2: Doubling up the Blackhawks
In opening up the 2018/19 season with two goals in the team’s first four games, it was really beginning to look like the beginning of a new era for Virtanen. Cue an eight-game scoreless streak, before Jake potted his third goal of the season against the Minnesota Wild on October 29th.
Jake clearly liked the taste of that, as he went on to have one of his best games as a Vancouver Canuck, leading the Canucks to a 4-2 home win over our old rivals the Chicago Blackhawks. He twice levelled the game for the Canucks; the first was a sheer beauty, with the Blackhawks misplacing the puck and Jake picking the loose puck up in the neutral zone before streaking in to put it past Corey Crawford.
His second came from a curious combination – assists for Erik Gudbranson and Markus Granlund – and saw Jake put the finish on a nice play from Granlund, having taken a long pass from Gudbranson and swivelled past his man at the Blackhawks’ blue line before playing the puck wide to Jake. The look on Jake’s face when that second goal went in was so exciting to see – he knew what that meant, both to him and to Canucks fans.