Something something tank.

The Vancouver Canucks topped the New York Islanders by a 4-1 scoreline, continuing to topple the tank narrative with another strong performance. It’s been refreshing to see this team play as of late, strong at both ends of the ice and doing it in a structurally sound manner as well. They’ve been able to limit what their opponents can do while still getting their chances in spades. That wasn’t the case early this year, and it is perhaps setting a great foundation for this group to build on for next year.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

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

There was never a moment in this game that the Canucks let things slip away from them. The first period was the only frame where Vancouver was out-possessed by New York, to the tune of 55.56-44.44 CF%, but even that saw limited damage against the Canucks. The xGF% was only 52.49-47.51 for the Isles, and they weren’t able to translate any of that into actual damage on the scoreboard. The Canucks controlled the pace of the game the rest of the way, not giving the Islanders much to claw their way back into this one. They would not finish a single period below 55.00 CF%, and they even managed to close out the game with a 78.64 xGF% in the third.

It’s again encouraging that the Canucks are able to get themselves a high-danger pocket on these charts. They weren’t a common occurrence for a big chunk of the start to the year, so to see these now is certainly a plus. Vancouver had a 22-14 edge in scoring chances at 5v5 play, with a 14-9 high-danger chance lead as well. They managed to deliver on the statistical advantage on top of that, capitalizing where they needed to and scoring the goals that they generated. Again, not something that they had been doing up until this point.

Corsi Champ: Zeev Buium continues to impress in Canucks colours. Leading the team with a 70.83 CF% on the night, the defenceman was a steady hand, being on ice for a 9-3 shot advantage and 2 goals for with 0 goals against. Buium posted the 4th-best xGF on the team with a 1.18, while an 82.23 xGF% was good enough to finish 3rd in that category. He’s been darn impressive so far in his stint in Vancouver, and certainly has lots of promise going forward for this team.

Corsi Chump: Conor Garland posted the team’s worst CF% at 36.36, playing mostly against the Islander’s top line and having to contain them for much of the night. With that context in mind, the numbers are actually really solid. Garland recorded a 54.33 xGF%, which was only ever slightly below team average. His 0.44 xGA was middle of the pack, and his 0.52 xGF was also pretty average. Again, it seems kind of odd to be mentioning this sort of thing, but usually when a player is giving up bad Corsi numbers, there’s usually other categories that drop off a cliff. Instead, Garland still turned in a very solid performance on Vancouver’s top line.

xGF: Leading the way in xGF% was none other than… Linus Karlsson? Yes, in limited minutes on the fourth line, the Swede still recorded some excellent expected goals metrics. His 91.18 XGF% was easily the best on the team, and despite only playing 8:55 of 5v5 action, Karlsson still posted the second-best raw xGF mark of 1.37. That’ll happen when you’re on ice for a 10-1 scoring chance edge and 7-1 high-danger chance lead. Karlsson’s demotion through the lineup clearly hasn’t affected his game negatively, as he’s taking advantage of weaker matchups to keep on racking up great analytics. Leading the way in raw xGF was his fellow countryman of Tom Willander, who posted a 1.55 xGF.

GSAx: Thatcher Demko, the anti-tank commander. Albeit he did have some very good help from the team in front of him when it came to limiting high-danger chances. Against 3.23 xGF from the Isles, Demko only conceded 1 high-danger goal against to finish with a 2.23 GSAx on the night, which once again was more than sparkling. He’s been on a heater after returning from injury, making sure that the Canucks won’t be too bad while he’s between the pipes.

Okay, they scored a goal, but…: It straight up doesn’t make sense for Nils Hoglander and Jake DeBrusk to be centred by David Kampf. It just doesn’t. Their numbers were not great at all last night despite Kampf finding the back of the net. Yes, the trio had a 66.67 CF%, but their xGF% stood at 28.81, which was far and away the team’s worst mark. This was with the second-most ice time of any forward line, mind you, and a second line should not be getting caved in to this extent while they’re on the ice. A 0.15 xGF was even lower than the Ohgren-Sasson-Karlsson line’s 0.26, and those three played nearly a full 2 minutes less than them.

Sherwood’s big night in spite of the stats: It’s probably a little strange that we haven’t made mention of the guy who scored a hat trick last night so far in this piece. But, looking at the numbers, Kiefer Sherwood was solidly… average, which is very interesting for a player who potted in three goals. A 47.83 CF% was about 10% lower than team average, while his 54.49 xGF% was actually in the bottom 3rd of the team, thanks to some heavy defensive responsibilities last night. Sherwood did have the 7th-best raw xGF on the team, if that does mean anything. It does stand to reason that some of the point production he’s doing is unsustainable – in which case, Vancouver desperately needs to move off of him, and quickly.

The Canucks played well. They got their chances in bunches, played structured and responsible defensively, and stepped up for each other where they needed to. There wasn’t much freeloading in this one, which again is what they’ve needed to be doing all season. Right now, it’s probably hurting their draft position, but it is refreshing to see this group come together and just play hockey. Hopefully, it sets the foundation for what this team can become – after they secure a top 5 draft selection.

Vancouver is right back in action tonight, facing off against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.