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The Stanchies: Canucks play their best game of the season, lose 4-2 to Stars
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Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Cody Severtson
Nov 21, 2025, 02:30 ESTUpdated: Nov 21, 2025, 12:55 EST
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Alright, how do we do these again?
The last time I reported for Stanchies’ backup duty was the 2024-25 trade deadline game against the Minnesota Wild, one which followed the organization’s bold decision to stand pat at the deadline, retaining then-pending UFAs Brock Boeser, Derek Forbort, and Pius Suter.
Last season, the club was ruthless in its approach to tolling daily cap space to maximize its potential as a buyer or seller at the deadline. With a single retention slot available, there was hope that something, anything, was possible for the organization that found itself in an admitted ‘transition phase’ following the JT Miller trade.
Unfortunately, in a year where Anthony Beauvillier and Brandon Tanev returned second-round picks, and 33-year-old Brock Nelson returned a 20-year-old right-shot centre and a first-round pick, the organization said there simply wasn’t a market for their guys. I believe the phrase was, “You’d laugh at me if I told you the offers we received [for Brock].”
Fortunately, despite another dismal playoff miss, no extra picks in the 2025 Entry Draft, Suter leaving for St. Louis over a miscommunication regarding term, and Forbort entering the 8th week of his maintenance day, Boeser stayed.
Since re-signing out of nowhere on July 1st, Boeser has since added an ‘A’ on his jersey, returned to a 35-goal pace, and produced as reliably and consistently as one could hope for the second-highest paid forward on the team! It’s been a pretty decent start for a guy whose team couldn’t manufacture a market for a player of his quality. Given all of the injury (unfair) and torrid goal-scoring pace replicability (fair) concerns, Boeser has given fans exactly what they were hoping for when he re-signed for the next seven years! Though it has been another frustrating, listless, and defensively disastrous Canucks season thus far, it has been nice watching Boeser do what he does while still wearing Canuck colours.
Back to the last Stanchies, and that trade deadline commentary from Allvin, and how it tied into Thursday night’s game.
“I don’t think you use [trade deadline day] as a defining day of how you build a team,” said Allvin in the post-TDL scrum with the local media beat.
Here’s the thing: two teams defined their team’s construction with a deadline deal for the Dallas Stars’ current leading scorer, Mikko Rantanen.
The Carolina Hurricanes salvaged the negative-percentile result of their initial trade for Rantanen when they traded him to Dallas for a draft class and their current 2nd-line centre, Logan Stankoven. At 20 years old, Stankoven is the 5th most-used skater on the Hurricanes at 5v5 ice time this season. The Hurricanes locked Stankoven up to a long-term deal that keeps him in Carolina until he’s 28, at a beyond-friendly cap hit of $6 million!
The Stars turned a draft class and the potential of a then second-line winger into a capital-B BONA FIDE elite, game-breaking, above-a-point-per-game first-line winger, who they immediately locked into a seven-year deal at a similarly beyond-reasonable cap hit of $12 million!
When’s Forbort ready to go again?
Could the Canucks have used Suter as their second-line centre?
Is Boeser’s effort to score the kind of timely (and awesome) goals that ensure the Canucks pick up enough points to stick around the mushy middle in a solid draft year really worth it?
Tough to say!
In his semi-annual gasoline-pouring, sit-down interview with Sportsnet’s Imac, President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford expressed a feeling of reluctance—contempt, even—toward the idea of a rebuild, even if Hughes leaves. Given the latter statement, I pray that last year’s trade deadline tune has changed for this year. This organization can not face the potential reality of losing the best defenceman in hockey presently — the best in franchise history — with the attitude that the in-season days marked for opportunity to define a franchise forever are actually just another day in the office.
Otherwise, there is genuinely no hope that things are ever going to go the other way.
Anyway! On Thursday night, the Canucks played their best hockey of the season for a full 60 minutes against a dangerous opponent, crushed possession, dominated faceoffs, torched their opposing netminder with shot volume, and it didn’t matter!
In so many words: the Canucks got Canuck’d in the most Canuck-ian way imaginable.
Let’s get into it and see what it was like to watch a game where the shoe was on the other foot!
Starting Lineup
Blurst Start
You’ve got to feel for Kevin Lankinen.
