It wasn’t 9-1!

The Vancouver Canucks dropped a tightly contested 5-4 overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche. There aren’t too many “moral” victories to be had, but this one was coming close. The Canucks played really darn well on the second half of a back-to-back, against a team that was clearly rolling given the offensive showing they rained down on the Edmonton Oilers the night before. There were definitely plenty of things to like despite the result, and that in an of itself is a positive.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

When the Avalanche struck early and quickly, it seemed as if this game would go the same way as the Oilers game the previous night. Thankfully, the Canucks were able to pull themselves out of a tailspin before it even had a chance to develop. That probably was thanks to a momentum-building power play halfway through the first, but the Canucks were able to sustain that to finish off the period down just one goal and with a 50.00 CF% and 62.86 xGF% shares. The raw numbers did taper off for Vancouver in the second and third, but thanks to them building 1.63 xGF in the first period, they were able to counteract some underproduction the rest of the way. As well, the structure finally seemed to pay off, as the Avs were not able to break 1.00 xGF in a single period as the teams finished deadlocked at 2.63-2.63 xGF at 5v5 play.

The heat map isn’t the worst thing in the world to be looking at. Colorado had an overall slim 24-23 lead in scoring chances, but managed a 14-10 high-danger chance edge. That’s shown in the denser hot spot they had in the slot area, but it wasn’t too much darker than the Canucks’ own. Again, considering the opposition and their offensive potency, this is a darn good result to be taking away. Vancouver didn’t let their opponent walk all over them, and for the most part, were able to trade chances to look about even.

Corsi Champ: Finally, one of the Abby Line members broke through on the scoresheet. Linus Karlsson put up a team-best 63.16 CF%, on ice for the second-best xGF% of 64.45 and fourth-best raw xGF of 1.03. That last number is particularly impressive considering that the Swede only played 7:10 of 5v5 ice time. Karlsson’s between-the-legs goal helped get the Canucks back into this game, and he was definitely pulling his weight for the entire game.

Corsi Chump: Drew O’Connor brought up the rear of the Corsi department, recording a 33.33 CF% for the team’s worst mark. That being said, it was only a -15.45 CF% rel to team average while playing the majority of his minutes against the Avs’ second line. DOC managed to break nearly even with team average in expected goals share, as a 43.79 xGF% gave him -7.65 xGF% rel. Considering his opposition, it wasn’t bad work at all, with DOC only giving up 3 high-danger chances against while being able to get 2 high-danger chances for the Canucks. He also recorded a pretty nice shorthanded tally as well.

xGF: Leading the way in xGF% was Jake DeBrusk, who racked up a 68.74 playing alongside O’Connor and Aatu Raty in a line combo that worked darn well against the Blue Jackets. DeBrusk was on ice for an 8-4 lead in scoring chances and a further 3-2 lead in high-danger chances. It’s been nice to see the winger start finding the scoresheet again recently, and he was able to carry that good form on to this game with a big tying goal to send it into overtime. Posting the team’s best raw xGF was none other than Quinn Hughes, who racked up a 1.97 xGF while even splitting a 15-15 scoring chance tilt against the Avs’ big guns.

GSAx: It wasn’t a barn burner for Kevin Lankinen like it was last go around, but at least it wasn’t as big of a tirefire as one might’ve expected. The Finn only faced 3.62 xGF across all situations, which meant that with 5 goals against his GSAx stood at -1.38. Three of the five goals were from high-danger chances, while the remaining goals came from middle-danger. Again, it was by no means the best performance from Lankinen, but at the same time, he was playing both halves of the back-to-back. That much grace should be given to him for this kind of performance.

Matchup Pettersson: Elias Pettersson once again matched up against the opposition’s best player, this time going head-to-head with Nathan Mackinnon. His individual numbers suffered as a result, but EP40 managed to at least relatively limit the amount of puck possession that the Avs’ top line had. Against Pettersson, Mackinnon had a 64.00 CF%, and without his CF% jumped up to 73.33 CF%. Now, Mackinnon scored twice at 5v5 play against EP40, but it could’ve been a lot worse with a 79.50 xGF% during their TOI together. What was nice to see was that Pettersson at least swung for the fences offensively, looking more dialed than he has been in the past while.

The Canucks made the Avalanche work for this one. That’s not something that many teams can say as of late, with how much of a roll they’ve been on. For Vancouver, they can take some solace in the fact that they gave their opposition a run for their money, playing some resilient hockey that almost netted them the full 2 points. As it was though, the Canucks came up just short, but were entertaining in trading blow for blow with one of the best teams in the league.

Vancouver welcomes the Winnipeg Jets to town tomorrow for their next contest.