That was frustrating.

The Vancouver Canucks lost to the Chicago Blackhawks by a 5-2 scoreline. To lose alone would be plenty frustrating enough, given the opposition, but the way in which the Canucks went down last night only added fuel to the fire. For the first 40 minutes, this team was generating chance after chance after chance, but just unable to bury. So of course the third would see this game turn on its head, giving another lesson in making chances count when you get them.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

There was no questioning that the Canucks were the better team through the first two periods. It really wasn’t even close, as with solid CF% shares to their names, Vancouver managed to put up 64.35 xGF% in the first and 77.44 xGF% in the second. It wasn’t just the shares of expected goals either, as the Canucks totalled 3.57 xGF in the same time frame, the Hawks only managing 1.47 xGF in response. But despite those numbers, despite all the good that Vancouver was doing, they didn’t score, which left the door open for their opposition. Chicago took full advantage, as the third period was the only one where they had a CF% and xGF% advantage at 5v5 play, leading to their four rapid goals and putting the Canucks in a hole. Simply put, that just shouldn’t be happening.

Again, the heat map might’ve been one of the most impressive that the Canucks have had all of this season. They got scoring chances in bunches, racking up a 40-26 lead with an 18-12 high-danger chance advantage to boot. There was no questioning that the Canucks did plenty of good things, that they looked threatening and got good chances from the areas that would, in theory, lead to the most goals. But they didn’t deliver when they had the advantage, and that cost them handily in the end.

Corsi Champ: Max Sasson led the Canucks last night with a 68.42 CF%, playing primarily against the Blackhawks’ bottom 6 and making the most of this deployment. While the forward didn’t manage to record a point, he was able to tally up the second-best xGF% on the team with an 81.17, while also posting the team’s seventh-best raw xGF at 1.27. For a fourth liner, those are some pretty solid metrics, and hopefully it could translate to some added production from Sasson.

Corsi Chump: Kiefer Sherwood was put into a third-line role last night with some pretty uninspiring numbers to boot. The winger recorded the team’s worst CF% at 41.94 while also tallying the second-worst xGF% at 49.21. Again, those shares don’t sound the worst, but considering the context of the game and overall superiority Vancouver enjoyed over Chicago, it put Sherwood’s performance comfortably towards the bottom of the roster. That has been a rare thing, given how well he’s started this season off, and hopefully this is just an anomaly for Sherwood and not a trend.

xGF: Leading the way in xGF% was Filip Hronek, who racked up an 81.39 playing primarily with Marcus Pettersson and lining up against Conor Bedard’s line all of last night. On ice for a Canucks goal for and 0 goals against, Hronek also split a massive 20-6 scoring chance lead with a further 7-3 edge in high-danger chances. That isn’t an insignificant contribution on both ends of the ice, and the Czech should be recognized for that performance. In raw xGF, Evander Kane led the Canucks with a mind-boggling 2.31 xGF to his name. It was no wonder, as the winger recorded 10 shots during his TOI, on ice for a massive 21-10 scoring chance advantage and 12-4 high-danger chance edge as well.

GSAx: Kevin Lankinen did not have a night to remember. With how little the Blackhawks threatened all night until the third period, the Finnish netminder only faced 2.84 xGF all of last night. That meant, with 4 goals getting past him, that he recorded a -1.16 GSAx, with 3 of the 4 goals coming off high-danger chances and the remaining one from a middle-danger chance. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t the most conducive to helping the Canucks to a win, but granted, the team in front of Lankinen didn’t do him much favours in terms of run support.

Bottom Left Myers: Suffice it to say that Tyler Myers did not have a great game against the Blackhawks. Playing primarily with Quinn Hughes, Myers was thrown into the deep end and didn’t exactly swim. The defenceman recorded a team-worst 1.4 xGA at 5v5 play, on ice for 3 goals against while splitting negatively at 12-13 in scoring chances. It just wasn’t the positive impact that the Canucks needed from the back end, especially alongside Quinn Hughes, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that it hampered the offensive potential that this pairing could’ve produced to help the Canucks get a result.

The Canucks probably deserved better. But, at the same time, that only goes so far when it comes to getting the job done. They did a lot of good things throughout the entire game and should be commended for it, with one of the better statistical showings when it came to chances generated. The biggest thing though, was the fact that they couldn’t capitalize on it – and their opposition took full advantage of their own chances and the momentum swing when it came their way. The Canucks can’t afford to be this wasteful with their opportunities, especially against teams like Chicago.

Vancouver gets a bit of a break before welcoming the Columbus Blue Jackets to town on Saturday.