After a road trip that saw him stand on his head repeatedly in two of three, getting absolutely throttled on the shot count, he comes home to a bizarro play in the opening minute where he picks up a secondary assist.
First, a routine board-and-out drops at Kiefer Sherwood’s feet, bounces off his skate and out to Justin Hryckowian, who cruises into the Canucks’ end on a two-on-one alongside Mavrik Bourke.
Hryckowian goes east-west to Bourke, whose initial shot is a muffin — an easy stop for Lankinen.
While trying to settle the puck, Lankinen shovels the puck through his five-hole and into open space. Marcus Pettersson reacts quickly enough, swatting the loose puck away from Hryckowian, denying him an easy tap-in opportunity on the follow-up.
Unfortunately, M.Pettersson’s denial effort was a little too strong, rebounding the puck off the backboard to a sprawled-out Hryckowian, who, unlike JT Miller, didn’t quit on the play, backhanding the puck out to Bourke for the easy tap-in.
1-0 Stars
Fun game: watch how many players slide on this sequence.
Nevertheless, the early and awkward goal set the tone for the opening frame. A battle of PDO-bender wills was afoot.
While I thought the Canucks did well controlling play after the opening goal, their work in the offensive zone left a lot to be desired. The  Jake DeBrusk, Aatu Räty, and Drew O’Connor trio spent a decent chunk of time winning battles along the Stars’ boards, just for their efforts to result in a point shot from M.Pettersson that sailed nowhere near Jake Oettinger’s net.
It was one-third of the Abby line who got the Canucks’ back in the PDO battle.
Picking off an errant pass inside the neutral zone, Linus Karlsson got the Canucks back in the game with a slick no-look wrister past the man they call Otter.
1-1 Tie
Karlsson’s goal registered as the Canucks’ first of the period, giving them an immaculate 100% shooting clip.
It was an especially slick sequence for Karlsson, considering he looked off Boeser the entire time cruising down the left wing. It was a devastating blow to my pre-game preamble write-up, which sorely needed a point from Rantanen or Boeser to seamlessly tie everything together.
Cool goal though!
Best “Good to be back doing that hockey!”
Look, I haven’t written a long-form Stanchies in ages, and it was a daunting prospect, shaking off the rust, in the middle of the week with a 15-month-old, whose bedtime routine lines up perfectly with game start time.
Sure enough, bedtime ran late, Sportsnet+ had lag issues, GIPHY refused to upload properly, and Jeff Paterson’s tweet was the first one I saw when I opened the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Truthfully, I’d never been more excited in my life to cover a rollercoaster. It’s been too long covering the dramatic highs and crushing lows of Canucks hockey. And the first period was exactly that!
A hysterical early goal against that saw the home goalie pick up an assist, a beautiful equalizer from a rookie winger still angling for consistent ice time, a tiebreaker goal from Jason Robertson that would be his ninth in his last five games, and a second equalizer for the home team from the oft-lamented $11.6-million-dollar first-line center.
This game.
Nay, this period had it all!
In the five minutes following Karlsson’s equalizer, the Canucks top line got to work against the Stars’ number-one defenceman and fourth line.
A nifty set play resulted in a point shot from Tom Willander, tipped wide by Elias Pettersson.
And that tip from EP40 gave way to the most atypical Evander Kane offensive zone giveaways you’ll ever get that killed the Canucks’ possession.
The Canucks’ kept rolling with the punches, with O’Connor sending Räty into the zone alongside DeBrusk for a shot off Oettinger’s shoulder and off the glass.
Unfortunately for Vancouver, the Dallas Stars of 2025-26 are just as talented as the Canucks are at compensating for porous defensive play with elite shooting.
Best Plea
After seven minutes of Vancouver controlling the run of shot attempts, the trio of Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin, and Jason Robertson capitalized for Dallas to regain the lead, with Robertson unleashing a vicious shot on Lankinen off a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it steal.
2-1 Stars
I’m not even certain Sherwood got his stick down on top of the puck; that’s how fast Robertson capitalized on the opportunity — the alternate camera angle hammers in how nasty this goal is.
Side note: if you’re blaming Lankinen here, you need to go outside and touch grass.
Past the midway point of the period, Boeser caught Filip Hronek jumping up into the neutral zone, sending him in for a shot on Oettinger with a brilliant cross-ice feed.
