The Vancouver Canucks are off to a perfect start to their 2024 preseason campaign after defeating the visiting Seattle Kraken, 3-1, at Rogers Arena on Tuesday night.
Forwards Nils Hoglander and Pius Suter and defenseman Filip Hronek scored the three goals that propelled the Canucks to victory, and their efforts were buoyed by goalie Arturs Silovs, who was near-perfect and stopped 18 of 19 shots sent his way.
Hoglander opened the scoring late in the first period, cleaning up in front of the net to finish off a beautiful power play passing move that started with Aatu Raty and Linus Karlsson.
The Canucks repeated their late-period power play success again in the middle stanza when Filip Hronek cashed in on the man advantage once again, blasting a one-timer home through traffic on the setup from Brock Boeser and Jonathan Lekkerimaki.
After youngster Vilmer Alriksson and scrapper John Hayden dropped the gloves for a fight in the first period, tempers flared again at the end of the second period when Kraken defenseman Will Borgen went at Canucks forward Conor Garland well after the horn.
Hoglander and defenseman Tyler Myers came to Garland's aid almost immediately to remind Borgen whose house he was in.
The Kraken pulled one back on the first shift of the third period through center Ben Meyers, though that was about as much offense as the visitors mustered in this one. Mark Friedman and Brandon Tanev dropped the gloves midway through the final frame for the contest's third fight, and Pius Suter would later put the game out of reach with his empty-net goal with under two minutes to go.
Lekkerimaki and Boeser picked up their second assist of the evening on Suter's exclamation point tally, which is particularly encouraging for Lekkerimaki. The 20-year-old has yet to play a full season in North America and is fighting hard for an NHL spot, which means only good things for the Canucks' future.
The Canucks will be back in action at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night when they face the Calgary Flames in Abbotsford, B.C.