The Vancouver Canucks have won three straight games heading into the NHL’s extended multi-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Given how this largely dysfunctional and deeply mediocre Canucks campaign has unfolded — Saturday’s 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in combination with Tuesday’s victory over the Colorado Avalanche shockingly represented the first set of back-to-back home wins for the Canucks all season — that’s astounding enough.
That the club has won all three games in the absence of their captain and most valuable player Quinn Hughes, makes it all the more remarkable. It’s something that the club can hang their hat on, perhaps when they return from the break and get into the stretch run of this season.
While the club enters the international break in fine form, in all likelihood, in the big picture, this campaign will, unfortunately, be primarily remembered for the failure of this core Canucks group to coexist and fit together on a durable contending team. Barring an unexpected and lengthy run deep into the playoffs, that’s locked in, already etched on the tablets of Canucks history.
That doesn’t mean that how the Canucks transition and perform in the post-J.T. Miller era doesn’t have resonance, both for the balance of this campaign and beyond.
There’s a wild-card race to win here and a foundation to set down the stretch, one that hopefully includes more efforts like what we saw on Saturday night, where Vancouver’s battle level, speed and competitive spirit — three elements of Vancouver’s team game that have been intermittent, at best, this season — permitted them to outplay and outlast the Maple Leafs on home ice.
Here are three takeaways from a fun night out at Rogers Arena on Saturday, as Vancouver took two points from the Maple Leafs to sweep the season series.
The Canucks are a bad matchup for the Maple Leafs
It’s wild that this Maple Leafs team, given the high octane and highly paid offensive talent at the top of their lineup, have constructed a group with so little juice. The truth is, however, that the Maple Leafs aren’t an especially fast team and generate very little off of the rush overall.
Toronto relies, instead, on playing a composed brand of possession-based hockey. They want to control games below the hash marks, challenging teams down low and working the puck into high-danger scoring areas with down-low passing plays from behind the opposition’s net.
Their stylistic preferences are a bad match for what the Canucks are good at, and it’s been evident in the two games these teams have contested so far this season.
Vancouver on Saturday looked well prepared for this matchup, which already played into their strengths. The Canucks’ defensive positioning in-zone was excellent, and while Toronto managed to stack up heavy shifts, they rarely were able to convert their offensive-zone possession into meaningful scoring chances at five-on-five. Meanwhile, the Canucks clearly saw something they could exploit in the Maple Leafs defensive zone coverage and hit the very same seam on consecutive offensive zone shifts, the first of which resulted in a lovely Filip Hronek goal off of a gorgeous pass from Elias Pettersson to give Vancouver the 1-0 lead.
As the game went on, and even as the Maple Leafs levelled the score late in the second period, Toronto’s inability to challenge Vancouver vertically with any consistency served as an edge for the Canucks. We’ve seen that teams with speed can flummox Vancouver, but the Maple Leafs aren’t the run-and-gun team they used to be. And on Saturday night, that hurt them.
Thatcher Demko leaves with apparent injury
Thatcher Demko appeared to tweak something in his lower body during warmups, and though he started Saturday night’s game — his third consecutive start — he left after 10 minutes and was ruled out for the rest of the evening. Kevin Lankinen stepped in and was solid, as he’s been all season, but Demko’s departure on Saturday has to be a concern for the hockey club.
Demko, who had stopped an incredible 100 of the last 105 shots he’d faced across four scintillating starts going into Saturday night’s game, has already had his return from an unprecedented knee tear interrupted by back spasms.
One hopes this is something routine, and not a re-aggravation. Demko can’t really afford another durability issue to crop up and impact his availability here — especially given that he becomes extension-eligible on July 1. And while the Canucks can rely on Lankinen, who has carried them for large sections of this season, the ceiling case for this hockey club requires Demko to be in peak form, and over the past week, it had looked like he was rounding into form and approaching that level.
Hopefully, Saturday’s departure is an inconsequential scare, or something minor that Demko can attend to during this two-week international break, as opposed to something that might hamper Demko’s progress and availability down the stretch.
Elias Pettersson enters the break on a high note
It’s been a while, but Canucks centre Elias Pettersson had a meaningful jump on Saturday night. His defensive play was excellent, he logged first-line minutes and had a throwback shift — with reverse hits and multiple puck battles won in sequence — to create Vancouver’s first goal with a stunning cross-seam feed to Hronek.
Pettersson finds Hronek to put the Canucks on the board first! 🐳 pic.twitter.com/gdgglzozll
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 9, 2025
This is closer to the version of Pettersson that the Canucks require, and it’s a reminder too of how good Vancouver’s top-line centre can be when he’s on his game. It’s been a while since we’ve seen it consistently, but we saw a real glimpse of it on Saturday night.
(Photo: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