With seven minutes remaining in the first period, Linus Karlsson drew a slashing penalty against Sam Steel, giving Vancouver their first of many power play opportunities.
The Canucks’ red-hot power play made it a two-all game with a hard-nosed crash-bang play around the net off a drive from EP40.
2-2 Tie
DeBrusk was credited in-arena, but the NHL statskeepers had EP40 as the goalscorer on the equalizer well after.
After drawing a slashing penalty, Karlsson would then sit in the box after slashing Dallas’ Bourke while trying to negate the Stars’ breakout.
Incredibly, the league’s second-best power play would stand no chance against the league’s worst penalty kill.
Tyler Myers sent newcomer David Kämpf out of the zone for a shorthanded two-on-one with DeBrusk, after knocking the puck off Robertson along the boards.
The Stars weren’t completely without their looks. Rantanen nearly justified my preamble with a no-look pass to Robertson for a shot off the crossbar.
Best neutral take
I know it’s not a Canucks person, but a Dallas Stars fan from the United Kingdom proved to have the best take on everything that followed the first period.
The Canucks finished the middle frame having outshot their opponent 15-6, but Jake Oettinger was massive for Dallas when they needed him, much to Pete DeBoer’s chagrin.
Not often have we seen the Canucks dominate on the shot clock.
Setting the tone early was Kämpf drawing a tripping penalty against Esa Lindell that sent Vancouver to their second power play.
Truthfully, it should have been a 3-2 game within seconds of the Lindell penalty, had Sherwood not completely duffed a glorious scoring chance off a pass from EP40.
Sherwood had a chance to redeem himself, but Oettinger denied him with a slick poke-check on the doorstep.
Head Coach Adam Foote’s second unit was given 20 seconds to work, punctuated by a shot into the breadbasket by Evander Kane.
Less than two minutes after the expiry of Lindell’s penalty, Max Sasson drew a slash against Rantanen that sent Vancouver back to the man advantage almost immediately.
Forty seconds into the man advantage, Captain Hughes drew an interference penalty against Bourque, gifting Vancouver an extender 5-on-3 power play opportunity. To give Vancouver the best chance to convert, Foote rolled out his first power play group, minus Sherwood, who was swapped out for Evander Kane.
DeBrusk nearly broke the stalemate off a cross-crease pass from Boeser, only for Oettinger to make his best save of the night with an unreal lightning-quick pad save.
With time expiring on the two-man advantage, Hughes responded to a shorthanded drive from Rantanen, racing through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone, setting up DeBrusk for a chance.
Credit to DeBrusk on this quick-up play at the end of a long shift. Despite Hughes’ pass being out of his initial reach, DeBrusk deflects the puck into the air and bats the puck on Oettinger mid-air.
The remainder of the period was punctuated by missed opportunities, as if not converting on an extended 5-on-3 wasn’t already a colossal missed opportunity.
First, Räty failed to capitalize on a sloppy line change from Dallas, firing the puck wide off a quick passing play from Conor Garland and Kane.
The Stars then had their first missed opportunity of the period, failing to move the puck over the goal line despite ample opportunity.
In a rare moment where the Canucks’ opponent warranted the dreaded Sportsnet Shift Time graphic, Boeser capitalized on a redirected dump-in from Garland for a breakaway shot on Oettinger.
The choppy GIPHY graphics don’t do enough justice to the Canucks’ work in the second period. With four minutes left in the frame, Oettinger made an absolutely ridiculous glove save that denied EP40 a surefire empty net goal.
Not long after, Lankinen went tit-for-tat with Oettinger, getting his neck behind a one-timer blast by Vlad Kolyachonok from just 12 feet away.
The above sequence was one of the few times when the Canucks’ in-zone coverage broke down. You can see Elias Pettersson (D) float off the wall, and Linus Karlsson gets stuck in no man’s land, spinning to find who he should be marking. Otherwise, it was a fairly clean period for Vancouver in terms of their man-on-man coverage.
Worst way to lose
Early into the final frame, the Canucks were off to a fourth consecutive power play.
Midway through, a failed clearance from Lindell ended up on the tape of Boeser, who set EP40 up with a pass that gets converted on 99 times out of 100 for a normal team.
Oettinger had other plans.
