Have to give the Canucks some credit here. They saw that the Flames might not win a game all year and put an important losing streak together right away. Need to keep up the great work.
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The Statsies: D Elias Pettersson lights up the stat sheet in Canucks’ loss to Rangers
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
By Michael Liu
Oct 12, 2026, 12:45 EDTUpdated: Oct 12, 2026, 12:47 EDT
A tough visit to Madison Square Garden.
The Vancouver Canucks lost 6-2 to the New York Rangers, extending their losing streak to four straight. They actually didn’t do half bad for the first two periods, managing to stick neck and neck with the Rangers. However, as is often the case in the second half of a back-to-back, as well as being on an eastern road trip, their legs gave out, and the third saw the Canucks get shelled. Understandable but frustrating, but hey – the end goal is a good pick for this upcoming draft.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.
Game Flow
As mentioned before, the flow of the game wasn’t actually half bad for the Canucks until the third period rolled around. For most of the game, Vancouver had a territorial advantage, finishing with 53.33 CF% in the first and 54.29 CF% in the second. That translated to the expected goals front, as the Canucks would post 59.01 xGF% and 52.78 xGF% in the first and second periods respectively. Admirable stuff, which included a very solid 7-3 high-danger chance lead in the second period alone.
It was the third where the wheels fell off the ride statistically, leading to the end result on the scoreboard. Sure, Vancouver still had a 51.61 CF% edge, but they bled scoring chances to the tune of 12-3 and gave up a 6-1 high-danger chance differential. That ended up giving the Canucks a 22.82 xGF%, which the Rangers took full advantage of to steer this game in their direction.
Heat Map
The heat map was actually pretty evenly distributed between both sides last night. New York managed to come out with a 31-25 lead in overall chances and just a 12-10 high-danger chance edge, but a lot of that was due to the third-period numbers inflating that margin. Through the first two periods, it was the Canucks that were ahead by 22-19 and 9-6 counts respectively. One of the other things that stands out from the heat map was how clinical the Rangers were when it came to burying their chances at 5v5 action, whereas the Canucks really didn’t do that much damage despite their hot spot being relatively the same density.
Individual Advanced Stats
Corsi Champ: There just hasn’t been a better skater on this road trip than Elias Pettersson the defenceman. It feels like he’s been everywhere, and the numbers certainly back up the eye-test. Pettersson’s 73.68 CF% was a team-best, sitting comfortably at a 34.02 CF% rel to team average to show what sort of impact he was having. While he was on the ice at even strength, shots were 11-3 for the Canucks, making full use of the territorial advantage that he was getting from his work on the blue line.
The score is 6-2 for the Rangers. Elias "Junior" Pettersson and Tom Willander are both plus-2. #Canucks
Corsi Chump: Guillaume Brisebois drew into the lineup and got pulverized at 5v5 play. Bringing up the rear of the Corsi department with his 36.00 CF%, Brisebois was on ice for 3 goals against and the second-worst xGF% of 17.51 with a team-worst 1.32 xGA. This, despite only seeing 12:25 of action against the Rangers. Not great, but again, did anyone really expect more out of Brisebois last night?
#Canucks Guillaume Brisebois records his first NHL shot on goal in 638 days
xGF: Yeah, that’s right, Elias Pettersson, the defenceman, again finds himself leading another category, this time with a team-best 85.83 xGF% to his name. It wasn’t even close either – the next best Canuck in this category was Max Sasson who posted a 60.99 xGF%, with Pettersson’s xGF% rel being a massive 55.56. His 1.28 xGF was a team-best, naturally, while a 0.21 xGA was also pacing all Canuck skaters. Pettersson held a 13-6 scoring chance lead with a 6-0 high-danger chance advantage as well, putting forward a massive effort at both ends of the ice for Vancouver.
Great snipe from Elias Pettersson 🤩
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen has had an all-time, historically bad start to the 2026-27 season. Not that he’s playing behind a lights-out team by any stretch of the imagination, but the Finn has got to be better as well. The Rangers only posted a 3.41 xGF last night against Lankinen, which meant that with 6 goals against, the netminder finished up with a -2.59 GSAx for the game. Four of the six goals were registered as high-danger, the remaining two being split from middle and low-danger opportunities. Again, not inherently bad, but also not good to be essentially spotting two goals and change to the opposition. Lankinen has been struggling, and one has to wonder if he’ll be riding the pine for a while to give him a breather.
LAFFY GETS ONE ON HIS BIRTHDAY!! 🚨 Lankinen has now allowed 27 goals this season, the next closest (Dustin Wolf) sits at 16
Statistical Musings
Ex-Canuck matchup duties: It was honestly a little amusing to see this, but Elias Pettersson the forward saw the majority of his ice time right up against JT Miller’s line. Putting all the off-ice context to one side, the numbers were actually pretty interesting to look at. EP40 finished with a 44.44 CF% and 40.40 xGF%, but managed to deadlock the opposing first line to a 3-3 shot and 1-1 high-danger chance stalemate, scoring once and giving up a goal against as well. Considering the talent gap between the two rosters, it’s pretty darn solid, and while Pettersson didn’t find the scoresheet, he still chipped in positively for the team.
Strong work by Elias Pettersson on the boards to keep the puck in the corner until he can get help from Jonathan Lekkerimäki, then a remarkably quick release from Jake DeBrusk — so quick that none of the replays captured it. #Canucks
Statistical Musings
CF% – 49.09% HDCF% – 40.00% xGF% – 41.63%
The Canucks were tired. A team that lacked as much as they do on paper, running on fumes, it was honestly a surprise that they started off the game as well as they did before things fell apart on them. The first two periods were honestly quite nice to watch, and the stats showed that this group is capable of going toe-to-toe with decent teams before they ran out of gas. Hopefully, they can keep things a little tighter, especially in front of a struggling netminder.
Vancouver heads into UBS Arena to take on Bo Horvat and the New York Islanders tomorrow night.
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Vancouver CanucksTeam Cap Summary
Cap Summary
2026-27
2027-28
Projected Cap Hit
$88,074,947
$71,329,167
Projected Cap Space
$15,925,053
$42,170,833
Current Cap Space
$16,975,056
$42,170,833
Active Players
23/23
13/23
Draft Picks
Round
'27
'28
1
1
1
2
2
2
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1
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