Canucks: 3 takeaways from thrilling 3-2 OT win over Rangers

The Vancouver Canucks are finally back in the win column.

The team was riding a three-game losing streak heading into Rogers Arena on Tuesday night, and were desperate to find a way to climb out of the Pacific Division basement.

Vancouver hadn’t necessarily been playing badly at home this season, but their offence wasn’t doing them any favours. The Canucks had only scored four goals on the homestand so far, and were looking to turn the tide against Artemi Panarin and the New York Rangers.

The game didn’t necessarily get off to the best start, with the Canucks giving up some early scoring chances off of defensive miscues. Vancouver was able to regain their composure halfway through the opening frame, with Alex Chiasson and Justin Bailey applying pressure and drawing penalties near the end, but the team wasn’t able to capitalize on the man advantage, keeping the score deadlocked at zero heading into the first intermission.

The Canucks entered the second period with some powerplay time left on the clock, but the momentum quickly switched once the time ran down, thanks to a penalty from Tyler Myers. Unlike Vancouver, the Rangers were able to take advantage shortly after, with Panarin and Adam Fox teaming up for some nifty passing before setting up Mika Zibanejad for his second of the year.

Despite conceding the first goal of the game for the seventh time this season, the Canucks were still able to apply pressure against New York, particularly after being awarded three more powerplays. However, just like it was scripted at the beginning of the period, Vancouver continued to have troubles putting the puck in the back of the net on the man advantage.

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Clearly frustrated, the team ended up taking a too many men penalty of their own near the end of the middle frame. Once again, the Rangers capitalized right away, with Panarin registering his second point of the night.

All seemed to be lost for the Canucks heading into the third period, with some fans even littering the ice with scattered boos and groans of displeasure. Fortunately for those in attendance, and even for those watching at home, the Canucks didn’t roll over and give up in the final 20 minutes.

The team continued to put the foot on the gas pedal, managing to tie the game in the first six minutes of the third period with goals from J.T. Miller and Vasily Podkolzin.

The nerves definitely started to pile up in the latter half of the final frame, especially when New York was able to maintain consistent pressure in Vancouver’s own end, but the Canucks were eventually able to complete the comeback in overtime, thanks to Miller’s second goal of the game, as well as jaw-dropping heroics from Thatcher Demko.

Miller’s record now moves to 8-0-0 against his former club.

It definitely wasn’t the perfect game, but the Canucks managed to secure the two points in the end, and that’s all we can ask for at this point.

Without further adieu, here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s 3-2 OT win against the Rangers:

You get a powerplay, you get a powerplay, everyone gets a powerplay!

The referees definitely weren’t afraid to use their whistles on Tuesday night, but only one team managed to take advantage of the situation.

As has been the story for much of the season, Vancouver continued to have powerplay woes, especially when it came to their first unit. Head coach Travis Green decided to change up his formations heading into Tuesday night, finally promoting Brock Boeser back to the top squad, much to the delight of many fans and media.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t help.

Boeser replaced Chiasson on the top man advantage unit, but found himself parked in front of the net instead of on the flank to kick off the team’s opening powerplay on Tuesday night. Once again, the first unit was barely able to enter the offensive zone, let alone string together a handful of dangerous passes, forcing Green to turn to his secondary unit with over a minute left in the first penalty.

The first unit had a chance for redemption in the final minute of the first period, but once again came out flat and predictable. As a result, Green had to resort to the line blender, first giving Oliver Ekman-Larsson a chance to quarterback the primary unit at the beginning of the second period, while also bringing back Chiasson to establish a strong presence in front of Igor Shesterkin.

Chiasson wasn’t the reason that the primary unit continued to struggle, but it also doesn’t help the cause when you block slapshots from Elias Pettersson.

The Canucks ended up going 0-for-6 on the man advantage, bringing their season success rate to 15.8%, good for 24th in the league. At this point in the season, you can’t even blame Jason King or the coaching staff for the poor offensive output (or lack-there-of). Yes, they might need to really experiment with new unit combinations in order to achieve some some of cohesion and chemistry, but the onus is also very much on the star players to get their offensive acts together, and soon.

They also conceded two New York powerplay goals in exactly one minute, giving fans a glimpse into what a functional powerplay execution actually look like. The Canucks currently sit 28th in the league while down a man, and are becoming a feeding frenzy for their opponents.

The team is still without the services of a few key penalty killers, such as Brandon Sutter, Tyler Motte and even Matthew Highmore, but did get a boost with the return of Travis Hamonic and Jason Dickinson. Needless to say, however, all good clubs know how to adapt when injury strikes, and the Canucks are still searching for a way to get out of this PK slump.