Afternoon games are weird, usually.
The Vancouver Canucks dropped a 4-2 decision to the Tampa Bay Lighting, where the missing high-end talent from their roster became very glaringly apparent. There simply wasn’t that push over the top, though the Canucks played some solid hockey to get themselves back into the game. It was a shame that they couldn’t piece together a full 60 minutes, because if they did so they would probably have scooped up the win. But as it was, the result didn’t go the Canucks’ way.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

In hindsight, Vancouver’s early power play probably didn’t help them start the game on the right foot. Sure, they were able to score first, but the first period saw Tampa control the game on both the CF% and xGF% front. The Canucks would post identical 41.38 CF% shares in the first and second periods, with their xGF% sitting at around 36% in those periods as well. In the final frame, Vancouver finally put together the best statistical period, recording a 60.87 CF% and 63.36 xGF%, with the highest xGF of both teams in a single period with 0.89. They got a 5v5 goal for their efforts – but unfortunately, it would be the Bolts that struck on the powerplay to ice the game eventually.

Heat Map

The heat map reflected the consistent manner in which the Bolts out-chanced the Canucks. At 5v5, while the scoring chances were only 20-18 in favour of Tampa, they were able to produce much higher quality looks to sit at a 12-7 advantage at even strength. That gap swelled up to 16-9 when accounting for all situations, making the heat map look a lot more favourable for the Bolts in comparison to the Canucks.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: This one is interesting, and not just because of the numbers. Pius Suter led the Canucks in Corsi with a 66.67 CF% on the night, in which he primarily played against Tampa’s first line. That’s right, with the majority of his minutes coming against Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, and Brayden Point, Suter still managed to post the best CF% on the team. That isn’t easy, with the Swiss centerman further putting up a 67.68 xGF% which was the 5th-best mark on the team. It’s pretty impressive, especially given the completion that he was facing.
Corsi Chump: It’s yet another game where Max Sasson finds himself at the bottom of the Corsi pile. The depth forward put up a 33.33 CF%, going along with the 41.01 xGF% that he racked up. Despite these share stats, Sasson wasn’t exactly a liability – the Bolts only managed 2 high-danger chances in total while he was on the ice, showing that Sasson wasn’t bleeding anything against them. Rather, he was simply just a depth forward that didn’t control much of the puck, but otherwise didn’t do anything directly to harm the team. Sasson did have one really good chance though, that he couldn’t convert on.
xGF: As hinted to by the title, Aatu Räty racked up a team-high 83.02 xGF%. That wasn’t just because he was putting up relatively good numbers in limited deployment – the Finn actually posted the third-best xGF on the team with his 0.54 while seeing a second-best 0.10 xGA. That’s really good margins, especially considering that Räty only saw less than 10 minutes of ice time at 5v5, but still managed to generate the raw numbers to put him at the top of the team. It should be no surprise that Quinn Hughes led the team in raw xGF by posting a 0.99 xGF on the night.
GSAx: It says a lot when giving up 3 goals still puts Kevin Lankinen in the positives. Without him between the pipes, Vancouver would’ve likely had a much rougher time stemming the flow of the game when Tampa was turning it on. The Bolts put up 3.40 xGF on the night to help Lankinen finish with a 0.40 GSAx, having two of the goals come off low-danger chances and the remaining goal from a high-danger look. With how unusual the start time was for this game, it was no surprise the Canucks opted to rest Thatcher Demko further, and given the kind of form that Lankinen is playing with, they had their options going.

Statistical Musings

Where Soucy continues to impress: Too many men penalty aside, something has definitely gotten into Carson Soucy as of late, and it’s been for the best. Statistically, he was the best Canuck defenceman against the Bolts, putting up the second-best CF% on the roster with 65.22 and the second-best xGF% with 82.86. That came with the team’s best xGA of 0.08, which also was primarily against Tampa’s top line at 5v5. It’s hard to imagine that Soucy would have been putting up these numbers only a couple of weeks ago, not to mention that he would have been recording all of this with Noah Juulsen as his partner. Whatever these two are cooking, it’s definitely been good to see.
Missing alien: In a game like this, game-breaking talent could’ve, and should’ve made a difference for the Canucks. Unfortunately, Elias Pettersson’s effort against the Bolts was a bit disappointing when the results could’ve been much different. That isn’t to say that he had a poor game, but with both Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser being ineffective, it’s hard not to look at that line and think what if they were able to produce. At 5v5, their line posted the worst CF% (38.10) and xGF% (30.16) with the second-worst xGF of 0.19 to boot. Those kinds of numbers from your supposed top line doesn’t bode well for success, and this was coming on home ice where the Canucks had the last change. Simply put, they needed to be better if Vancouver was going to win this game.

As a team

CF% – 43.75% HDCF% – 44.00% xGF% – 36.22%
The Canucks missed that push to get them over the edge, and coupling that with the lack of 60 full minutes of hockey, it wasn’t exactly a surprise to see them drop this game. Tampa might not be what they were a couple of years back, but it’s still a darn good hockey team, one that will make you pay for your mistakes. Vancouver continues to struggle with its chance generation, and against one of the better teams in the league, they were giving up a bit more chances than they would probably like. Still, that third period push was encouraging to see. If only they could manage to not put themselves in that position in the first place.
Vancouver hosts the St. Louis Blues at home tomorrow.
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