All good things must come to an end.

The Vancouver Canucks’ win streak comes to an end at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers, dropping a 5-2 decision to close out the road trip. Realistically, this was always going to be a tough game, against a surging Philly on the end of an East Coast swing. For a good chunk of the game, it looked like Thatcher Demko was going to steal them the win – until he too just couldn’t prop up this group any longer.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

Philly had a consistent upper hand in puck possession through two periods, never dipping below the 55.00 CF% mark. That resulted in the home team posting 73.40 xGF% in the first and 70.09 xGF% in the second, racking up some big expected goals against the Canucks. It’s shown on the game flow where the Flyers never really seemed to be budged from their advantage, with the flow of the game favouring them the entire way through. Interestingly enough, it was the third period where they capitalized the most – yet it was also the third period where things were the most even, relatively speaking. Vancouver actually had a 55.45 CF% and 51.44 xGF% to their names in the final frame, but it was Philly that would find the back of the net four times to seal the deal.

Understandably from how that game flow looked, the heat map does heavily favour the home team. The Flyers had a 27-15 lead in scoring chances, but really took the cake with an 18-7 HDCF advantage, reflected by the massive hot spot that they had right in tight against Demko. It would figure that all of their goals came from that area, and that the Canucks’ netminder could only do so much against that much of an onslaught in front of him. After a couple of games where Vancouver looked better in that regard, it seems the fatigue finally caught up to them.

Corsi Champ: Marco Rossi turned in a solid performance against the Flyers. Leading the team with a 52.38 CF%, he kept things relatively low-event as the top line center, splitting a clean even 50.11 xGF% which ended up being the second-highest mark on the team. Rossi’s 1.20 xGF was the second-best raw number on the team, and that was with him being in a 4-7 high-danger chance hole. It should say quite a bit about the chances that he generated to see him be above even in expected goals.

Corsi Chump: Jake DeBrusk got buried in terms of the Corsi department, as do most lines featuring David Kampf. With a 23.08 CF%, the winger was on ice for a goal for and goal against with the 6th-worst xGF% at 32.95. Granted, that was just -9.32 xGF% rel to team average, so it could’ve been worse. Other than that, DeBrusk wasn’t all that noticeable, only getting 9:04 TOI at 5v5 action, which was a team-low.

xGF: It was Tyler Myers who led all Canuck skaters in xGF% and xGF, racking up 66.49 xGF and 1.55 xGF. Somehow, this isn’t the year 2009-10, as the veteran defenceman turned back the clock to try and give the Canucks some juice. Myers was on ice for two goals for and zero goals against, which is kind of wild to think about given that he played the most minutes of any defenceman last night, against the toughest opposition that the Flyers had to offer. He was the only Canuck to finish with a positive split in high-danger chances, sitting at an impressive 6-3 margin.

GSAx: Thatcher Demko really is the anti-tank commander. It was close for a long, long while thanks to his efforts between the pipes, as Philadelphia was absolutely raining chances down against the Canucks. Racking up a total of 4.56 xGF, Demko was only beaten by 4 high-danger chances from 17 high-danger shots. It’s crazy that in a game where he gave up 4 goals that Demko still finished with a positive 0.56 GSAx on the night. That just shows how much of a factor he played in keeping the game close, and what he’s physically capable of when healthy. Hopefully, Vancouver finds plenty of opportunities to keep him well-rested through the rest of the year.

Line blending: After having such a good outing against the Bruins, the Öhgren – Sasson – Karlsson line was completely nullified against the Flyers. Like, completely. In 4:43 together at 5v5 action, they totalled flat zeroes in every category, giving up a goal against to boot as well. That’s not the worst outcome at the very least, and the Canucks weren’t going to get a ton of difference-making from their bottom 6 to begin with. However, it was interesting to see that when Conor Garland was bumped onto their line for Karlsson, the numbers skyrocketed. Not only did they post the team’s second-best CF% at 57.14, but they also racked up the second-highest xGF at 0.65 in just 3:19 of ice time. Perhaps it’s something to keep an eye on going forth, if this combination will be used again.

Rough game from the top pair: With Marcus Pettersson and Filip Hronek having to tag team as the team’s top pairing, that also meant that they received the toughest matchups in terms of personnel. Unfortunately, against the Flyers, the two didn’t play all that well. What stands out most is the 24.35 xGF% that they ended up recording, giving up a 0-3 high-danger chance deficit to the Flyers. Again, that isn’t the worst, but considering that they also yielded two goals off of it, the Canucks needed a lot better out of both of them to stand a chance at winning this one.

The Canucks ran out of gas in this one. All the numbers pointed to a team that just couldn’t get going, and were mostly kept in it thanks to some excellent work by Demko between the pipes. And when they did manage to generate some decent numbers, it was already too little, too late. On the other hand, even if the loss sucks, team tank is right back on the menu.

Vancouver is now off for the Christmas holidays, before they host the San Jose Sharks on December 27th.