Sometimes, a good old rough-and-tumble game is what the doctor ordered.
The Vancouver Canucks took down the Ottawa Senators by a 4-3 score line in a very chippy affair. Seriously, nearly half of this game was played with some sort of special teams on the ice after both teams got way scrappier than usual (though mostly with the Sens instigating). Content-wise, the game honestly wasn’t that exciting or packed with chances. But the Canucks got a great performance from their first line as of now, and that was enough to buoy them to the right result.
Here’s the win, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

The large majority of this game was played on special teams, and that much was shown on the game flow. Vancouver did a great job on their penalty kill in the first, staving off the entire major penalty that didn’t let Ottawa get any semblance of momentum. That also saw them record a power play goal on the other side of it for the game’s opening tally. There wasn’t a single period where the Canucks didn’t have the xGF% advantage at 5v5, managing to close out the game with a 77.0 xGF% in the third period alone.

Heat Map

Due to only have 35 minutes of 5v5 game time, there weren’t a lot of scoring chances that came from even strength play. Still, it should be encouraging that Vancouver was able to put together a 15-6 edge in scoring chances, with a further 6-2 lead in high-danger chances that’s reflected by this heat map. The Sens didn’t get much of anything when the teams were at even strength, which is perhaps why they were desperately trying to get into things with the Canucks towards the end of the game. They definitely fared better with the man-advantage, racking up a total of 11 high-danger chances to Vancouver’s 8 across all situations.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Elias Pettersson racked up a team-high 75.00 CF% against the Sens last night, dominating in the limited time the teams had at even strength. On ice for 2 goals for and zero against, Pettersson accumulated the second-best xGF% of 95.61 with the second-best xGA of 0.03 to boot. That does tend to happen when the Swede is on ice for a 7-1 lead in scoring chances, four of them being high-danger chances for and no high-danger chances against at all. With the absence of the team’s best players (including Quinn Hughes in this one!), Petey more than stepped up to the plate.
Corsi Chump: Drawing in against the Stutzle line, Danton Heinen finished as the worst Canuck in the Corsi department with a 15.38 CF%. It seemed that the Sens were trying to target the Canucks’ fourth line with how the deployment looked against him, and as a result Heinen’s numbers suffered. Posting the third-worst xGF% of 30.41, the winger at least managed to not be on ice for a single high-danger chance against.
xGF: Kiefer Sherwood continues to impress. The offseason depth acquisition has stepped up in a big way, leading the Canucks with a 96.17 xGF% last night. That came with the third-best xGF of 0.75 and tying Pettersson with a 0.03 xGA. Sherwood edged out his centerman thanks to being on ice for 8 scoring chances and a 5-0 advantage in high-danger chances. The wrecking ball has been consistent in his impact and seems to be a great fit alongside Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk. Leading the way in raw xGF with 0.88 was… Carson Soucy? (We’ll get to that in a sec).
GSAx: Kevin Lankinen didn’t have to steal this game for the Canucks, and that should be taken as a positive. With the Senators only managing a 2.87 xGF for the game, that meant the Finn finished with a -0.12 GSAx, ever so slightly in the negatives. It likely was due to the fact that the three goals against were split across high, middle, and low danger, thus influencing how dangerous the chances were and thus the amount of xGF that was racked up. Still, Lankinen wasn’t aa liability and did his part in this affair to get Vancouver across the line.

Statistical Musings

DPS Line: Seriously, it is bananas to see the difference in stats between the Sherwood-Pettersson-DeBrusk line in this one against everyone else. They led all Canuck forward units at 5v5 with 69.23 CF%, 0.59 xGF, 0.03 xGA, 95.17 xGF%, 6 SCF, and 4 HDCF. There wasn’t a single line close to the contributions that the trio were putting in, with the Dakota Joshua – Pius Suter – Conor Garland line having to be the second line in this one and face a team-worst 0.46 xGA. Now granted, Ottawa did self-implode here, but the contributions of Sherwood-Pettersson-DeBrusk at the level that they put in should not be discounted at all, especially as this team is without some of it’s high-end talent.
So how did the Canucks cope with losing Hughes?: A big point in the first period was Quinn Hughes getting thrown out of the game thanks to a boarding major. It was questionable – but we aren’t here to debate that. With Vancouver down the just 5 defencemen halfway through the first period, how did the team fare? Well, honestly, not bad at all. Filip Hronek stepped up big time and showed that he could very likely play away from Hughes on his own pairing. Splitting time with Carson Soucy and Tyler Myers as partners the rest of the way, Hronek would help buoy them to CF% above 50, posting an obscene 85.08 xGF% with Soucy and even managing to get Myers up to 61.98 xGF% himself. The Czech defender also saw PP1 duties and quarterbacked it pretty decently well as a stand-in option.
A special shoutout should go to Erik Brännström who was so good in elevated minutes against his old team. Paired with Myers, that pairing probably should’ve been an absolute dumpsterfire. And yet, they recorded an 85.87 xGF% with a 5-1 edge in scoring chances, a 2-0 lead in high-danger chances. Brännström himself recorded the best CF% amongst defencemen (60.00) while taking on the best that the Senators had to offer. A solid performance from a depth option for a cap dump trade.

As a team

CF% – 38.00% HDCF% – 42.11% xGF% – 39.05%
Honestly, it was pretty funny watching the Senators lose their minds and tempers at this Canucks team. They couldn’t score on the 5-minute major, and sure, they made things interesting with a minute left in the game, but for the large majority of the game… what were they doing? Vancouver simply existed to watch the Sens punch themselves repeatedly in the face and sewer themselves, capitalizing on any opportunity that presented itself. The Canucks did their part to get the win, and they did so in quite the fashion with big performances throughout the lineup with key absences.
Vancouver continues their eastern road trip, heading into Boston on Tuesday to face off against the Bruins.
Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com
Sponsored by bet365