Game Recap: Canucks Get Revenge, Defeat Kraken 5-1
By Tyson Cole
The Canucks get their revenge on the road, disrupting the Kraken’s three-game winning streak against them. The Canucks lit the lamp first and never looked back, scoring five goals en route to a 5-1 victory. Although it wasn’t your usual suspects finding twine tonight, as four of their five goals were from bottom six players.
My favourite line over the last few games has been the Joshua-Blueger-Garland line, and they all finally found the score sheet. While they played well, the newly put-together Beauvillier-Miller-Boeser line was the one that caught my attention tonight. Beauvillier didn’t look out of place, making impacts throughout the game offensively and defensively.
First Period
The Canucks came out the gate hot with a nice pass from the aforementioned, Beauvillier to Boeser in the first minute of the game. They continued to put the pressure on until Hoglander received a holding penalty three minutes into the game. That didn’t seem to slow down the Canucks. Dakota Joshua was sprung on a shorthanded breakaway but got stopped by Daccord. Not even a minute later, Blueger got the same opportunity and capitalized on it, registering his first goal as a Canuck.
I guess Miller thought this was the only way their team could score, as he followed in Hoglander’s footsteps and took another penalty in the offensive zone. Except it was Beniers finding the back of the net on a wrist shot from the top of the circle on the Kraken’s first shot of the game. Thankfully for Miller, his goal was overturned due to an offside. The penalties didn’t stop coming for Rick Tocchet’s squad, as Tyler Myers took a four-minute high-sticking penalty. The Canucks managed to kill the penalty, but it drained all of the team’s momentum for the rest of the period.
Second Period
The second period started with constant pressure from the Kraken, forcing Demko to stand on his head. Demko made eight straight saves to start the period before J.T. registered the first Canucks shot nearly eight minutes into the period on a give-and-go with Boeser. From here, Vancouver found their game again. After a long shift in the defensive zone, Joshua charges the offensive zone while the rest of his linemates change. The power forward uses his big frame to protect the puck behind the net, finding Garland in the slot. Garland doesn’t get all of it as he sends a soft shot on goal, where Joshua continues to follow the place, grabbing the Garland rebound and scoring his third goal on the season.
Boeser seemingly had unlimited scoring chances tonight. He had two first-period high-danger scoring chances, but this time, he flipped a high pass to Mikheyev, sending him one-on-one with the Kraken goaltender. Kartye got in on the scoring after Mikheyev sent the back right up the middle in a failed attempt to clear the zone. J.T. Miller put his body on the line tonight as he went down and took a Jamie Oleksiak slap shot to the stomach area. Ensuring the Canuck head into the third period with their 2-1 lead intact.
Third Period
The third started extremely defensively, with both teams getting in the way of every puck they could. Both teams amounted to eight blocked shots, and none more scary for a Vancouver Canucks fan than when JT Miller took an Oliver Bjorkstrand shot off the knee. Eventually, we saw a breakthrough come from the stick of Sam Lafferty. The new top liner tips home a Filip Hronek slap shot for the insurance marker. Hoglander continued to stay hot, finding the back of the net for his fourth goal in the last five games. Hoglander is managing to do all this while playing fourth-line minutes, only averaging 10:43 minutes of ice time. The final goal was scored in garbage time by Mikheyev, getting our hopes up for a backdoor cover, but it was for not.
Takeaways:
Although I don’t see Kuzmenko sitting more than one game, if there’s ever another opening on the top line, I’d like to see Hoglander get a shot with Pettersson. The two Swedes are best friends off the ice and feel their off-ice chemistry could translate to some on-ice chemistry. The winger has shown he can be dynamic in creating his own offensive scoring chances in minimal minutes. His tiny frame doesn’t stop him from getting in the dirty areas and being a puck retriever to help generate offence. He made his presence known early, landing a big hit on Brandon Tanev in the first period. Unfortunately for the goal scorer, it may be too big of a tall task for him to move up the lineup with Kuzmenko returning and how well the second and third lines have been playing together.
We may be down a defenceman heading into the Sharks game. Tyler Myers laid a high hit on Oliver Bjorkstrand, leading to a trip down the tunnel for the Kraken sniper. It certainly doesn’t look like there was any intent to injure, but Myers has the disadvantage of being so tall that his shoulder is the same height as most players’ heads. There was no call on the play, so we hope for the best, but we may be setting Akito Hirose or freshly called up Cole McWard sooner than anticipated.
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We follow up our Canucks/Avalanche sweep with a 1-2 record. Conor Garland gets two points, assisting on Joshua and Mikheyev’s goals. The total when these two teams have played has been an auto-bet for me until it failed. Unfortunately, due to the Beniers overturned goal, we lost the total by one. While I was very impressed with Beauvillier’s game tonight, he was more of a passer than a shooter, finishing with zero shots on goal.
1-2 -1.37 units.