At long last, the Vancouver Canucks did it. They finally won a game! Not without theatrics, the Canucks' 3-2 overtime win over the Florida Panthers on Thursday night gives Vancouver a tally in the win column for the first time in the 2024-25 season.
And... breathe. It is not time to panic just yet, especially with a number of Canucks still struggling to get going and a handful of others still away from the team. Dakota Joshua, an important piece of the team's bottom-six, is still recovering from his battle with testicular cancer. It will not be long before he returns to the team, and All-Star Thatcher Demko is reportedly slated to return not long after.
Of course, earlier on Thursday morning, veteran defenseman Derek Forbort left the Canucks for "personal reasons", according to Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin, which further depletes a Vancouver defense group that already severely lacks depth and, frankly, talent beyond the top pair of captain Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek.
The Canucks will need to and have been filling the absences of Forbort, Joshua, and Demko by committee, and the battle of attrition is what separates good teams from the great.
After being called up from Abbotsford, Erik Brannstrom played only 11:51 against Florida, and his partner, Vincent Desharnais, was not utilized all that much more with 12:21 of ice time. But for Rick Tocchet and the Canucks, that was good enough to earn a win.
Superstar forward Elias Pettersson went without a point in the 3-2 win, but Hughes, Teddy Blueger, and J.T. Miller picked up the slack, as they have been doing. This time, it was good enough to earn a win.
Required reading: Considering the psychological reasoning for Elias Pettersson's ongoing struggles
Tocchet and the Canucks will undoubtedly need to figure out how and why Pettersson is struggling at the degree to which he is, but that will be a problem for another day.
Another important development was the performance of Kevin Lankinen in goal for the Canucks; the top free agent goalie signing made 26 saves on 28 shots, which earned him a .929 save percentage on the evening.
With Arturs Silovs off to a morbid start to the 2024-25 season, it would not be a surprise to see that Lankinen has earned the greater share of time in the crease going forward, pending Demko's return.
Lankinen is 1-0-1 in his two starts this season but boasts a world-class GAA of 1.89 and an equally strong .932 save percentage. Those numbers might not be sustainable over the course of a full season, but the Canucks are betting on a regression to the mean from other players struggling to account for Lankinen coming back to earth.