The ethical tank continues.
The
Vancouver Canucks put a bit of a scare into the New Jersey Devils,
nearly coming back in a 5-4 loss. It was a pretty fun watch, all things considered, and despite being relatively low-event on the stat sheet, there was plenty of drama and goals to be found. Much better than a lot of the losses the Canucks have accumulated all season, and at the very least,
an entertaining contest.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
Game Flow
The first period and the first part of the second period made it look like the Canucks were going to roll over and flop to a loss. Going down 3-0 with less than 45% shares in both CF% and xGF% did not bode well for much of anything, and it just didn’t seem like the Canucks had much to pull themselves out of it. However, after some back-and-forth action, Vancouver scored once — then scored on the penalty kill. That was enough to spur momentum into their favour, finishing the period with a 51.61 CF% and 67.70 xGF%. They even managed to total 1.35 xGF off a 6-2 high-danger chance advantage. That made the third at least more compelling to watch, even if the Canucks and Devils didn’t really manage to do much of anything at all.
Heat Map
The heat map wasn’t the worst thing in the world. In total, the scoring chances favoured the Devils 25-19, but the Canucks led 10-8 in high-danger chances. That much can be seen in how spread out New Jersey’s hot spot was, but the Canucks were more concentrated and dense right in the low slot area. Again, not the worst by any means, and considering how this game started, it probably could’ve gone a lot worse. Vancouver’s six high-danger chances in the second certainly helped buoy a lot of this heat map as well.
Individual Advanced Stats
Corsi Champ: Linus Karlsson led the way with a 69.23 CF%, matching up very handily against much of the Devils’ middle six and keeping them at bay. Thanks to the wide variety of special teams all night, Karlsson’s minutes were relatively limited, but his 5v5 play was extremely effective. New Jersey was down 7-2 in shots when Karlsson was on the ice, with the forward posting a goal at even strength as well.
Corsi Chump: Jake DeBrusk brought up the rear of the Corsi department, his 16.67 CF% standing at -38.56 CF% rel to team average. It was reflected in his other stats, the winger only having a 19.65 xGF% to his name while being on ice for a 1-7 hole in scoring chances. On the surface, it’s frustrating to see, considering he was on the top line with Elias Pettersson and
Evander Kane. However, according to Head Coach Adam Foote, DeBrusk nearly did not suit up for tonight’s game due to illness. So, we’ll give him a pass.
xGF: Karlsson also led the Canucks in this category as well, dominating the charts with 86.95 xGF%, chipping in with the 5th-best xGF of 0.82 and a team-best 0.12 xGA as well. On ice for a 6-1 lead in scoring chances and 4-0 high-danger chances, the Swede’s two-point night was very well deserved, with him continuing his breakout campaign with the night that he had. Leading the way in raw xGF was Filip Hronek’s 1.49, providing plenty of punch from the blueline.
GSAx: It wasn’t the greatest night between the pipes for Kevin Lankinen. In total, New Jersey only managed a 2.50 xGF across all situations, not being particularly impressive all night. That meant, with five goals against, Lankinen was down a -2.50 GSAx on the game, which was pretty costly given that the Canucks actually managed to get four goals of run support for him. The Finn gave up four high-danger goals and one middle-danger goal, so it wasn’t horrific in terms of overall distribution of goals. However, the sheer number just wasn’t good enough, and probably cost the Canucks the win.
Statistical Musings
Big third-line effort: Putting Nils Hoglander – David Kämpf – Linus Karlsson together paid big dividends for the Canucks last night. Out of all forward units, they were carrying the boats when it came to generating pressure and momentum, posting the best CF% (77.78), xGF 90.55), and xGF% (82.89) of the entire team. This was as Pettersson’s line struggled to launch, and the fourth line was busy with plenty of defensive deployment, the only other forward line to tread water being
O’Connor – Chytil – Boeser. It shouldn’t be overlooked how their contributions were keeping the good energy rolling in the Canucks’ comeback efforts.
A tale of two pairings: For a large majority of the night, Zeev Buium was paired up with Tyler Myers, with some pretty putrid results to boot. It was a miracle that he wasn’t on ice for a goal against, as that pairing recorded a 27.27 CF% and 20.84 xGF%. However, those numbers were pretty much flipped on their head as he stacked up a lot of good metrics in just 5:13 TOI with Filip Hronek. That pairing tallied up 90.91 CF% and 93.13 xGF%, a near-complete inverse of what he was tallying up with Myers, including being on ice for a goal for.
As a team
CF% – 49.07% HDCF% – 54.17% xGF% – 48.27%
It was a good loss, all things considered. New Jersey wasn’t quite impressive, but it was enough to get the win. They certainly benefitted from a rougher outing by Lankinen, but the Canucks at least made this a fun game to watch. Ideally, there are more of these types of losses on the calendar in the future, because this is a sight better than what was happening before.
Vancouver plays host to the Pittsburgh Penguins tomorrow for their next contest.
Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com
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