I don’t know if he borrowed a time machine ahead of time and knew what was coming, but Oettinger’s reaction time from the second period onward was something to behold. The guy was on a heater; immaculate reaction time and positioning to deny the Canucks’ best shooters over, and over, and over, and over again.
When they weren’t peppering Oettinger with five-alarm chances, the Canucks were ripping howitzers wide of the net altogether.
Best save
Around the seven-minute mark of the final frame, a period that to that point had been solely controlled by the Canucks, the Stars found a seam, and tilted momentum in their direction off of it; long enough to swing the game in their favour.
For the second time in the night, Lankinen lost control of the puck within his pads. Unlike the first time, Hronek was there to stop the empty net tap-in.
Not just a tap-in from anyone, either, but a tap-in opportunity from the guy who was a foot away from scoring his 10th in five games!
While facetious, I don’t think Hronek’s efforts this season should go unnoticed, especially with Hughes’ defensive form still coming to grips.
The Canucks have outscored their opposition 19-10 with Hronek on the ice at 5-on-5.
I mean, just look at the timing on this denial!
Sure, they gave up the lead a few minutes later, but that wasn’t on Hronek! He played his part, and he has played his part as the team’s #1 right-shot guy very well this season.
Following Hronek’s save, Kyle Capobianco drew a holding penalty against Drew O’Connor, breaking the Canucks’ run of power play opportunities.
The Canucks’ PK was physical and aggressive against the Stars, with M.Pettersson laying out Rantanen twice to deny the league’s second-best power play from setting up.
Hronek took a spin with Elias Pettersson to help Vancouver’s PK shut out the Stars’ power play…but at a great cost.
Best Jinx
JPat’s jinx confirmed a rollercoaster first period, but denied fans of another box score throwback to the 80s.
The second I saw Halford’s tweet, I knew with certainty that the Canucks were going to lose this one in regulation.
The Canucks torched the Stars in the faceoff dot, dominated possession, shots and shot attempts, drew more penalties, and threw more hits. Yet, their best performance of the season boiled down to their star defenceman making an uncharacteristically dangerous pinch as the last man back, while compensating for the equally egregious pinch by his rookie d-partner, Tom Willander, who was only skating with Hughes because Hronek had just finished a tour on the Canucks’ PK.
The compounding mistakes gave way to a glorious breakaway for Dallas’ Colin Blackwell, who regained the Stars’ lead for the third time.
3-2 Stars
Following Blackwell’s goal, the air had completely come out of the building. Off a stolen goal and a failed power play, the Stars had found their legs, outshooting Vancouver 8-2 before coasting back on their lead.
Nastiest Full Circle Moment
Thoroughly out of the driver’s seat and desperate for an equalizer, Foote attempted to pull Lankinen for the extra attacker.
First, Kane flubbed a dump-in that forced a regroup from the D-zone that sent Lankinen back into his net.
Next, Miro Heiskanen easily poked the puck off Kane’s stick after catching the veteran forward sleeping on his drive down the left wing. The steal blew the zone for Vancouver, and gifted Dallas’ Jamie Benn and Rantanen a freebie two-on-one against Boeser going the other way as the rest of Canucks could only watch.
What came next was just an absolutely filthy spinning backhand goal from Rantanen.
It was the kind of spinning goal that you only see from the kind of game-breaking talents that you find at the top end of the draft, the trade deadline, or from Mason Raymond.
4-2 Stars
Boeser’s with Rantanen the entire way on the retreat, too! He creates just enough space with the dip and spin to uncork a vicious backhander under Lankinen’s left arm — nasty, nasty stuff.
Worst “Is that good?”
No.
This stat does not seem good.
Best “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
Let’s be real.
Even if the Canucks won the first overall pick in the draft, the player they select is cursed to not live up to the absurdly high standard set by recent first overall picks, Matthew Schaefer, Macklin Celebrini, and Conor Bedard.
Maybe I’m being overdramatic, but that just feels like how things are destined to go.
Best Remembering Some Guys
I’m sorry if you’re upset that I didn’t spend enough time talking about David Kämpf and his performance on D-zone faceoffs.
I just can’t be bothered to care about someone who’s closer to being on the list like Drance’s above than a difference-maker for Vancouver this season and beyond.

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