Certainly one of the games of all time.
The Vancouver Canucks lost 2-0 against the Carolina Hurricanes, in extremely boring fashion. Seriously, there wasn’t anything of note that happened at all and that’s a concern, especially given that the Canes came off a game the night before in a pretty congested run of their schedule. The Canucks couldn’t get chances, shots, you name it. It’ll be a short one today because this one was a great game to fall asleep to.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

The biggest thing that stands out from the game flow was that there wasn’t any pushback from the Canucks, even when they got themselves into that 2-0 hole. Fine, they were posting 63.64 and 66.67 CF% in the second and third periods – but that didn’t translate into any sustained offensive pressure. Vancouver only had 1 high-danger chance total in the second and third periods, with a feeble 0.16 xGF to close out the game in the third. Carolina is a good team, for sure, but those kinds of numbers don’t suggest confidence in any goals being scored by the Canucks at all.

Heat Map

With how lacklustre the contents of the game were, the heat map shouldn’t come as a surprise. Vancouver actually slightly out-chanced Carolina 19-18 at 5v5, but found themselves down 5-8 in high-danger chances. That edge in high-danger chances is reflected with that ever so slightly orange bit that the Canes managed to generate in the slot area. As for the Canucks, well, they had a little patch from the right point. Not the greatest and definitely not enough when trying to come back in a game like this.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: It should say a lot about the kind of effort that a team turns in when their bottom line leads the way. Danton Heinen racked up a team-best 83.33 CF% while tying for the best xGF% on the team with an 83.42. That wasn’t insignificant either, as he was on ice for a 8-1 scoring chance differential, with a 3-0 high-danger chance edge. That’s right, over half of the high-danger chances that the Canucks got came with Danton Heinen on the ice. It isn’t exactly cause for celebration to hear that, unfortunately.
Corsi Chump: Please, can we figure out something instead of Noah Juulsen. The defenceman bottomed out with a 34.48 CF% on the night, on ice for a goal against while recording a team-worst 22.08 xGF%. It wasn’t as if Juulsen had tough deployment either, going up against a myriad of Canes throughout the night. He and Carson Soucy together simply haven’t worked for the last little while for the Canucks – so what’s the harm in trying something new?
xGF: As mentioned before, Heinen tied for the team lead in xGF% with his linemate Phil Di Giuseppe with an 83.42. The fact that the pair of them posted a 0.42 xGF to tie for the third-best mark on the team is such a red flag. On what competitive hockey team does the third-best raw expected goals tally stand at 0.42? In raw xGF, Quinn Hughes again led the way, but the 0.64 xGF was a long way off the performances that he usually puts in.
GSAx: How could you possibly blame Thatcher Demko in this one? Facing down 2.38 xGF from the Canes, Demko turned aside all but two high-danger chances to finish with a 0.38 GSAx. While that’s by no means a game-stealing performance, it was a solid one regardless. Demko upheld his end of the bargain by at least giving this team a chance to win the game. But the Canucks couldn’t score in front of him to do so.

Statistical Musings

Top 6… bottom 6?: Looking at the stats that each forward line put up last night was like flipping this team upside down. The top 6 had the worst numbers of any lines that were iced out there. DeBrusk-Pettersson-Garland had a 36.84 CF% and 43.81 xGF%, facing the most xGA of any Canuck line with 0.40. Lekkerimaki-Miller-Boeser posted a team-low 33.33 CF% and a second-worst 36.98 xGF%. The only line to record less than their 0.17 xGF was the Sherwood-Suter-Sasson line, who tallied a 0.07 xGF en route to a team-worst 24.80 xGF%. But even then, that line was putting up a 71.43 CF% share. For Heinen-Blueger-PDG to lead the team in CF% (80.00), xGF (0.31), xGA (0.08) and xGF% (78.84) is definitely a bit of a concern.

As a team

CF% – 55.17% HDCF% – 33.33% xGF% – 38.80%
The Canucks weren’t good last night. They haven’t been good for the last stretch. Even with Elias Pettersson back in the fold, the systematic issues with roster construction continue to plague this team, and without the high-end talent scoring or making an impact, they become even more pronounced. This wasn’t a fresh Carolina squad, as good as they were. The Canucks should’ve been able to make this more of a game than it was – and the content and results were disappointing if expected.
Vancouver is right back in action tonight, facing off against the Maple Leafs in Toronto.
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