VANCOUVER — There are a few pressure points every season when a team’s mettle and buy-in are truly tested. Games where there needs to be a legitimate response and pushback.
After being embarrassed 5-1 by the Boston Bruins on Saturday night — one of several lacklustre showings at Rogers Arena this season — the Vancouver Canucks had to show up with a strong effort against the Colorado Avalanche. They needed it for the sake of their home fans. They needed it for the sake of Thatcher Demko, who was completely left out to dry during his first two starts since his return from injury.
The Canucks delivered exactly the type of performance that should quiet the noise in this market. Vancouver came out flying in the first period to pick up a lead, the team put in a gritty defensive showing, Demko was sharp and Kiefer Sherwood cemented himself as a cult hero in this market with a hat trick.
Here are three takeaways from the club’s impressive 3-1 victory over the Avalanche:
A flying start
Maybe more 7:30 p.m. starts are what the Canucks need because they finally started a home game on time. Rick Tocchet’s team looked focused, connected and was skating with a purpose from the moment the very first puck drop.
J.T. Miller beat Nathan MacKinnon wide and drove the net with authority on the first shift of the game, nearly giving the Canucks an immediate lead. Elias Pettersson’s line followed it up with a heavy, high work rate forechecking shift. They were on the front foot right away, cycled the puck around and Pettersson got a quality tip chance from the high slot. On his next shift, Pettersson rang a shot off the post.
It took the Canucks nearly two full periods to stack a sequence of shifts like that on Saturday against Boston.
The Canucks’ penalty kill was rock-solid when Erik Brännström’s delay of game penalty put Colorado’s lethal power play to work. They broke up a MacKinnon entry at the blue line, Conor Garland burned time off the clock by using his elusive edge work to play keep-away and when the Avs did eventually get set up, they had great stick positioning to break up cross-seam pass attempts.
Overall, it was one of the Canucks’ best defensive periods on home ice. Vancouver controlled 90 percent of five-on-five expected goals and surrendered practically no quality chances. The Avs had no time and space to wind up and fly through the neutral zone. They couldn’t create enough chaos on the forecheck and didn’t have enough sustained pressure to wear Vancouver down on the cycle.
It was a polished, workmanlike start that the coaching staff would be proud of.
Sherwood’s revenge game
A right-handed shooting forward with blazing speed and a rocket of a shot scoring multiple goals in an Avs/Canucks matchup? You can’t stop Nathan MacKinnon, Sherwood you can only hope to contain him.
Sherwood put the exclamation mark on Vancouver’s spirited first-period effort by opening the scoring. He started the whole sequence by protecting the puck in the offensive zone corner and drawing two defenders toward him. Sherwood’s relentless work protecting the puck led to Danton Heinen’s initial point-blank scoring chance and he pounced on the rebound.
🚨CANUCKS GOAL🚨
Kiefer Sherwood scores his 9th goal of the season! It’s 1-0 Vancouver!
🎥: Sportsnet | NHL#Canucks #GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/9G8DHWzFdB
— CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) December 17, 2024
Sherwood’s second goal? That was pure electricity. MacKinnon was weaving through the neutral zone on the power play, where he so often looks like an automatic zone entry machine. Sherwood cleanly picked off MacKinnon’s pass, turned on the jets to turn it into a clear-cut breakaway and roofed a perfect shot in the top corner. The Rogers Arena faithful serenaded him with “Kiefer Sherwood” chants.
Sherwood then iced the game with a brilliant defensive play while protecting the late 2-0 lead. He stripped Mikko Rantanen, one of the league’s best forwards at protecting the puck, of possession along the wall and fired the puck from long distance to complete the hat trick.
Who would have thought that Sherwood and Pius Suter would be tied for the Canucks’ five-on-five scoring lead with nine goals apiece at the 30-game mark? It’s not by a slim margin either as the next highest scoring Canucks, Quinn Hughes and Jake DeBrusk, have six goals each at five-on-five.
Big picture, the Canucks’ depth at forward hasn’t quite fired on all cylinders yet this season. But on paper, it has the potential to emerge as a weapon.
Sherwood is a massive bottom-six spark plug and Suter is a versatile Swiss Army Knife. Dakota Joshua, Nils Höglander, and to a lesser extent, Heinen also have the chance to be difference-makers in the bottom six if they can regain the form they showed last season. It was especially notable against the Avalanche, whose bottom six was a mishmash of spare parts beside Logan O’Connor: Joel Kiviranta, Parker Kelly, Tye Felhaber, Ivan Ivan and Chris Wagner.
Demko’s solid outing — MacKinnon denied
With a stable defensive environment in front of him, Demko was sharp and in control all night. His best work came in the first handful of minutes of the second period.
The Avs started the middle frame on the power play where Demko made a quality stop on Valeri Nichushkin. He denied MacKinnon a couple of shifts later on a Grade-A chance in the slot after a rare Hughes giveaway. Colorado stacked another couple of heavy shifts where Demko made some terrific point-blank saves. The 29-year-old’s positioning and ability to get square to shots was on point. He was tracking shots well through traffic.
Vancouver’s penalty kill played well in front of Demko, stymying the Avs’ star-studded top unit.
Noah Juulsen stood out as an unsung defensive hero. He played nearly eight minutes head-to-head against MacKinnon at five-on-five, in which Vancouver had a 3-2 edge in high-danger chances. Rantanen had a rush early in the third period where he sliced through the Canucks’ neutral zone structure and looped behind the goal. Demko overplayed it a bit and lost his net, but Juulsen collapsed down low to break up Rantanen’s play and save a potential goal.
It’s nearly impossible to completely stop MacKinnon — he still had four shots on goal and rang one off the crossbar on a third-period power play — but holding a superstar who had nine points in his last three games heading into Monday’s game pointless is a heck of a way to respond to Saturday’s humiliating loss to the Bruins.
(Photo of Kiefer Sherwood scoring a goal in the second period against Colorado: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
