By: Brayden Fengler / December 11, 2023
Game 26: December 5th vs. The New Jersey Devils
The first game of last week was the Hughes Bowl, or more appropriately, Hughesapalooza. This is the first of many matchups moving forward that featured all three Hughes brothers. All three brothers were drafted highly in their draft years, and all three have the chops to be among the best players in the NHL.
Surprisingly, at first puck drop, none of the three brothers were out to start the game, but they did get a nice family photo during warmups.
If that isn’t on this year’s Christmas card, I don’t know what would be.
The first goal of the game came at 3:40 into the first period from Jasper Bratt during an odd-man rush. Bratt faked the pass and beat Thatcher Demko for the game’s first goal.
On the power play, JT Miller tied the game. On the PK, a Devils player broke his stick, and Boeser, recognizing that, shot the puck on net. Miller, in front, was able to clean up the rebound to keep this game close…. for now.
The next goal of the game was scored shortly after when Erik Haula restored the Devils’ lead. But the goal was not the important bit here. Jack Hughes gets shoved off the puck and simply stops and waits. Why? Well because Tyler Myers is the the defender. Jack has an incredibly high hockey IQ and it shows here when he sees who his opponent is and simply stops and waits for Tyler Myers to do something really stupid. And sure enough, Tyler Myers simply gives Jack the puck, who rifles it off to Haula for the 2-1 goal.
Tyler, Tyler, Tyler…
The Canucks came within the narrowest of margins from tying the game back up when Pettersson and Kumenko could not get a bounce on a strong powerplay sequence late in the first.
With less than three minutes in the frame, Jack became the first Hughes Brother on the scoresheet with a 3-1 goal immediately following a faceoff. Mear seconds after Jack scored, the Devils scored again to make it 4-1. The Canucks had a five-minute collapse, allowing two quick goals against, and failing to capitalize on their power play chance. It would come back to haunt them.
Dakota Joshua scored to narrow the gap on the scoresheet heading into the intermission. With only 19.3 seconds left, Joshua makes a skilled play to collect a loose puck and tuck into the net behind Vanecek.
The second Hughes brother, Luke was the next to score on the 5-2 goal, sniping the glove side top corner to join Jack on the score sheet.
Brock Boeser scored his league-leading 18th of the year, matching his total from last year. Hoglander came crashing in on the forecheck and forced a turn over to JT Miller who immediately found Boeser open in the slot. Boeser put the puck on his backhand and roofed to bring the deficit to two goals.
Quinn Hughes completed the holy trinity of Hughes brothers’ goals when he- oh wait, nope. Sam Lafferty touched the puck. Nevermind. Anyways, the Canucks scored again to make the score 5-4. Quinn Hughes dances along the blueline to find just enough space to get the puck on the net. On its way to the net, the puck was deflected ever so slightly by Lafferty to bring the game to within a goal with 6:02 left on the clock.
The Canucks by some miracle tied the game with just shy of 3:30 remaining in the game when Quinn Hughes dances around the ice again letting a shot go from the boards. A big rebound came right to Nils who was in the right place and the right time and he was able to score after a strong period of play to tie the game at 5-5 from what was once a 4-1 lead for the Devils.
The heroics would come to a disappointing end, however. Bratt was being a brat when he scored with only 33 seconds left. That goal would be the nail in the coffin and end what was a true rollercoaster of a game. JT Miller was able to get one more good look on goal, but that was all she wrote. Everyone was quick to talk about the Canucks’ bad start, and that is fair, but it is important to remember the Canucks strong pushback to nearly force overtime. However, close isn’t good enough for this team anymore.
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Game 27: December 7th vs. The Minnesota Wild
With the pain of losing the Hughesbowl still fresh, the Canucks looked to put that loss behind them in their Thursday evening contest with the Minnesota Wild at Rogers arena.
Casey DeSmith was in net for the Canucks, and he was tested early and often during the first period. DeSmith faced 10 shots in the first three-quarters of the first period, all before Vancouver even registered their first shot of the night. Many of the shots that DeSmith was tasked with stopping came off of high-danger opportunities or continuous pressure, and rebound chances in front of the Canucks’ net. DeSmith denied multiple wrap-around chances in the first period alone, like this chance from Marcus Johansson.
Just under the seven-minute mark in the opening frame, Ilya Mikhheyev hastily unloaded a wrist shot off of a Canucks break-in which resulted in Vancouver’s first shot of the game.
A few more shots and respectable opportunities arose for the Canucks after Mikhheyev’s initial chance and with just three shots to the team’s name during the time of a Höglander break-in late in the frame, both Höglander and the Canucks got lucky. A somewhat unassuming wrist shot from the point found its way into the back of the Wild’s net off of Höglander’s stick and just like that – while being massively outshot – the Canucks were winning.
Thanks to an early Jon Merill elbowing call the Canucks went on the powerplay just a few minutes into the second period. Unfortunately for the Canucks though, their first power play chance of the night did not turn up any results, despite the strong possession and recovery skills that the team displayed during their powerplay.
