Now that’s a good win on home ice.
The Vancouver Canucks topped the Florida Panthers by a 4-0 scoreline, an emphatic win on home ice with JT Miller returning to the fold. While the Canucks didn’t dominate the Panthers at any point last night, they ground things out, playing a blue-collar-style game that wore away at the visitors. They capitalized on the opportunities that they got, and it was clear that Vancouver wanted to make a statement. And boy, did they ever need it.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

The first period was probably the closest the Canucks got to evenly splitting a period. Posting a 41.67 CF% and 48.73 xGF% share, Vancouver managed to get a 2-0 lead out of that. After the opening frame though, the Panthers turned it on. In the second, they recorded a 66.67 CF% – in the third, that jumped to 82.35 CF%. The xGF% favored the visitors too, seeing them record a 59.66 in the second period, before really pushing for the equalizer in the third with a 71.15 xGF%. But, as the scoreboard evidenced, they weren’t able to find that icebreaker at all.

Heat Map

Interestingly enough, given the disparity in the share metrics, the heat map doesn’t look nearly as bad as one might expect. The scoring chances only ever so slightly favoured Florida by a 20-16 margin, while the high-danger chances stood at 9-5 for the Panthers at 5v5. When accounting for all situations, each team posted 1 more scoring chance, and the Canucks actually managed to shrink the high-danger chance deficit to just 9-6. The Canucks got three of their four goals from near that hot spot they had from in tight, and defensively they did a very good job in preventing Florida from racking up a ton of good looks despite giving up a lot of the puck.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Who would’ve thought that Mark Friedman of all Canucks would be topping the Corsi charts. The depth defenceman paced the way for this roster, posting a 47.83 CF% while playing alongside Derek Forbort primarily, of all people. Now, Friedman also featured in 4 minutes with Quinn Hughes, but it wasn’t as if his Corsi numbers took a massive leap with him as they sat a 50.00 during their time together. Friedman did place some decent minutes against their middle 6, managing to come out with the 6th-best xGF% on the team with 48.12, splitting an even 3-3 high-danger chance battle. Not too shabby.
Corsi Chump: This one was interesting to see the extent of it, though the numbers made sense given the opposition. Carson Soucy finished a stone-cold dead last on the team in Corsi with his 18.18 CF%, going along with a team-low 14.93 xGF%. However, this was coming against Florida’s top guns in Alex Barkov and Sam Reinhart, and giving up just 1 high-danger chance against that calibre of opponent isn’t shabby at all. Plus, Soucy even managed to get the scoring going for the Canucks in this one too.
xGF: The fourth line was having a night, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Danton Heinen finds himself leading the Canucks with a 60.90 xGF%. His 0.51 xGF was the 7th best on the team, but the winger posted the 4th-best xGA of 0.33 to help vault himself into first place. Heinen finally managed to tally a goal after a good goalless streak, splitting an even 5-5 scoring chance battle and 2-2 high-danger chances. The fourth line helped get the Canucks a lot of momentum through this matchup, and the numbers favoured their deployment against Florida’s bottom 6. In raw xGF, Quinn Hughes secured a 0.71 to lead the team.
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen, take a bow. The Finn turned aside 2.24 xGF for a 2.24 GSAx, recording his 3rd shutout of the year for a share of the league lead. That’s some fine business especially against the defending Stanley Cup champions. The team in front of him helped Lankinen out, managing to limit Florida to just 6 high-danger shots. But, the netminder held up his end of the bargain and more, turning aside everything for another perfect night.

Statistical Musings

JT Miller’s return: The big headline heading into this game was the return of JT Miller to the team’s lineup. Slotting in alongside his usual partner in crime Brock Boeser and seeing the promotion of Nils Höglander onto his wing, the trio managed to put together the best stat line amongst Canuck forward lines. Together, they put up a team-best 54.55 CF% and 81.87 xGF%, going with a team-best 0.08 xGA on the night with their second-best 0.35 xGF. Miller’s presence clearly brought some jump to that line, and a multi-assist night was exactly what the doctor ordered for this Canucks group.
Fourth line?: It’s usually quite something to have the bottom line contribute as much offensively as the Canucks’ unit did last night. Out of everyone, the Heinen-Bluger-Sasson unit managed to record a team-best 0.47 xGF at 5v5, managing to be on ice for the most high-danger chances out of any forward line last night. They shouldn’t be expected to produce those kinds of numbers all the time, but it’s definitely not a bad thing when they’re giving you this kind of contribution.
Managing ice-times: It is so nice to see Quinn Hughes not over 25 minutes a night. The Canucks’ defence was able to balance out their deployment a lot more with the return of Derek Forbort to the lineup, with every defenceman except for Mark Friedman posting at least 19:00 TOI but no more than 22:43 TOI. Tyler Myers was actually the benchmark last night in terms of ice time, recording 22:43, while Hughes was in second with 22:27. Carson Soucy, Noah Juulsen, and Forbort all hovered around 19-21 minutes, which is solid considering the results they turned in. None of them were blown out of the water in their deployment, with the only exception being Myers facing 5 high-danger chances against. The amount of rest that Vancouver can afford to give Hughes will prove crucial as the season wears on.

As a team

CF% – 33.70% HDCF% – 40.00% xGF% – 41.83%
Yes, the Canucks didn’t exactly dominate this game. From the share metrics, they were giving up quite a bit to the visiting Panthers. But it isn’t as if Florida isn’t a good team – they’re still the defending Stanley Cup champions. Given that, the Canucks put in the work to outgrind their opponents. It wasn’t the prettiest, but they did the job, capitalizing where they could and limiting what they could. Getting key performances throughout the lineup helped matters dramatically, and hopefully is a sign of things to come as a third of the season elapses.
Vancouver welcomes the Boston Bruins to town on Saturday for their next game.
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