Talk about a dramatic ending.
The Vancouver Canucks topped the Calgary Flames in a 4-3 shootout win. While Vancouver wasn’t up for the races for a good chunk of the game, they found their footing in the third to even things back up and bring this game into overtime. That was off the backs of some impressive performances from the back end and the first and third lines, getting contributions throughout the lineup. It was just enough to eke it out in a shootout, in the end.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

Calgary held the slight edge throughout the first and second period. While they had a handy 65.52 and 58.06 CF% shares in the first and second respectively, along with a 52.96 and 71.13 xGF% in the same period of time, the raw numbers they accumulated weren’t actually too much. In total, Calgary had 8 high-danger chances with a 1.49 xGF despite their share dominance. All of that was flipped on its head when the third period rolled around. The Canucks racked up a 94.5 xGF% share with a 2-0.12 xGF edge, all from 60.00 CF%. That’s really darn good and a big part of the reason why the Canucks were able to even this game up, and in reality were unfortunate not to get the win in regulation.

Heat Map

While the Flames had 8 high-danger chances through the first and second combined, the Canucks had 8 high-danger chances in the third alone. Vancouver held an overall scoring chance lead of 17-13, showing how things weren’t the most exciting when it came to action. The Canucks also had a slight 10-9 lead in high-danger chances, which again, most of them came in the third period. What the diagram shows does flatter the Canucks a little bit more than it should, but at least it was encouraging to see the Canucks able to reach a double digit HDCF number over the course of the game.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Marcus Pettersson stepped up to the plate in a big way. Playing as the primary matchup defenceman against Nazem Kadri and company, the defenceman put up a team-high 60.87 CF%. It was impressive – he was on ice for a 17-7 shot difference, holding the second-best xGF% amongst defencemen with a 70.39. Pettersson was eating up the minutes against Calgary’s best players and neutralized them to a pretty large extent at 5v5 play, on ice for 2 goals for and 1 goal against. Pretty solid work, suffice it to say.
Corsi Chump: Derek Forbort saw limited deployment against the Flames, and the numbers showed that it was a good call. Bringing up the rear with a 15.79 CF%, things didn’t get better across the board statistically. Forbort posted a team-low 5.89 xGF% with a team-worst 0.02 xGF without a single high-danger chances for while he was on the ice. While he started the night out playing alongside Victor Mancini, the latter was soon moved away from Forbort and elevated through the lineup.
xGF: Conor Garland had himself a really solid game last night. Leading the Canucks with a 97.92 xGF%, the winger posted the 7th-best xGF of 0.79, but the team’s best xGA of 0.02. Basically, at 5v5, the Flames couldn’t manage to get anything going while Garland was on the ice. The scoring chances stood at 4-0 while he was on the ice, with a 3-0 high-danger chance differential. The shootout winner was a well-deserved cherry on top of a good performance. In raw xGF, it was none other than Marcus Pettersson leading the way with a 2.17 on the night, a pretty darn big contribution given that the Canucks accumulated 2.94 xGF all last night.
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen could use a bit of a break. After some decent performances, this one was close to seeing the netminder cost the Canucks this game. The Flames only totaled 2.14 xGF against him, meaning that he recorded a -0.86 GSAx on the night, nearly a full goal more against than he should’ve let up. While the goals against were fine to give up, 2 off high-danger chances and 1 off a middle-danger chance, it was the total amount that was a concern. Lankinen did make his fair share of solid stops, managing to come up with big saves at big times, but the overall numbers were indeed a bit of a concern for him.

Statistical Musings

Victor Mancini’s big night: Mancini was put into an elevated position in the lineup with D-Petey and Tyler Myers out for a chunk of the game, along with Quinn Hughes not being at 100%. The big RHD stepped up in that role, managing to record an 80.91 xGF%, the best share metric amongst defencemen. His 1.97 xGF was the second-best on the team while holding an 8-3 high-danger chance edge, the 8 HDCF being the best on the team. Picking up an assist on the game-tying goal, Mancini earned himself a lot of admirers for his performance last night.
Duality of lines: It was pretty jarring to see the difference between the Dakota Joshua – Pius Suter – Conor Garland line and the Drew O’Connor – Filip Chytil – Brock Boeser line. Both of them sat at around 40-45 CF%, but the former unit posted the team’s best 0.78 xGF, 0.02 xGA, and 97.89 xGF%. That’s a really solid share of all stats, making sure to chip in positively offensively and defensively. On the other hand, DOC-Chytil-Boeser recorded the second-worst xGF at 0.06 and second-worst 0.53 xGA, and team-worst 9.93 xGF%. Simply put, for a supposed second line, it’s not great.

As a team

CF% – 52.54% HDCF% – 61.29% xGF% – 68.62%
The Canucks managed to take a great third period to help push them into the shootout win. They got great performances out of a resilient back line that helped keep the momentum going to spur Vancouver on to the comeback win. Could they have played better overall? Sure, but the Canucks got it together when it mattered the most. It was nice to see Elias Pettersson continue his little streak, and some of the depth forwards stepping up. It would be nice to see the second line pick it up though.
Vancouver hosts Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday.
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