And the losses keep stacking up.

The Vancouver Canucks dropped a heavy 7-3 decision to the Calgary Flames last night. However, despite the scoreline, the Canucks probably deserved better at 5v5 – which is definitely a rarity to be saying. Most of the numbers actually favoured them last night, and was at odds with the final score. At the very least, it wasn’t a putridly unentertaining game, the Canucks able to score despite never truly being in the contest. Plus, a Flames win is helpful to the lottery odds as well.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

This is a very interesting game flow to look at, and not one that you would probably expect out of a 7-3 loss. When looking at each period, there wasn’t a single frame where the Canucks didn’t have the majority of each share metric. In fact, their xGF% never dropped below 60 in any single period, and their lowest CF% on the night was a 58.33 during the second period. What it seems like is that the Canucks were actually pretty solid overall, but had costly moments which put them well behind the eight ball, multiple times in this contest. Take a look at the first period, where a small surge by the Flames got them the 2-0 lead. Then, in the second, they surged to turn a 3-1 lead into an insurmountable 5-1 margin. Those were the moments that proved to be defining for the Canucks loss – not to take away from the overall quality of the game that they played, but showing how their momentary lapses ended up being some of the most decisive moments.

Again, the heat map isn’t the worst thing in the world on the first glance, and instead actually points to the Canucks having a more than solid game offensively. While the overall scoring chances were just a slim 23-22 lead for Vancouver overall, they pulled out a 13-9 margin in high-danger chances, manifest itself in the much more visible hot spot in the attacking end as opposed to what the Flames had going for them. It was a pretty solid distribution as well – the Canucks were only down 3-4 in high-danger chances in the first period, with a 6-3 lead in the second and 4-2 edge in the third. The numbers were very much on the Canucks side, but unfortunately, the score was not.

Corsi Champ: Pierre-Olivier Joseph finds himself pacing the Canucks in this category, putting up a 77.42 CF% while actually playing a fair amount of minutes against the Flames’ middle 6 forwards. Things were actually really good while he and Victor Mancini were on ice together, holding a 13-4 shot differential while also being on ice for an even 1-1 split in goals at 5v5 play. While he didn’t manage to find the scoresheet with a point or anything, the efforts that Joseph turned in on the back end shouldn’t be discounted or overlooked.

Corsi Chump: It’s been strange to see Aatu Räty’s usage all season. Posting a team-low 38.89 CF%, the Finn played the fourth-lowest TOI with a 9:46 while also racking up the third-lowest xGF% of 42.26. This was despite seeing the large majority of his shift and faceoff starts in the offensive zone, playing primarily against the Flames’ fourth line personnel. The numbers are not encouraging of the kind of effort that he turned in, and Räty continues to remain a peripheral piece to this team with how Adam Foote is utilizing him.

xGF: The third pairing went to work in this category too. Joseph led the Canucks in xGF% at 87.71, on ice for a 12-4 lead in scoring chances and 9-1 high-danger chance edge. His 0.29 xGA was the 5th-best mark on the team, while his 2.04 xGF trailed only his partner Mancini’s 2.16. Speaking of the latter, the big right-handed defenceman managed a 13-6 split in scoring chances and a 10-2 lead in high-danger chances, on ice for all but 3 HDCF that the Canucks managed to accumulate. That’s a sizeable contribution, and definitely far and away an improvement of the numbers he was putting up when he was first called up to Vancouver earlier this year.

GSAx: The netminding last night was a lowlight for the Canucks. Calgary only managed to total up 2.16 xGF across all situations, but still managed to score 7 times off of that. It was Nikita Tolopilo to lead the Canucks off last night, facing a 1.14 xGF and giving up 4 goals against for a -2.86 GSAx. Of the four goals, three of them were from high-danger areas, while the remaining goal against was in a middle-danger category. Stepping in relief, Kevin Lankinen wasn’t that much better, as the Flames totaled 1.02 xGF against him. The Finn let 3 goals against, sitting at a -1.98 GSAx, with 2 of the goals being middle-danger chances and the remaining one as a high-danger goal. It’s hard to win games when goalies are pretty much spotting the Flames nearly 5 expected goals against, and it really isn’t hard to see why the Canucks lost despite putting up some solid numbers all night.

Breaking up the BRO line: One of the new line features against the Flames was the Liam Ohgren – Elias Pettersson – Linus Karlsson combination, breaking up the Boeser-Rossi-Ohgren unit that had been clicking for the last couple of contests. Normally, this kind of thing backfires against Foote, but against Calgary, the numbers really liked the Ohgren-Pettersson-Karlsson line. Deployed as Vancouver’s top line and seeing the most action at 5v5 play, the unit posted a team-best 70.83 CF%, 81.57 xGF%, and 0.71 xGF, the latter of which being a sizeable margin ahead of any other forward line. That’ll happen when you’re on ice for an 8-4 advantage in scoring chances and 5-2 lead in high-danger chances. It’s been good to see the likes of Pettersson be on ice for these kinds of numbers, a welcome change from the usual all season.

The Canucks more than likely deserved better in this one against the Flames. They had their sizeable statistical advantages and weren’t being caved in as the score suggested. Unfortunately, with rough goaltending between the pipes and momentary laspes that proved costly, the loss was set into stone. But again, that’s not the worst thing for this group, and continue that plunge to the bottom that this group needs to get the best lottery odds in the league.

Vancouver continues their road trip, going down to Nevada tomorrow to face off against the Vegas Golden Knights.