Could the Canucks play every single game on the road from now on?
The Vancouver Canucks dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to the St Louis Blues last night in a game where they probably didn’t deserve to win in the first place. There were good moments in the game, Dakota Joshua’s first goal, Thatcher Demko’s return, and some other bits. But good moments don’t necessarily make up a win, which was evident with the game last night.
Here’s the loss, by the numbers.
As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

There wasn’t a point where the Canucks truly had control of this game. For the first and second periods, they were out-possessed by the Blues to the tune of 53.85 CF% and 62.50 CF% respectively. That also led to the Blues generating a 55.96 xGF% and 75.15 xGF% in those frames as well, which lends itself well to the lead that they were able to get going into the third. Vancouver managed to pull back the Corsi battle in the third, recording a 60.00 CF% in the frame, but only managed to grab a 44.07 xGF%. Still, they pulled together a 0.73 xGF in the third alone, more than both the first and second combined.

Heat Map

With how the expected goals panned out, St Louis’ heat map makes sense. The Blues out-chanced the Canucks by a 24-14 margin, racking up a 9-4 high-danger chance difference at 5v5 as well. It’s a pretty big difference, but Vancouver managed to claw back some of that when accounting for all situations. In total, the scoring chances only stood at 30-28 for the Blues, while the high-danger chances went to 13-8 for St Louis. Again, the visitors deserved to win this game based on the overall quality of their play, but at least the Canucks took advantage of their special teams.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Now here’s a name you probably weren’t expecting to be here. Tyler Myers finished with the Canucks’ best CF% at 5v5 with a 65.00, benefitting from an elevated role alongside Quinn Hughes to the max. It’s probably no surprise that Hughes has had a positive impact on Myers’ numbers, but to see the extent of the drastic improvement is quite something. Myers did end up playing 7 less minutes in total than Hughes did, which did help his share metrics jump to the top.
Corsi Chump: Carson Soucy returns to familiar territory here, finishing dead last on the team with a 27.59 CF%. This came with facing a team-high 1.54 xGA, a 4-14 scoring chance deficit with a further 2-7 high-danger chance hole. Soucy didn’t post the worst xGF%, but his 24.70 was the third-worst on the team. While Soucy did have to face a lot of the Blues’ top line last night, the numbers that he put up were simply not good. And when he was put out in overtime, things… didn’t end well to say the least.
xGF: Hey, look at who we have here. Tyler Myers posted the best xGF% on the team with his 75.09, standing at a full 53.68 xGF% rel to the team’s average. He was on ice for the most scoring chances on the team with 7, and the most high-danger scoring chances with 3. Those aren’t the most impressive of raw stats, but relative to the team, it was something. Myers’ 0.83 xGF was the second-best on the team behind Hughes’ 0.87, while his 0.28 xGA ranked him as the 5th best in that category on the Canucks. Not a bad night on the stats sheet for him.
GSAx: Well, it was Thatcher Demko’s return between the pipes, and the results showed as much. It was clear that Demko wasn’t his usual game-stealing self, but at the same time, it’s his first start since April 24th. The Blues generated 2.69 xGF last night, meaning that Demko gave up a -1.31 GSAx. The goals were split evenly between high-danger chances and middle-danger chances, Demko staying perfect from low-danger chances. It’ll take some time for him to get back into game speed, and hopefully stay healthy. At the very least, the Canucks have a good backup that can take some of the load off of his shoulders to ease him back in when they need him most.

Statistical Musings

Why take Brännström out?: One of the more noteworthy moves in the lineup last night was the removal of Erik Brännström in favour of Mark Friedman. Now, Brännström had been going through a bit of a rough stretch, where his numbers generally trended to the bottom of the roster. Not a surprise, given the injuries forcing him into a role that he wasn’t performing in.
However, putting in Friedman resulted in even more of a tire fire. Without Brännström, the Canucks were left without any puck-moving defencemen outside of Hughes, and the results that Friedman-Desharnais turned in were not great. Together, they recorded a 22.22 CF% and 0.00 xGF%, giving up a 0.22 xGA without putting up any xGF. Desharnais would finish with a 0.00 xGF% as the team-worst, while Friedman was very close behind as the second-worst with a 6.67 xGF%. It begs the question – why take Brännström out if this is what’s going to happen?
It further highlights that Hughes alone buoys this defence. His dynamism is sorely missed as soon as he steps off the ice. It’s no wonder the captain was deployed for nearly half of the game, but that isn’t sustainable at all.
Where the first line underwhelmed at 5v5: Both Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson picked up goals last night, which is great. What wasn’t great was that at 5v5, the first line of them and Brock Boeser were relatively ineffective at generating chances. They did record the best CF% of 63.64 amongst forward lines but turned in the second-worst xGF of 0.2. Given how rough the game went for the Canucks on the chance generation front, the DeBrusk-Pettersson-Boeser line did post the second-best xGF% – however, even that stood at 31.07. The biggest indication of their struggles at 5v5 is how they didn’t manage to record a single high-danger chance.
Powerplay looking better: One thing that was nice to see was that the powerplay was more dynamic against the Blues. Vancouver racked up 13 scoring chances alone on the man advantage, their 5:12 of PP time resulting in 3 high-danger chances. Unfortunately it also resulted in a shorthanded goal against, but at least they were able to get chances of their own – something that has been a struggle for a season plus at this point.

As a team

CF% – 52.73% HDCF% – 38.10% xGF% – 55.22%
Reffing aside, the Canucks simply looked sloppy on home ice. There were good moments and good things, but they were sparse over the duration of the game where the Blues had more jump in their step. Home ice cannot be a kryptonite for this team if they have any playoff ambitions, and they’ll have to figure it out sooner rather than later. At the very least, it seems that JT Miller will be returning to this team soon enough, and that jolt might be what the doctor ordered.
Vancouver welcomes the Florida Panthers to town tomorrow for their next matchup.
Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com
Sponsored by bet365