Luckily, it didn’t take the Canucks 15 minutes into this period before the team registered their first shot; however, it did take them just under seven minutes before they reached the halfway mark to the Wild’s shot total. Vancouver’s seventh shot of the game came with over 13 minutes left to play, and by this time the Wild had already tallied 14 shot attempts.
Although the shot differential was a hard mountain for the Canucks to climb back up during the second period, just by observing the flow of the game it was clear to see that Vancouver was controlling the bulk of the high-danger opportunities as opposed to their play during the first period.
By the time the second period was wrapping up, the Canucks were decidedly controlling the bulk of the play, with the puck rarely leaving the Wild’s end. However, just as Minnesota could not catch a lucky bounce in the first period, the Canucks’ effort in the second went unrewarded.
The Canucks’ did not have to wait long into the third period to get the next goal though. Off the back of continued Canucks control in the Wild’s end, Noah Juulsen prevented the puck from leaving the zone, and from there, the puck found its way to Garland. Garland then somehow spotted a lonely Teddy Blueger in front of the net, at which point Blueger shamelessly undressed Filip Gustavsson with a nifty deke for the second goal of the game.
Neither team was ready to take their foot off the glass even after this early third-period goal. Brock Boeser earned himself a breakaway later in the final frame, which he nearly capitalized on, additionally, Minnesota continued to pepper DeSmith with pucks, racking their shot total to 20 with still 10 minutes left on the clock.
Sadly for Minnesota, they earned just six more chances to beat DeSmith before the final buzzer and all six failed. The Canucks were outshot by nine shots when all was said and done, but this was clearly one of those games where sometimes less is more.
Game 28: December 9th vs. The Carolina Hurricanes
The Canucks have been playing back-and-forth net zero hockey since their game against the Seattle Kraken on November 18th. Since that contest which ended in a loss for Vancouver, every proceeding game, all ten of them have ended with the opposite outcome than the game prior.
Coming off of their win over the Wild, the Canucks looked to finally string together their first back-to-back home wins since their consecutive Dallas and Edmonton victories early last month.
To start their contest against Carolina, the Canucks took a queue out of the Wild’s book from the night before and peppered shots on their opponent early without letting the Hurricanes develop many shot opportunities of their own. This paid off for the Canucks before the halfway mark of the first period when an Elias Pettersson shot found Sam Lafferty for the easy rebound.
The Canucks kept on the pressure for the remainder of the period, despite giving the Hurricanes two power-play chances late into the third period, both slashing calls on Horonek and Miller respectively. The Canucks could have easily been entering the second frame up by more than one. Andrei Kuzmenko could’ve easily aided in these efforts as well if he had capitalized on this shooting attempt in the slot instead of opting for a blind pass.
Carolina had more energy out of the gate in the second period. Their set-up and control when on the powerplay was impressive, and they had a chance to put this to work early in the second frame due to a too-many-men call served by Conor Garland.
However, the next goal of the game was not going to belong to the Canes. Off the back of a Canucks break-in, Elias Pettersson somehow sent a highspeed sharp angle pass right to Ilya Mikheyev in the slot that Mikheyev directed on a 90-degree angle into the back of the net.
Quickly after this, however, the Hurricanes broke through the Canucks defense, with Jordan Martinook making it look easy, sending a quick bobbling puck over the blocker of Thatcher Demko.
That Canucks did not let this stand for long though. Only minutes later, while the Canucks held even-strength possession in the Canes zone, JT Miller from two city blocks away came rushing into the play off the back of a line change and was greeted with a pass by Brock Boeser which he promptly lasered into the Hurricanes net.
Thanks to a Canucks penalty late in the period the Hurricanes got the last laugh of the frame as Brady Skjei capitalized off of a Dmitry Orlov pass in the dying minutes of the second period to bring his team back within one goal to start the final period of play.
By the time the third period rolled around the shot totals were starting to look a bit less lopsided with Carolina’s 15 shots on net only six behind Vancouver’s total of 21. The Canucks were still controlling the bulk of the play, but a window was opening for the Hurricanes.
Early into the third period, the Canes caught their first lucky break of the game as a Brent Burns shot from the point somehow defected up into the crossbar, and then sat gift-wrapped behind Demko in the blue paint without him noticing. Who did notice was Carolina’s Stefan Noesen, who quickly nudged in the stationary puck to tie the game.
The Hurricanes only got to enjoy this tie game for a short time. On the next Canucks possession, Elias Pettersson found himself behind the Canes net and pulled off what is now becoming a signature move of his. With a man on, Pettersson held off the attacker, lowered, and spun his body around to the front of the net, tucking away a wraparound as smooth as butter.
With this goal, the wind was firmly out of the Hurricanes sails. Although the Canucks gave them a few more quality chances than they likely should have, Vancouver’s offensive fire power and rock-solid goaltending once again delivered a victory.