excellent, and from an AHL netminder, it is a lot more than one could be asking for. The only blemish to his record is that of the two goals, they were split between middle and low-danger chances, which isn’t the best. Still, Tolopilo more than did his part to get the Canucks the win in this one.

Just as they deserved to win against the Mammoth, the Canucks deserved to lose against the Wild. The hockey gods really do have an ironic way of evening things out, as this group took care of business in a game where they didn’t play all that well. It was great to see the younger palyers step up in the absence of Pettersson down the middle, and especially more so for the likes of Raty and Tom Willander to find the scoresheet. Again, hopefully this isn’t an outlier and these performances can become more common from these players. As for the team… we’ll see exactly what’s in store for them.

Vancouver hosts the Detroit Red Wings tomorrow night.