What in the world is this road trip?

The Vancouver Canucks rode a massive third period en route to a 6-2 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning. This scoreline is hard to believe, especially after the kind of first that the Canucks had. It looked like they were going to get dogwalked to the same tune as the Hurricanes game, except their opposition would actually hand them a beatdown rather than an OT loss. Instead, Vancouver was able to ride out that surge, and despite playing some pretty brutal hockey for most of the game, escaped with a big victory to their names.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

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

Again, there really was no reason that the Canucks should’ve even remotely been close to winning this hockey game. Tampa was all over them in the first, which was saying something considering that they were in action just the night before. The Lightning held an 81.82 CF% share and 94.76 xGF% share in the opening frame, racking up 1.99 xGF with just 0.11 xGA. Vancouver gave up 12 high-danger chances in the first alone without a single high-danger chance to their names. That should’ve resulted in a massive Tampa lead, but it didn’t, which opened the door for the Canucks to sneak their way back into this one. The rest of the way, Vancouver managed to limit the damage that Tampa could deal, only conceding 6 HDCA in the second and third combined. While the Canucks were never in control in the expected goals front, they managed to make things just a little better than that first.

The heat map was a function of that first period as well. Tampa put up a big 24-9 scoring chance advantage with a very efficient 18-4 high-danger chance lead as well. The big hot spot right in the low slot was a testament to that chance generation for them, but they weren’t able to see much success from that area. As for the Canucks, despite only getting 4 high-danger chances for that pale blue patch in tight, they managed to bury 3 chances from the vicinity. That’s pretty darn good considering the lack of actual opportunities they had at 5v5 play.

Corsi Champ: Lukas Reichel had himself a much better outing than the previous one. Leading the Canucks with a 62.50 CF%, the German forward was plenty of help offensively for the team. While Reichel didn’t find the scoresheet, he was on ice for two goals for at 5v5 without giving up much of anything going the other way. Tampa only managed three shots against the Canucks during his TOI. Being dropped into the bottom 6 and naturally facing worse competition seems to have definitely helped him.

Corsi Chump: Marcus Pettersson brought up the rear in the Corsi department, only managing 16.67 CF% last night. The defenceman did have somewhat of an excuse though, as he was tasked with primarily playing against Nikita Kucherov for the large majority of the contest. Pettersson was on ice for a 2-6 deficit in scoring chances, with a 2-5 high-danger chance margin to his name as well. Other than that, he actually didn’t have too bad of a game, as despite being on ice for a 1.01 xGA, Pettersson managed a 21.13 xGF%, which was just a -0.84 xGF% rel to team average.

xGF: Breaking up that second line seems to have worked wonders, as Reichel also led the Canucks with a 51.49 xGF%. He was one of only two skaters to have had a positive scoring chance margin (3-2) and high-danger chance margin (2-1), so it makes a lot of sense that his shares were as good as they were. Reichel was the only Canuck to finish above 50.00 xGF% as well. In raw xGF, Mackenzie MacEachern led Vancouver with a 0.51 to his name, and we’ll get to his contributions overall in just a moment.

GSAx: You have to wonder if being the undisputed number 1 does something to Kevin Lankinen. The Finnish netminder was on fire last night, facing down 4.34 xGF against Tampa to post a 2.34 GSAx. Lankinen only gave up one high-danger goal against and one low-danger goal against, which is not bad at all considering the barrage that he faced down, especially in the opening frame. Maybe he’s just one of those goalies who needs time to get into a rhythm, but whatever it is, Lankinen is cooking.

Mack Attack: Mackenzie MacEachern had himself a night against the Bolts. Posting the team’s second-best CF% at 53.85, he also came in with the team’s third-best xGF% at 38.12, battling hard against pretty much anyone that he was iced up against. MacEachern was rewarded for his efforts with a goal and an assist, which is some pretty darn big contribution from a fourth-line AHL call-up. Up to 4 points in 5 games, it seems that MacEachern will be featuring in the Canucks lineup for a while.

His entire line was having a ball, as Reichel and Linus Karlsson combined with MacEachren for a team-best 61.54 CF% and 42.80 xGF%, with the next closest mark in each category being 25.0o CF% and 15.62 xGF% amongst lines with over 5:00 TOI.

EP40 stepping up: His advanced stats might be sitting in the mushy middle, but make no mistake – Elias Pettersson has been taking on some rough deployment and producing very solid results in the face of them. Seeing only 16.67% of his shifts start in the offensive zone, and deployed for faceoffs only 28.57% of the time in the attacking end, EP40 has been getting results, finishing 55.56% at the dot while posting over 50.00 CF% against his matchups. Where his numbers get dragged down is from those defensive starts, primarily against the top 6 of Tampa, and given how that first period went Pettersson’s numbers were never going to look that great. However, given his opposition and deployment, the fact that he was hovering around team average is pretty darn nice. Pettersson chipped in on the scoresheet as well with two assists to his name.

Credit where credit is due, the Canucks didn’t get swept away after the opening period barrage that they faced. Ideally, they don’t put themselves into that situation in the first place, but this team showed some pretty good resilience to stay in the fight. That was all the Canucks needed to claw their way to a win, and putting up 6 against the Bolts is always an accomplishment.

Vancouver is right back in action tonight, heading into Sunrise to face the Florida Panthers.