That’s one way to battle it out on the road.
The Vancouver Canucks managed to eke one out against the Los Angeles Kings, winning 3-2 in overtime. In reality, it shouldn’t even have been close. The Kings were dominant last night, racking up big statistical advantages across the board. Down 2-0, LA pushed back hard to even it up, and the Canucks looked like they weren’t going to have any answers for that. But, somehow, they found the game-winner in overtime to avoid another third-period collapse, and the mini losing streak was finally snapped.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

For a large chunk of the game, things hung in the balance. The Corsi ever so slightly favoured the Kings through the first and increased in the second, and LA was able to translate that into expected goals and offensive pressure. Once they went down 2-0, it cranked up a notch. The Kings held a 78.06 xGF% share to close out the second before putting up 1.09 xGF and 77.68 xGF% in the third alone. In total, LA accumulated nine high-danger chances between the second and third periods, while in that same span the Canucks didn’t manage to grab a single high-danger chance themselves.

Heat Map

The heat map highlights the Canucks’ shortcomings in the offensive zone. While the overall scoring chance battle only stood at 25-18 in favour of the Kings at 5v5, the high-danger chances were a staggering 12-2 for the home team. Vancouver didn’t even come close to securing a hot spot in the slot area, with 2 high-danger chances coming all in the first period. This was while the Kings got almost half of their scoring chances as high-danger chances, with the difference only growing to 16-3 when accounting for all situations. Simply put, Vancouver did not put in the effort needed to win at both ends of the ice last night.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Tyler Myers led the Canucks with a 55.17 CF% on the night, playing primarily against the top line and doing a decent job in that role. His 35.39 xGF% might not sound like a lot, but it was the sixth-best mark on the team. That’s more a reflection of the Canucks’ overall performance, but Myers did pretty well in context with the group’s efforts. It was a scary moment when he took a shot off his collarbone/neck area, but it seems that he’ll be alright.
Corsi Chump: Elias Pettersson, the defenceman, brought up the rear of the Corsi department with a 21.05 CF%. Playing against the likes of Anze Kopitar, the young Swede finished with a 28.30 xGF% while giving up three high-danger chances against without a single high-danger chance for. Pettersson primarily played alongside Carson Soucy but saw limited ice time in general, with the team’s second-lowest ice time at 5v5. It wasn’t horrific, as in relation to the team, he was alright. But at the same time, D-Petey wasn’t at his best.
xGF: Look at that. Elias Pettersson the forward led the Canucks with a 48.76 xGF%, which is a pretty low high mark for a team, but more reflective of last night in general. At the very least, it’s nice to see EP40 up on the statsheet with a team-best 0.46 raw xGF and the 5th-best xGA of 0.48. The scoring chances stood at 7-6 in favour of the Canucks while Pettersson was on the ice, while the high-danger chances stood only at 1-2 for the Kings. It’s not bad, considering what Vancouver was giving up all night, and for Pettersson to be leading a couple of categories is also great.
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen was the reason why the Canucks even stood a chance at winning this contest. Facing down a total of 3.72 xGF from the Kings, the Finn turned aside 1.72 GSAx on the night, with the goals split between high danger and middle danger. It’s a really impressive performance to hold the Canucks in the game considering how bady they were outplayed in front of him, and the team should be thanking their netminders for the last three games to even look close.

Statistical Musings

Filip Hronek’s rough game: Maybe the trick for Hronek to play better is for him to not play with Quinn Hughes. The Canucks captain drew back into the lineup and the Czech defender was once again assigned to caddy duties. However, after some really good numbers with Hughes out of the lineup, Hronek’s metrics tanked last night. On ice for a team-worst 1.19 xGA, Hronek saw six high-danger chances against with 0 high-danger chances for. This was coming against the likes of Alex Laferriere, Kevin Fiala and Quinton Byfield, which aren’t terrible but also not the top-end competition that should be caving him in. It was also concerning that his deployments were heavily skewed towards the offensive zone, with 100% of his shift starts in Kings territory and 70% of his faceoff starts in the O-zone as well.
Not a great combo: Drew O’Connor, Pius Suter, and Brock Boeser found themselves playing “third-line” minutes (the ice times were 10:19 – 9:34 – 9:12 in the Canucks top nine forward lines) and performed poorly during them. While their Corsi of 41.18 CF% was actually the second-best tally on the team, their 12.62 xGF% saw them get absolutely shelled. Only managing to generate a puny 0.07 xGF, that line couldn’t manage to get anything going at even strength against the likes of the Kings. It did come back to haunt the Canucks slightly with a goal against during their TOI, but thanks to the win no one is really going to mind.

As a team

CF% – 36.44% HDCF% – 15.79% xGF% – 27.33%
The Canucks got lucky. They didn’t deserve to win this one at all. But thanks to excellent netminding and some good finishing by Conor Garland, they managed to snap the two-game skid with that overtime win. This is by no means an indication of a good game by this group. If anything, it shows just how much they have to do to improve and become an actual playoff team. Efforts like these are not sustainable ways to win, suffice it to say.
Vancouver is right back in action tonight to take on the Anaheim Ducks.
Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com
Sponsored by bet365