VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks weren’t sharp early Tuesday night, but they defended well, got incredible individual efforts from their star forwards and put together their most dominant 20 minutes of the season in a decisive second period that broke the game open.
By the end of the night, Vancouver looked comfortable sitting on a third-period lead and handily defeating a tired Calgary Flames team 3-1 in regulation.
It was a solid bounce-back performance for a Canucks team that has won four of its past five games in regulation, and, outside of one big loss against a tough opponent over the weekend, appears to be finding its team-level defensive game.
Here are three takeaways from Vancouver’s win Tuesday night.
Star centres dominate in bounce-back performance
Vancouver’s star centremen have been the focus of a fair bit of critical discussion in the Vancouver market during the first month of the season.
Elias Pettersson’s struggles have been pronounced and dissected at exhausting, repetitive length. It’s been apparent, meanwhile, that J.T. Miller is playing at far less than 100 percent after missing much of the preseason and sustaining an apparent upper-body injury early in the year that prevented him from taking faceoffs for a week in mid-October.
Go Petey, it’s your birthday. 🎉 pic.twitter.com/uuLOrbl7Qx
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 13, 2024
That Vancouver’s star-level centremen aren’t impacting Canucks games to quite the same extent they were last season was thrown into stark relief Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers. In a performance that Rick Tocchet suggested was Miller’s worst of the campaign, and in which the Canucks bench boss declined to praise Pettersson at length despite a multi-point effort, Edmonton’s “big boys” (to borrow a Tocchetism) overpowered the Canucks’ centres.
It was something of a reminder that the Canucks’ ceiling is capped, to some extent, if they’re as reliant on Quinn Hughes as they have been in the early portion of this season. If Vancouver is going to beat the toughest opponents the NHL has to offer in the spring, it’s going to need Pettersson and Miller to be at the sort of dominant level they managed early last season.
With that context in mind, it should be noted prominently that Miller and Pettersson were Vancouver’s best skaters Tuesday night. It was a massive bounce-back performance from Miller, and it was the first time in a while that Pettersson looked truly back.
Playing with a rookie winger making his NHL debut, it was Miller who took over Tuesday night’s game early in the second period with his passing and physicality. It was Pettersson, however, who broke the game open with the Canucks trailing 1-0 after the first period.
After Pettersson drew a high sticking penalty late in the first, Vancouver went to work on the power play. With some supreme vision, Miller found Pettersson alone in the blue paint behind Dan Vladar for a tap-in that levelled the score.
Then, Miller followed it up by leading the charge on a dominant, heavy shift and setting up Pius Suter as the versatile Canucks forward walked down main street unbothered by four Flames defenders while the Canucks executed a partial line change.
When Vancouver scored its third of the game and iced Tuesday night’s contest, it was Pettersson picking up another assist. The embattled Vancouver forward has points in consecutive games, the first time that’s happened since Pettersson stole the show as the club rolled through the New York area like the Harlem Globetrotters in January.
On Tuesday night, Vancouver’s star centremen performed like the elite players they’ve usually been over the past few seasons. They were the key reason why the Canucks were able to defeat the Flames so decisively on home ice.
With his parents in attendance, Lekkerimäki took the ice for the warmup skate ahead of his NHL debut with no bucket on his head and no teammates to skate with for his first several laps. Looking cool and composed, Lekkerimäki uncorked a couple of quick, signature wrist shots. Then, he brought that same level of cool, confident calmness into the game.
On his very first shift, Lekkerimäki looked just a touch hesitant while attempting to chase down Jonathan Huberdeau on a retrieval opportunity just inside the blue line on a shallow dump in. As play went the other way and got turned back up ice quickly, however, Lekkerimäki flashed solid offensive instincts, putting a move on Huberdeau in the neutral zone and following the play with a good drive down a central lane in the offensive zone. The sequence nearly resulted in a high-quality scoring opportunity for the rookie winger, but the pass arrived too late and he was in too deep to control it.
Jonathan Lekkerimäki with a slick neutral zone rush + OZ entry on his first shift #Canucks pic.twitter.com/KKGowq4tVE
— Harman Dayal (@harmandayal2) November 13, 2024
As the puck went behind the net, however, Lekkerimäki executed a nice little pivot move against the wall, which blunted the impact of a hit thrown by veteran Flames defender Rasmus Andersson and allowed Vancouver to retain possession. It was a sharp piece of attacking work all around for Lekkerimäki, filled with the sort of NHL-level details that made his debut performance a success.
Ultimately, Lekkerimäki played on the first power-play unit and didn’t look out of place in a high-leverage spot. He even had a quality chance from the bumper spot while playing with Vancouver’s big guns five-on-four.
At even-strength, Lekkerimäki was somewhat peripheral to the impact of Miller and Suter as a five-on-five play driver, but he didn’t inhibit the Miller line from completely dominating play, which is what you hope to see from an NHL debutante.
Unsurprisingly, Lekkerimäki’s minutes were cut as Vancouver held a narrow lead late in the third period, but overall Lekkerimäki showed very well in his first NHL game. He looked like he belonged. He did enough with the puck and away from it that it might be worth seeing what he can do once he’s had more reps and has settled into the pace and style of NHL-level hockey.
‘Ry-an Kes-ler!’
Ryan Kesler is one of the greatest forwards in Canucks franchise history.
He’s the only forward in franchise history to win the Selke Trophy, and his apex performances as a two-way monster in a Vancouver uniform — with some of his individual efforts in the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs standing out in particular — are among the highest peak-level performances we’ve seen from a Canucks forward, outside of the Hall of Fame level guys.
On Tuesday night, Kesler was in attendance at Rogers Arena. Shown multiple times on the giant video screen, Kesler chugged beers and egged on fans and the crowd chanted his name exuberantly “Ry-an Kes-ler! Ry-an Kes-ler!”
It was a special moment. It wasn’t long ago that Kesler was nervous about returning to Rogers Arena for the Sedin twins’ retirement festivities, given how complicated his relationship with Canucks fans became following his exit via trade.
The reception of Kesler and the chants were a sign that everyone has moved on. Kesler is finally remembered fondly by Canucks fans, as he should be.
Surely what comes next is the club finding a way to formally honour the surly former Canucks pivot. It’s long overdue.
(Photo of Elias Pettersson: Bob Frid / Imagn Images)
