Stringing together two at home has never seemed so hard before.
The Vancouver Canucks dropped the second half of their back-to-back, losing to the Nashville Predators by a 5-3 scoreline. Any time a team loses to the second-worst team in the NHL, it does lead to questions, although the Preds are probably too talented actually to be considered a basement dweller in the league. The stats for this game showed that the Canucks didn’t play terribly – however, a couple of momentary lapses in the second proved too much to overcome in the grand scheme of the game.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

If looking at the period stats, the Canucks didn’t really have a bad period. Never did they have a lesser share of CF% or xGF%, and for once, they heavily out-chanced the opposition at 5v5. However, it’s also clear that the Canucks’ ebbs and flows, particularly in the second period, did cost them being in the driver’s seat for this contest. In the middle frame, Vancouver managed to put up a 7-1 high-danger chance lead with a 1.23 – 0.64 xGF tilt for a 65.69 xGF%. That’s good, but from the game flow chart, the Canucks also took their foot off of the gas after the 2-1 goal, and Nashville capitalized on that flat spot for two quick tallies. After that, with a goal against the flow of the game coming on the power play, it proved to be too much for Vancouver to overcome. The third period might’ve seen an 85.12 xGF% share for the Canucks, but the Predators locked the game down by only allowing two high-danger chances for 0.26 xGF.

Heat Map

While the hot spot generated might not look too impressive, compared to previous games the Canucks were doing a much better job at creating high-danger looks. At 5v5, the scoring chances stood at 22-16 for Vancouver, with a 13-4 high-danger chance advantage. That kind of disparity hasn’t been seen in a while for this group and should be a hopeful sign of things to come. However, once again, the power play struggled to get those grade-A chances, only managing a single one over two power plays. Again, Vancouver did get a tally on the man advantage, so it wasn’t as if they couldn’t get offence. However, the sustainability of their chance generation on the power play still is a question mark.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: No surprises here. Quinn Hughes led the Canucks with a 69.77 CF% as Rick Tocchet leaned heavily on the captain to try and get something going for Vancouver. Hughes was dynamite once more for the Canucks at both ends, moving the puck dynamically while limiting the Predators as much as he could defensively. The amount of minutes that he’s been logging have been massive, and it seems to be taking a toll on his stamina. Hopefully, a move for the back end can happen sooner and get Hughes some more rest.
Corsi Chump: The reason why Hughes is playing so much is because of this. Carson Soucy finished with a team-worst 29.03 CF%, with his partner Tyler Myers not far behind in second-last with 36.67 CF%. Soucy was bad against the Predators, on ice for a 2-9 scoring chance deficit while facing three high-danger chances against – three-quarters of what Nashville was able to create at 5v5. The defenceman also had a second-worst xGF (0.22) and xGF% (20.42) with a team-worst 0.85 xGA. The player with the worst xGF and xGF% was Myers, with 0.11 and 13.64%, respectively. It’s rapidly becoming obvious that these two cannot be a second pair.
xGF: By proxy of playing nearly half the game, Quinn Hughes put up the team’s best xGF% with an 84.94. With the team’s second-best xGF of 1.63 and just a 0.29 xGA, Hughes was on the ice for a 13-5 scoring chance advantage and an absurd 9-0 high-danger chance lead as well. On most nights, this would be more than enough to help the team to a victory. Unfortunately, he couldn’t offset the negatives that some of his teammates brought, and it’s crazy to think that these numbers are coming in a game that Vancouver lost 5-3. Filip Hronek led the Canucks with a raw xGF of 1.68 after being on the ice for a 10-1 lead in high-danger chances.
GSAx: This might be Kevin Lankinen’s first truly poor performance for Vancouver. Facing his former team, the Predators put up 1.53 xGF against him, meaning that the Finn posted a -2.47 GSAx last night. It wasn’t the best outing, with just one of the goals that he gave up coming from a high-danger chance. The rest of the goals came from middle-danger chances. Now, he’s definitely earned some slack, but it was also clear that Lankinen wasn’t going to be a netminder that could steal wins for the Canucks. They’ll need to figure out how to clean up their game in front of their goalie.

Statistical Musings

Miller’s benching: A notable storyline that emerged from this contest was JT Miller getting benched. No Canuck saw less ice time than he did at 5v5, and that perhaps had to do with the fact that Miller wasn’t doing too much on the offensive side. While his CF% and xGF% weren’t atrocious, the raw numbers also weren’t the most inspiring. For a player of his calibre to be producing just 0.34 xGF and on ice for just 4 scoring chances, Miller is playing nowhere near dynamic enough to warrant heavy minutes in a comeback situation. On top of that, he wasn’t having the best of nights on the PK as well, further adding fuel to the fire. Having nothing glaringly wrong with his stat line shouldn’t be Miller’s benchmark – if Elias Pettersson was held to a high standard, so should he.
An interesting move: Tocchet’s answer for the Filip Forsberg-Ryan O’Reilly-Gustav Nyquist line (with Steven Stamkos shifting onto the wing) was Dakota Joshua-Teddy Blueger-Conor Garland. That sounds a little bit bananas to say out loud, but the results weren’t the worst thing in the world, either. The line posted the worst CF% amongst all forward lines, but interestingly enough, their xGF% of 76.74 was a team-high, and their 0.47 xGF was also a team-best. They also didn’t face a single high-danger chance against while being on the ice for a team-high four high-danger chances for.
The fourth line’s sneaky good game: Having Nils Höglander-Aatu Räty-Danton Heinen together looks to be working outside of a rough game against the New York Islanders (though in their defence, everyone had a bad game against New York). While the xGF% was a team-low together, they still sat at 51.41, which isn’t terrible given that they aren’t really expected to be dominating their opposition. At the very least, they were controlling the puck well, posting a 62.50 CF%, the second-best on the team. Coupling that with a goal from this unit, and all things considered, they were darn solid in a depth role.

As a team

CF% – 52.21% HDCF% – 77.78% xGF% – 50.23%
If the Canucks could’ve figured out how to not slip up in the second period, they probably would’ve been able to win. The statistics favoured this team quite well, and most of the team actually had pretty decent nights, according to their advanced stats. But enough lapses happened for Nashville to get into the lead, something that the Predators were able to control from the driver’s seat and see the game out in a victory. That does sting, especially with where they are in the standings.
Vancouver hosts the New York Rangers at home tomorrow night.
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