Dancing in the Music City.

The Vancouver Canucks came out on top by a 5-4 overtime scoreline against the Nashville Predators. It wasn’t the prettiest of affairs, and the Canucks weren’t exactly in the driver’s seat the entire contest despite what the scorelines said. Nashville pushed hard and got the equalizer to send this into overtime – but, unlike previous contests, Vancouver’s best players stepped up when they needed to, and got the job done to give the Canucks two points. The impact of that can’t be overstated, given what has otherwise been a rough start to the season.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

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

The only period all of last night where the Canucks weren’t on the statistical back foot was the first. Vancouver held a narrow 51.43 CF% edge and managed 47.42 xGF% for the near even split. After this, it was genuinely all Preds. Nashville recorded a 62.71 xGF% in the second before going on to record an 82.55 xGF% in the third, where they didn’t allow a single high-danger chance against while posting 4 of their own. The Predators were running circles around the Canucks after that 5-on-3 power play Vancouver had in the second, with the home side totalling 1.76 xGF in the second and third put together, while the Canucks only had 0.66 xGF in the same span. Suffice it to say that at 5v5, Nashville had a much better body of work through the majority of the game.

At 5v5 in regulation, this game relatively favoured the Preds. Nashville had the 20-13 scoring chance advantage with a 9-6 high-danger chance lead, reflected in the concentrated hot spot they had in front of Thatcher Demko. That, however, isn’t a lot of raw numbers when it comes to scoring chances against. That much can be some solace for the Canucks, that they didn’t give up a whole lot of opportunities in total. In relation to their opposition, however, they were on the back seat during even-strength play. At least, when accounting for all situations (including power play and 3-on-3), the numbers evened out, where Vancouver was down 24-26 in scoring chances up up 12-11 in high-danger chances.

Corsi Champ: Brock Boeser loves playing in Nashville. The winger tied for the CF% lead last night with 50.00, but edges out his teammates thanks to an 11.43 CF% rel to team average, which was the highest amongst the 5 Canucks who finished with 50.00 CF%. On ice for a goal for and goal against at 5v5 action, Boeser also recorded a 35.04 xGF%, which doesn’t sound the greatest. However, that was just -0.17 xGF% rel, which basically put him ever so slightly below team average. That was coming against the Preds top 6, which isn’t the worst considering the overall statistical advantage that Nashville enjoyed all of last night. And, Boeser had the last laugh when it was all said and done.

Corsi Chump: Tyler Myers found himself taking on some heavy minutes against the Predators’ top 6. The numbers weren’t the greatest, but at least he was only out there for 1 goal against at 5v5 play. Myers posted a team-low 32.50 CF%, which also resulted in a 4th-worst 24.07 xGF%. Myers was on ice for the most scoring chances against of any Canuck with 11, but only faced 4 high-danger chances against to record the third-worst 1.19 xGA. Again, considering the context, this was not the worst thing in the world, even if one would like to see better out of Myers.

xGF: Tom Willander posted the team’s best xGF% at 80.47. Now, this time, this comes with a heavy asterisk as he was sheltered all of last night, with all of his shifts and faceoff starts coming in the offensive zone. Willander was only iced against the bottom of Nashville’s lineup, but it was still pretty tidy stuff to be on ice for just 0.12 xGA. Willander was also on ice for a 4-0 edge in high-danger chances at 5v5, which, considering that the Canucks only had 6 in total, is a pretty nice stat. Filip Hronek led the Canucks in raw xGF at 0.52, which shows the extent of how little offensive pressure Vancouver was able to get last night as well.

GSAx: Thatcher Demko didn’t steal this one for the Canucks. Facing down Nashville’s 3.52 xGF, the netminder came out ever so slightly in the negatives with a -0.48 GSAx. Granted, the goals that got past him pretty much had the highest probability of being converted, with 3 of the 4 coming from high-danger chances and the remaining one from middle-danger. It’s not the worst distribution to be giving up, and Demko certainly wasn’t a whole liability between the pipes. He did enough to backstop the Canucks until they could find the juice for an overtime winner.

Splitting up the top 6: With how injuries have depleted much of the Caucks’ roster, one of the changes last night was how the “top line” was broken up and redistributed throughout the top 6. Vancouver iced a Jake DeBrusk – Lukas Reichel – Brock Boeser line and a Kiefer Sherwood – Elias Pettersson – Evander Kane unit against Nashville, with some pretty intriguing results. DeBrusk – Reichel – Boeser would finish with the most minutes played last night, posting the team’s best CF% at 50.00 while just barely coming under team average at 32.09 xGF%. As for Sherwood – Pettersson – Kane, this trio recorded a 42.93 xGF%, which gave them a 9.52 xGF% rel to team average. Again, not monumental numbers, but it was plenty to give Vancouver just a bit more depth, to at least be able to roll two playable lines against opposing top 6s.

Where the Abbotsford Line looked like an Abbotsford Line: For the last while, the Abby line has been skating past some lack of production thanks to good underlying numbers. That was not the case last night. While Bains – Sasson – Karlsson had some decent puck possession, their expected goals against was simply not good. Playing the least minutes of any Canuck forward line, they somehow managed to give up the second-worst xGA at 0.62, with the only mark worse being 0.76 xGA by DeBrusk – Reichel – Boeser who played twice the amount of minutes they did. That earned the line the worst xGF% share of any unit with 26.97 xGF%, being on ice for the most high-danger chances against by a forward line at 4. Again, it’s a symptom of the lack of NHL-calibre players in the lineup, but without any contributions to offset these stats, it’s hard to see them staying together for too much longer if it keeps up this way.

The Canucks weren’t quite in full control of this game, but that’s alright. They managed to build a lead for themselves early and capitalized where they could, and nearly were able to see it all out to the end of the game. Would they have liked to avoid the scare at the end? Probably. But these things happen, and the Canucks did well for themselves to claw out the overtime win on the road. Even with how rough this season has started, they find themselves just 1 point behind the Pacific Division leaders.

Vancouver returns home to host Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks tomorrow night.