Finally, a good result at home.
The Vancouver Canucks topped the Calgary Flames by a 3-1 scoreline, bouncing back from a disastrous Saturday with a pretty darn good response. While the game wasn’t perfect by any means, it was a solid result with the team getting back to playing good defence. Again, the Flames aren’t the greatest of teams, and the Canucks still struggled to get high-danger looks – but they managed to capitalize where they could, and hopefully it can become a lot more sustainable going forth.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

It wasn’t the strongest start to the game for the Canucks. Despite having a 62.16 CF% share over the course of the opening period, Vancouver only got a 48.53 xGF% share. This came with conceding a 1.01 xGA to the Flames, leading to them trailing 1-0 heading into the second period. That was apparently what it took to wake the Canucks up, as their xGF% shot up to 94.45%. They accumulated 1.17 xGF in the middle frame while only facing down 0.07 xGA, with a 7-2 scoring chance edge and a 3-0 high-danger chance advantage. That was all Vancouver needed to get themselves in the driver’s seat of the game, and while the third period saw them drop possession to a 25.00 CF% share, they still held Calgary to just a 0.37 xGF.

Heat Map

On the one hand, defensively, Vancouver managed to get back to their game. While Calgary isn’t exactly an offensive juggernaut, they were only held to 17 total scoring chances and just 4 high-danger chances at 5v5. That much is reflected in the heat map, with the only semblance of a hot spot coming in front of the crease, ever so slightly. On the flip side though, the Canucks still struggled to get a good number of high-danger looks themselves. Out of a total of 20 scoring chances, only 6 of them were considered high-danger. While Vancouver did relatively better than their opposition, it’s still a lot of the same patterns from this last stretch of games – and definitely something this team needs to improve.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Who would’ve predicted that Pius Suter would be tied for the team lead in goals in November? The Swiss centerman led the Canucks last night with a 69.57 CF%, putting him at a 22.02 CF% rel to team average and a full 10% higher than the next highest CF% rel. While Suter was on the ice, the Canucks outshot the Flames 11-3 and had an 8-2 scoring chance advantage. For Suter himself, he posted the third-best xGF% on the team with 81.23 and led the team with a 1.22 xGF. It’s funny that he finds himself once more in the top 6, but he’s taking his opportunity and running with it.
Corsi Chump: Aatu Räty on the other hand did not have a great showing last night. Dead-last on the team in CF% with 35.71, Räty also posted a team-worst 0.07 xGF and 9.89 xGF%. This was coming in pretty sheltered minutes, iced only against the Flames’ bottom 6 as well. That alone saw Räty face 3 high-danger chances against, three-quarters of the total high-danger chances that Calgary had at 5v5. Simply put, there was a reason why Räty finished with the lowest ice time of all players last night.
xGF: This one was a bit of a surprise. Vincent Desharnais finished last night with Vancouver’s best xGF%, recording a 93.55 in decent competition. He and Erik Brännström played probably their best game as a pairing for the Canucks, with the Flames suppressed in chance generation. Desharnais had the Canucks’ best xGA of 0.07 and almost had his first goal, which is a welcome result after a pretty rough start to his Vancouver tenure.
GSAx: It was a sparkling bounceback game for Kevin Lankinen, who wasn’t left out to dry by the rest of his team last night. The Flames did post a 2.38 xGF thanks to their powerplay pressure, meaning that the Finn finished with a 1.38 GSAx. The one goal that got by him was hard to fault him, a great move to get around Filip Hronek for the high-danger chance. Other than that, Lankinen was perfect, and that is definitely more than good enough to help Vancouver win.

Statistical Musings

Jonathan Lekkerimäki’s debut: The much-anticipated arrival of Vancouver’s 2022 first-round pick went pretty darn well. Slotted alongside JT Miller and Pius Suter, Lekkerimäki looked like he fit in perfectly in the top 6. Their line finished with the team’s best CF% at 61.11 and xGF% at 77.22. Their team-best 0.92 xGF was comfortably ahead of second place at 0.39. Lekkerimäki himself finished with the fourth-best xGF (1.06) and xGF% (76.33). All he was missing was a point, but the Swede looked darn good.
Someone send help: Carson Soucy and Tyler Myers were Vancouver’s worst pairing once more. Granted, they were matched up against Calgary’s first line (consisting of the likes of Jonathan Huberdeau, Mikael Backlund, and Andrei Kuzmenko), but the numbers were uninspiring. They were the second and third-worst players on the roster in terms of CF%, while their xGF% were the worst amongst defencemen and only behind the fourth line (we’ll get to that in a minute). While they didn’t see themselves give up a goal against during their time on ice, over a larger sample size and against better competition, things might not be as fortunate.
In the doghouse: Nils Höglander’s demotion through the lineup has been a little concerning, especially since he hasn’t looked all that out of place in recent contests. However, on a line with Bains and Räty, the trio were not inspired against the Flames. Posting the worst CF% amongst forward lines by far (38.46), their xGF% of 8.45 showed the extent of their struggles even in sheltered minutes. They were the only line to not record a single high-danger chance for, while taking 3 high-danger chances against, a team high as well. Obviously, not all of this can be rested upon Höglander’s shoulders, but there were no favours done for him to prove Tocchet’s choice wrong.

As a team

CF% – 48.60% HDCF% – 46.67% xGF% – 55.01%
The Canucks had a good bounce-back game. They got a win against a team that they should beat, and the team generally seemed more cohesive on the front end and back end. It was fun seeing Lekkerimäki make his debut, and Elias Pettersson once more had a two-point effort. The only points of concern were the same as they usually were, and Vancouver will need to find a way to generate more high-danger looks sustainably. That part of their game will be tested as the season goes on and teams get more and more tight to play against.
Vancouver will welcome Bo Horvat and the New York Islanders to town on Thursday.
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