Not a bad way to kick off a Sunday for the Vancouver Canucks.
The Canucks continue to win on the road, securing a 5-4 overtime victory in thrilling fashion. Things weren’t perfect, but given the state of this roster and the usual eastern road trip game schedules, it’s understandable. As a team, the Canucks were able to ride through rough patches and get themselves back into the game when they needed to. Despite being undermanned, Vancouver is finding ways to get points, and that will be invaluable in getting them to the postseason.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

The early start time for this game probably had some influence on the Canucks’ play, looking slow and sluggish en route to a 30.77 Corsi For percentage (CF%) and 22.05 excepted goals for percentage (xGF%). They managed to turn that around in the second period, especially after their third power play of the game, to finish the middle frame with an 81.25 CF% and 84.1 xGF%, firmly getting the flow into their favour. Impressively, the third period was another one where the Canucks finished with the better share metrics, despite having to contend with an extended Red Wings power play. That proved to be crucial in helping them find the equalizer and eventually the overtime winner as well.

Heat Map

See what happens when you create chances? This game for the Canucks demonstrated that they could indeed create offensive looks and high-quality ones at that, with a 21-11 lead in scoring chances at 5v5, which translated to a big 10-3 high-danger chance advantage. What stood out in this one was that Vancouver was also getting opportunities off power plays as well – over all situations, their scoring chance lead shrunk to 35-30, but their high-danger chances grew, to 17-9. That’s not bad, considering that Detroit wasn’t exactly without power play opportunities themselves.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Pius Suter is an absolute gamer. Against his old team, the Swiss forward recorded the team’s best CF% of 83.33 while featuring across all situations for the Canucks. He might not be a top-end talent for this Vancouver team, but there is no one this season who has been more reliable than Suter. Especially with the absence of JT Miller in the lineup, seeing Suter step up in his wake has been a welcome lift for this group.
Corsi Chump: Noah Juulsen is being thrown to the proverbial wolves, and it’s honestly not a surprise that his numbers aren’t doing so hot as a result. Against the Red Wings, he would bring up the rear with a 39.13 CF% along with a third-worst 39.03 xGF%. But, the important part was that Juulsen wasn’t on ice for a goal against, and that was coming against the likes of Dylan Larkin as his main forward competition. He might not be the most skilled defenceman this team has to offer, but there is no questioning that Juulsen will battle, something that the coaching staff appears to value heavily.
xGF: Suter strikes here as well with a team-leading 83.14 xGF%, having a team-best 0.16 expected goals against (xGA) with the fourth-highest xGF of 0.77. It was clear that he was making a difference, centring a line between Dakota Joshua and Conor Garland, helping the Canucks to a 9-3 scoring chance advantage with a further 4-1 edge in high-danger chances. It was yet another depth piece that led the Canucks in raw xGF, as Erik Brännström would put up a team-best 0.9 xGF to go along with the tying goal of the game. Not bad for the contract return in the Tucker Poolman trade.
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen didn’t have his best game in this one, but it certainly wasn’t the worst, either. With Detroit only managing 3.21 xGF across the entire game, the netminder would finish with a -0.79 goals saved above expected (GSAx), which isn’t the greatest. Two goals that came against him were high-danger, while the others were split between middle and low-danger chances. But, given how much Lankinen had to bail out this Canucks team so far into this season, it’s fair play to have the team in front of him actually help him out with proper run support.

Statistical Musings

Hats off to DeBrusk: For the streaky winger to find his footing as the team is looking for players to step up is really good timing. Jake DeBrusk was a man on a mission against the Red Wings, looking like the perfect fit alongside Elias Pettersson as the two continue to mesh. At 5v5, the winger was posting the fourth-best xGF% of 73.33 but jumped to a team-high 89.96 xGF% when accounting for all situations. While being on the power play will do that for the most part, DeBrusk actually converted the expected goals share into a hat trick and a four-point game. Not bad at all.
Where the bottom 6 floundered: It was a little odd to see this given how good the Canucks’ bottom six has been throughout the season, but the third and fourth lines were running on fumes in this one. Danton Heinen – Aatu Räty – Max Sasson saw very limited ice time, playing just 4:55 and recording a 50.00 CF%, also posting the second-worst xGF% of 28.61 with the worst xGF of 0.11. However, they were joined in that territory by the Nils Höglander – Teddy Blueger – Kiefer Sherwood line that recorded the team’s worst CF% of 36.36 and xGF% of 27.11, while facing the team’s highest xGA of 0.32. This was in direct contrast to the metrics the top two lines were producing, with neither the DeBrusk-Pettersson-Boeser nor Joshua-Suter-Garland lines recording anything below 68.00 xGF% against the Red Wings.

As a team

CF% – 53.44% HDCF% – 65.38% xGF% – 53.98%
The Canucks played well in this one. A back-and-forth game that saw them start poorly usually doesn’t end the best, but they hung in there and shifted the momentum in their favour whenever they could. A couple of sloppy mistakes did end up costing them, but at the same time, Vancouver showed their resilience to overcome those hurdles and take home two points on the road.
Vancouver heads into Minnesota on Tuesday to take on the Wild.
Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com
Sponsored by bet365

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