Taking care of business on the road.

The Vancouver Canucks battled hard to take a 5-4 shootout win against the Boston Bruins. At the tail end of a road trip, on the second half of a back-to-back, one might be forgiven for not tuning in, for thinking that the Canucks would probably have their legs give out from under them. But this team dug deep, getting some big-time contributions from their young depth, and managed to gut one out through extra hockey and the shootout. Not a bad effort whatsoever from the entire team.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

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

From the game flow, it seems Boston had the steady upper hand throughout the entire game. While they didn’t have the lion’s share of both CF% and xGF%, the Canucks actually did a pretty good job when it came to limiting the damage the Bruins could do. Giving up just 11 HDCA when they finished with just 38.89 CF% and 27.41 xGF% is definitely not the worst outcome in the world. Vancouver did a good job of riding out any of the momentum that Boston managed to swing their way, catching them in lulls to strike on the scoreboard.

Again, given the disparity in share metrics, one would expect the heat map to look a lot worse. Vancouver did a good job limiting the damage: despite being out-chanced 26-12 at 5v5, the HDCF battle was only 11-6, which was pretty darn good given the circumstances. The Canucks also capitalized more at 5v5 than the Bruins, which definitely helped matters when it came to responding to all the swings Boston took at them.

Corsi Champ: What a night it was from Liam Öhgren, who dazzled in his bottom-six role in a big way. The young Swede led the Canucks with a 63.64 CF%, doing more than his fair share as he went on to post the team’s second-best xGF% at 76.08. Those are some pretty solid numbers, as Öhgren saw time in the top-six from time to time as well. He went to the dirty areas and played hard, securing a 3-1 high-danger chance advantage during his TOI as well. It was a great overall performance from him, and one that he can hopefully build off.

Corsi Chump: On the other hand, the other former Wild forward, Marco Rossi, was dead last in CF% at 16.22. It wasn’t the best night for him and his linemates, Brock Boeser and Conor Garland; granted, they were tasked with heavy minutes against a tough Bruins top-six. Rossi was on ice for a 3-18 shot difference in favour of Boston, resulting in a team-worst 2.11 xGA and 3.78 xGF%. During his TOI, Rossi was in a 0-16 scoring chance hole and 0-9 high-danger chance deficit. Suffice it to say, those aren’t the best numbers.

xGF: Leading the team in xGF% was Max Sasson, who got the Canucks on the board late in the first. The forward was active all game, and an 89.20 xGF% isn’t surprising given how relentless he and his line were on the forecheck. They made sure the puck stayed in the offensive zone and got plenty of chances, holding a 2-0 HDCF advantage during his limited TOI. Öhgren led the team in raw xGF with 0.60, showing just the kind of night the trio had together against the Bruins.

GSAx: Kevin Lankinen did just enough to break even last night. Despite giving up four goals, the Bruins’ offence generated 4.15 xGF across all situations, which meant that the Finn still finished with a positive 0.15 GSAx. One goal was registered as high danger, one as medium danger, and the other two as low danger. Again, it wasn’t the most spectacular performance one has ever seen between the pipes, but Lankinen still did well, battling and making some key saves to keep the Canucks within a fighting chance in this one. Plus, that shootout performance was absolutely stone cold.

Swedish Defence Connection: Pairing up Elias Pettersson with Tom Willander provided plenty of dividends for Adam Foote and the Canucks last night. Pettersson, in particular, was noticeable physically, involved in pretty much everything, while Willander made cameo appearances on the power play, with silky-smooth, solid play in his own end. The duo recorded some excellent share metrics, with a 76.92 CF% and 88.76 xGF% together in just under 10 minutes of 5v5 ice time. They were on ice for a goal for as well, and one has to wonder if this pairing will see another look. The early returns are promising, to say the least.

A look into the fourth line stats: As mentioned plenty throughout this piece, the fourth line was absolutely buzzing. Karlsson – Sasson – Öhgren put up the best stats by far of any Canuck forward line, posting an 80.00 CF%, 0.29 xGF, and 89.00 xGF% share. No other line was even close to this kind of contribution against the Bruins, and it shows the sort of effort that these three were able to put up against their lesser competition. Now, it’s about turning in this kind of effort consistently.

The Canucks battled hard. They didn’t give up, didn’t run out of juice, and were able to ride out plenty of Boston pressure to get themselves in position to steal this game. A 4-0 road trip thus far was hardly what people would’ve predicted to be the result after the Quinn Hughes trade, but for whatever reason, this group has just been gutting out wins, no matter what it takes.

Vancouver has one more game left on the East Coast, taking on Rick Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow.