The Vancouver Canucks are going to finish in last-place in the NHL this season. That’s pretty much a given at this point.
But the Canucks could have made it absolutely certain.
At 50 points and with nine games remaining in the season, the maximum points the Canucks could reach by winning out was 68 points. The next-worst team in the standings, the Chicago Blackhawks, were already at 68 points. Technically, the Canucks could have finished ahead of the Blackhawks with the tiebreaker if they won out and the Blackhawks lost all of their remaining games.
That meant a loss of any kind would have clinched last place with a loss of any kind on Wednesday night.
And they were facing the best team in the NHL: the Colorado Avalanche, an absolute powerhouse of a team with more than twice as many points as the Canucks at 108 points.
Obviously, the Canucks were going to lose, right?
The dominant Avalanche facing the hapless Canucks felt like the ultimate hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby matchup, but the Canucks coughed their way to one of their best performances of the season.
The Canucks piled up eight goals on the Avalanche. Eight! That’s the first time all season that the Avalanche have given up eight goals. And they gave up eight goals to the Canucks. The Canucks!
It wasn’t just the goals, either. Through two periods, the Canucks controlled the game, outpossessing and outshooting the Avalanche, while repeatedly creating odd-man rushes to keep the Avalanche on their heels.
Yes, the Avalanche stormed back in the third period, completing a four-goal comeback to tie the game. That’s to be expected. They are, after all, the Colorado Avalanche, and the Canucks are the Vancouver Canucks.
But the Canucks didn’t break, responding to the tying goal just 23 seconds later to go ahead for good.
You have to wonder how the Avalanche feel about not just losing to the worst team in the league, but giving up eight goals to the worst team in the league.
That’s the kind of thing that makes you ask questions of yourself: Is our goaltending good enough? Are we good enough? Do we deserve our success? Are we fraudulent?
The Canucks just might have shattered Colorado’s confidence when I watched this game.
Honestly, the Avalanche will probably be just fine. Weird things happen in hockey; you have to be able to roll with the punches.
The nice thing is, the Canucks have built up such an anti-lead in the race for last-place that every Canucks fan — even the ones fully committed to Team Tank — could enjoy this win. This was just good, clean fun.
Okay, there were 14 goals in this game, so let’s get cracking.
Max Sasson came into the lineup for Evander Kane after the latter played his 1000th career game on Monday. Sasson immediately raised the question of why he hasn’t been in the lineup ahead of Kane all along by scoring one goal, assisting on another, and drawing a penalty that led to a third goal.
Sasson opened the scoring 29 seconds into the game on a stretch pass gone awry. Filip Hronek attempted a long bank pass off the end boards to the speedy Sasson, but the pass was deflected by defenceman Josh Manson. Fortunately, the puck deflected right to Sasson, so it worked out perfectly. Sasson moved in alone and slipped the puck five-hole on MacKenzie Blackwood — the start of an extremely rough night for the goaltender. Like, 24-grit sandpaper rough.
“Hroney made a good play,” said Sasson. “We’ve been working on that for a while, just trying to rip it in [off the] end wall, then it ends up hitting a stick, and I get a breakaway.”
Nathan MacKinnon responded about a minute later with a brilliant solo effort for his 50th goal of the season. MacKinnon snapped Hronek’s ankles like a rubber band, then cut into the high slot to rip a shot under Liam Öhgren’s stick and past Kevin Lankinen’s blocker.
The Avalanche then got a power play, which seemed like a prime opportunity for them to take the lead and never look back. Instead, Öhgren forced the puck out and sped away for a shorthanded 2-on-1 with Teddy Blueger. Öhgren faked a shot to entice Sam Malinski into his shooting lane, then slipped a sweet pass over to Blueger for an open net. It was the most believable fake since “Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus.”
After an even-strength goal and a shorthanded goal, the Canucks had to add a power play goal. Brock Boeser made a nice pass to Marco Rossi under pressure to keep the puck in at the blue line, leading to a hard centring pass by Elias Pettersson that banked into the net off Jake DeBrusk’s leg, which was in the right place at the right time, which is about 90 per cent of goalscoring ability.
Once again, I have to marvel at the fact that, in a season this terrible, Jake DeBrusk is in the top ten in power play goals in the NHL. It’s shocking that any Canuck is in the top ten of any statistic, let alone one that involves scoring goals.
A few minutes later, the Avalanche responded again to make it a one-goal game going into the intermission. Brent Burns, playing in his 999th game in a row — yes, 999 in a row, not 999 total — threw a puck towards the net, and Gabriel Landeskog tipped it in.
I would say that the second period has been the Achilles heel of the Canucks this season, but that would imply that the rest of the Canucks’ game has been invincible. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an idiom for “chief weakness among a host of weaknesses.” In any case, that’s why it was such a pleasant surprise to see the Canucks score three-straight goals in the second period to take a seemingly insurmountable lead.
Unfortunately, the Avalanche subsequently surmounted said lead, as if “insurmountable” was like the word “inflammable,” and meant the exact same as the word of which it appeared to be an antonym.
After a shot block by Marcus Pettersson, Sasson took off for a 2-on-1 with Blueger, sending Blueger in alone after drawing Brett Kulak out of position. Blueger opened up his stick for the briefest of moments as if he was about to shoot, which was enough to get Blackwood off balance for a nifty deke to the five-hole.
After seeing Blueger score two goals, Boeser probably said, “Hey, I’m the Canuck whose last name starts with a ‘B’ and ends in ‘e-r’ who’s supposed to score goals, not you!” and woke up, scoring a hat trick to reach 21 goals on the season, ensuring that this wouldn’t be the first ever full Canucks season without a 20-goal scorer.
Marco Rossi muscled the puck into the offensive zone and fed Tom Willander, who caught the Avalanche off-guard by jumping up into the play. Willander sold the shot so hard that he seemed to fool even his own body, as he nearly fell over when he sent a surprise backdoor pass to Boeser for a wide-open net to make it 6-2.
“Honestly, I didn’t feel great for the first half of the game,” said Boeser. “And then Tom made a great play there — Marco and Tom.”
“The first half of the game, [Boeser] was moping about how nothing was going his way,” said Teddy Blueger to Olivia McDonald. “It was nice to see that he was able to turn it around, and hopefully he’ll be in a good mood tonight.”
The gift from Willander seemed to reignite Boeser’s confidence, as he added another goal with a fantastic solo effort. Boeser cut diagonally across the blue line behind Rossi, opening up a gap between himself and the Avalanche defenders. That gave him room to really lean into a wrist shot, wiring it short side off the post and in past a stunned Blackwood.
The sixth Canucks goal chased Blackwood from the game, replaced by his Wario, Scott Wedgewood.
The goalie switch seemed to light a fire under the Avalanche, which is a good way to get a flash flood. 22 seconds after Boeser’s goal, Malinski sent a shot through traffic that deflected in off Zeev Buium to cut the Canucks’ lead to 6-3. Only, it sure looked like Parker Kelly made contact with Lankinen in the crease prior to the goal.
The Canucks challenged the goal for goaltender interference, and it was legitimately surprising when it was ruled a good goal. Typically, when contact is made in the crease, a goalie interference call is nearly automatic.
“The foot hit in the crease,” said Adam Foote. “Then the blocker was hit. Now, they’re saying they just didn’t call it because the blocker wasn’t hit in the crease, which I don’t understand how that makes sense when the guy’s foot is in the crease. If they’re going to start doing that, where the blocker’s outside of the crease but his body’s in the crease, it’s one body for me. I guess we learned the lesson the hard way, they’re not going to change the calls on these refs.”
Given their opponent, the Canucks’ three-goal lead didn’t seem the least bit safe. Sure enough, Kelly scored 14 seconds into the third period to reduce the lead to two. Kelly got by Buium in the neutral zone, then beat Lankinen on the short side.
The Canucks settled down and held the lead for another 13 minutes until the Avalanche scored twice in 37 seconds. Burns beat Lankinen through a screen from the point to make it 6-5. Then Elias Pettersson (D) cleared a rebound right on to the stick of Malinski, then exacerbated the issue by screening Lankinen on the shot to tie the game 6-6.
At that point, there was no doubt in my mind that the Avalanche were going to win the game. The Canucks, however, were like Sister Aloysius: they had such doubts.
“I remember Fil was yelling, ‘We’re fine, we’re fine!’” said Sasson. “When you see a guy like that say that, who’s been through a lot in this league…Boes comes out the next shift, and OC too, they battled their butts off. And The Dragon gets a big one.”
“The Dragon” is Marcus Pettersson — a nickname that dates back to his middle school PE teacher — and he scored just 23 seconds later. Boeser won the puck below the goal line with some help from Rossi and Drew O’Connor, then sent a saucer pass right into the path of Pettersson, who stepped into the shot like Wallace into a pair of pants. The puck took a helpful deflection off Chris Drury’s skate and skittered past Wedgewood for the 7-6 lead.
You better believe that goal sucked allllll of the air out of Ball Arena, which is easier than you might expect since it’s at such a high altitude and the air is thinner.
The Avalanche pushed hard to tie the game again, particularly Nathan MacKinnon, who went into hero-ball mode, seemingly trying to take on every Canuck 1-on-1. Like in the gold-medal game, however, MacKinnon couldn’t come through with a goal at crunch time.
Boeser sealed the game with a hat trick goal into the empty net. Marcus Pettersson blocked one more of MacKinnon’s solo efforts, and the puck came to Boeser at the side boards in the defensive zone. He nailed the net from distance with casual ease to make it 8-6 and end any hope of an Avalanche comeback.
I have to be honest, it felt weird to watch the Canucks win a game. It’s been a while. Feels pretty good. They should try to do that slightly more often next season.
It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that this game happened on April 1st. It’s like the entire season was a lead-up to this punch line. Cool prank, guys.
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