Pettersson, Demko lead the way en route to massive 4-1 win vs. Dallas

The Vancouver Canucks are making their playoff push quite interesting these days.

After coming away with one point against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night, the team traveled to Texas, taking on Joe Pavelski and the Dallas Stars in a monumental Western Conference match-up on Saturday night.

Despite their mediocre homestand, the Canucks found a way to bounce back big in the first two games of their road trip, bringing them up to 71 points in 66 games. Unfortunately, Vancouver was still slightly behind Dallas, who held the second and final wild card spot with 75 points and three games in hand heading into Saturday night, making this contest even more critical for both sides.

The Canucks came out strong in the opening frame, registering three shots on Jake Oettinger in the first five minutes.

The momentum was short-lived, however, as the home team made sure to respond with pressure of their own right after. Dallas was able to create numerous scoring chances against their opponent for the remainder of the period, including what appeared to be the game’s opening goal from forward Thomas Harley but, like we’ve seen so often before, were stymied by Thatcher Demko, who turned away all 13 shots that he faced.

It wasn’t the prettiest effort from Vancouver in the first 20 minutes, but give credit to them for staying in the fight against Dallas, who came into the contest with a home record of 21-8-1.

This is also the third straight game that the Canucks didn’t surrender a goal in the first period, which is a great accomplishment given their current position in the standings, as well as their recent history of disastrous starts.

Dallas did pick up right where they left off in the second period, with Tyler Seguin breaking in on a 2-on-1 in the early moments, but the scoring chance was fortunately foiled thanks to a heads-up defensive play from newcomer Travis Dermott.

This seemed to spark the Canucks, who responded with two glorious opportunities from Conor Garland and Tanner Pearson, but the puck somehow managed to stay out of the net.

Unfortunately, the bad puck luck remained for the Canucks.

After Quinn Hughes sent a breakout pass to Alex Chiasson at their own blueline, the veteran forward ended up sending it back into his own end, negating any offside call for Dallas.

The Stars took advantage right away, with Jacob Peterson sending a backhander past Demko for the opening goal.

Fortunately, the Canucks didn’t let that phase them, making sure to respond with a few minutes of sustained pressure right afterwards. However, the best chance during that span still came from Stars’ forward Luke Glendening, who nearly doubled up the score after speeding past Oliver Ekman-Larsson but, similar to the first period, lost the battle to Demko.

Vancouver was able to turn the momentum back in their favour just moments after, thanks to a holding penalty from Jani Hakanpaa.

As expected, head coach Bruce Boudreau immediately went with his primary unit, who was able to quickly set up in Dallas’s zone. The puck ended up on the stick of Hughes, who teed up Elias Pettersson for an absolute bomb to tie the game at 1-1.

The two teams exchanged scoring chances for the remainder of the period, but eventually went into the second intermission at a deadlock, setting us up for an exciting third period.

Fortunately, Vancouver fans were able to get a taste of that excitement first.

After collecting the puck from his own zone, Pettersson was able to single-handedly carry it up the ice and into Dallas’s zone before wiring a lethal wrist shot past Oettinger to give Vancouver their first lead of the game.

The action picked up even more after the Pettersson goal (and 200th career point, by the way), with both teams once again exchanging scoring chances on separate powerplays, but Oettinger and Demko remained strong between the pipes.

Dallas ended up carrying most of the momentum in the latter half of the third period, eventually going back to the powerplay after drawing a hooking penalty from Brock Boeser.

Dallas continued to throw everything but the kitchen sink at Demko, desperately trying to send this game into overtime, but the 26-year-old had other ideas, turning aside shot after shot, including another save-of-the-year candidate on Esa Lindell.

The Canucks were finally able to reward Demko in the final minutes, with Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller sealing the deal to secure the much-needed two points for Vancouver.

With the win, Vancouver was able to leap frog over the Winnipeg Jets in the frantic wild card race, and now sit only three points back of Vegas with one game in hand.

Yes, it’s still a mathematical long shot for the Canucks to sneak into the playoffs, especially with Dallas’s more favourable schedule for the remainder of the season, but give kudos to Vancouver for finding ways to play meaningful games in March.

Now we’ll just have to wait and see if they can carry this momentum to the postseason.

The Canucks will wrap up their four-game road trip with a stop in St. Louis on Monday night. Puck drop is set for 4:30pm PST.

What are your thoughts from Saturday’s massive 4-1 win in Dallas? Let us know in the comments!