Just seven more games to go.

The Vancouver Canucks lost to the Minnesota Wild by a 5-2 scoreline last night. There really wasn’t much to say about this game besides the fact that the Cannucks got outplayed. The stats weren’t particularly close and showed that Vancouver wasn’t in the same realm in this contest, unable to really get anything going throughout to actually make this a game. It’s just the reality of this group, which fortunately is about to end.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

The first period, relatively speaking, was the one where the Canucks were the closest against the Wild. Despite giving up a 36.11 CF%, Vancouver actually managed a 50.61 xGF% with just a 1-3 deficit in high-danger chances, coming out of the opening frame with a 2-1 lead. Unfortunately for the Canucks, that was all the offence they would generate on the night and the high point of the contest, as it was pretty much one-way traffic after the first intermission. It wasn’t even close at 5v5 play as the Wild would proceed to post a 67.15 xGF% in the second and a 68.80 xGF% in the third. That third period also saw the Canucks get absolutely bled by a 10-4 margin in high-danger chances, with the Wild burying any hope the Canucks might’ve had in coming back.

The heat map also provides an illustration of which way the ice was tilted last night. In total, Minnesota racked up a 31-22 lead in scoring chances and an 18-10 high-danger chance lead. That was seen in the proverbial lake of fire right in front of the crease against the Canucks, who had to contend with plenty of high-danger opportunities all of last night. The large majority of those 18 high-danger chances came in the third, with 10 of them by Minnesota in the final frame alone. Vancouver simply stopped being able to keep up at a certain point, and their much stronger opposition took full advantage.

Corsi Champ: Teddy Blueger led all Canucks with a 64.29 CF% against the Wild last night, playing the large majority of his minutes against the top line of Minnesota and Quinn Hughes. With that in mind, it’s pretty impressive that he was able to control a good chunk of the Corsi, while also managing to just be on ice for one goal against. Blueger had the fourth-best xGF% on the team at 46.31 with the 4th-best xGF to his name at 0.99. Not a bad deal at all for the Latvian who managed to even split a 5-5 high-danger chance battle as well.

Corsi Chump: Elias Pettersson (D) didn’t have the best outing last night. His team-worst 29.41 CF% was just the tip of the iceberg as he was on ice for two goals against and a team-worst 4.46 xGF% thanks to a 0-4 hole in high-danger chances. It wasn’t the prettiest outing for any defenceman, to be fair, but Pettersson’s numbers definitely didn’t paint him in a better light. Again, the opposition was good, and they just didn’t have the best effort together on the back end.

xGF: Zeev Buium was the only Canuck truly within touching distance of breaking 50.00 xGF%, as he led the team with a 49.46 xGF% on the night to go with a team-best 1.20 raw xGF. The former Wild defenceman was on ice for a 12-9 scoring chance advantage while managing to split the high-danger chances at 7-7. Pretty solid numbers considering that Buium was often iced against the second line of the Wild, managing to escape with just a single goal against at 5v5 action despite a rough giveaway to Boldy.

GSAx: Considering everything, Nikita Tolopilo did the best that he could. The Wild totalled up 3.51 xGF against him, and with four goals against, the Belarusian netminder finished with a -0.49 GSAx. Two of the goals came from high-danger chances, with one apiece from middle-danger and low-danger. Again, a negative isn’t exactly what you want to be seeing for the most part, but it wasn’t as if he was to blame for the Canucks unable to get going in front of him. Tolopilo made some pretty dandy stops to give Vancouver a shout at getting a result in this one.

Fourth line’s big night: Speaking of Teddy Blueger, the combination of Linus Karlsson – Blueger – Max Sasson was one of the only lines to make any positive inroads against the Wild last night. They had a second-best 65.22 CF% while playing a team-high 10:51, posting a team-best 0.73 xGF and 50.95 xGF% with a 5-5 split in high-danger chances. Again, really good for this trio to be putting up these kinds of numbers, but unfortunately, if your fourth line is your best line on any given night, that’s probably not a good thing for the team as a whole.

After the explosion against the Avalanche, the Canucks came right back down to earth against the Wild. This was an expected result and outcome, as this team simply got outclassed against better opposition. A good start was a nice positive to be taking away from this outing, but other than that, it was much of the same Canucks team that we’ve seen all season, the one that has clinched 32nd place in the NHL.

Vancouver returns home as they host the Utah Mammoth tomorrow night.