That’s three on the board.

The Vancouver Canucks managed to secure their third win of the calendar year, topping the Chicago Blackhawks by a 6-3 scoreline. Somehow, someway, the Canucks found ways to produce goals, perhaps playing a little more freely after the trade deadline passed. They were able to get their goals in bunches, striking early and seeing the game out from the driver’s seat. How many times has that happened all year?

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

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

Vancouver managed to surge early in the first period, scoring three times after the Blackhawks opened the scoring. That was pretty much all the positives they managed to accumulate, finishing the period with a 50.00 CF% and 50.94 xGF%. After that, Chicago tipped the scales in their favour, although the raw stats suggested that it wasn’t too tilted. Despite the Hawks posting an 80.48 xGF% and 65.22 CF% in the second, they only managed 2 high-danger chances in the period and 0.6 xGF at 5v5 action. The third was similar in that sense, as Chicago did have the share metrics in their favour at 5v5, but the overall numbers were relatively tame.

The heat map is pretty interesting to look at. Chicago had an overall scoring chance lead of 24-16 at 5v5 play, but only managed a 9-8 high-danger chance advantage when all was said and done. That can be seen from the slightly larger hot spot right in the low slot area, but in terms of density, they stayed relatively the same. The distribution was very skewed from the Canucks perspective, though, as all 8 of their high-danger chances came during the first period. The rest of the way, Chicago outchanced them 6-0 in HDCF.

Corsi Champ: Leading the way in the Corsi front was Max Sasson, posting a 60.00 CF% while lining up with Teddy Blueger and Linus Karlsson. On ice for a goal for and a goal against, Sasson actually managed to hold a 58.30 xGF%, good enough to be at a 23.29 xGF% relative to the team average. Considering that he didn’t get a single shift start in the offensive zone (on the fly and faceoffs combined), that’s pretty darn solid, and a goal and assist on the night was very well earned for the two-way effort.

Corsi Chump: On the other end of the spectrum, Aatu Räty finished with a team-low 16.00 CF%. This primarily came with the young Finn playing pivot between Drew O’Connor and Evander Kane (a line combination out of hell) and somehow primarily playing against Connor Bedard’s line. With that context, it’s not bad that Räty was on ice for a 5v5 goal for and none against, stacking a team-low 16.21 xGF% to go along with his team-low Corsi. He was on ice for a 2-11 scoring chance hole, but managed to keep it to a 1-2 deficit in high-danger chances.

xGF: D-Petey racked up the team’s best xGF% at 74.10, on ice for a 9-4 lead in scoring chances and a 4-0 advantage in high-danger chances. Paired up with Filip Hronek and having to go toe to toe with the Bedard line for the majority of the night, the young Swede was only on ice for a goal against, but managed to contribute pretty darn well with a 0.87 xGF, good enough for second on the team behind Hronek’s 0.96.

GSAx: Nikita Tolopilo did his part, even if he wasn’t stealing the game for the Canucks. Chicago racked up a 2.93 xGF across all situations, meaning that with three goals against, the Belarusian was ever so slightly negative at a -0.07 GSAx on the night. Of the three goals, two were high-danger, with the remaining one coming at middle-danger to complete the set. Not a bad night for the netminder, who definitely got plenty of run support in front of him.

An actual first-line contribution: The Hoglander-Pettersson-DeBrusk line actually managed to play like a first line last night. Leading all forward lines with a 63.64 CF%, they did a very solid job in their 5v5 minutes, leading with a 3-1 margin in high-danger chances while racking up a 60.60 xGF%, posting the second-best 0.36 xGF on the team as well. It’s not dominating by any stretch of the imagination, but considering the struggles as a whole from Pettersson, especially as of late, any positive is a positive here.

Wins have been rare for the Canucks in 2026, so anything like this should be taken for what it is. The Canucks managed to score plenty, which has been a struggle all season, and managed to see the game out from the early lead they created. That’s been just as rare as the wins that they’ve collected thus far into 2026. It was nice to see it for a change after the losing streak that they were on – but hopefully, there won’t be too much of a late-season surge after the trade deadline.

Vancouver is right back in action tonight, taking on the Winnipeg Jets to continue the road trip.