Now that looked like Vancouver Canucks hockey.
Short-handed, harshly penalized and coming off of back-to-back regulation losses, the Canucks arrived in Ottawa to face Travis Green and the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night looking like a struggling team at the base of an uphill climb on this upcoming six-game road trip.
By the end of the night, even if they permitted the Senators to make it more interesting than it should’ve been at the end, the Canucks looked more like the well-drilled, sharp and opportunistic team that won the Pacific Division last season and advanced to within a game of the Western Conference final.
Internally of late, the Canucks have harboured some latent concern about their club’s focus level game-to-game. The defensive gaps and the slow starts have been too frequent, and there’s been a feeling that the club hasn’t played “the right way” by their own internal standard frequently enough this season, something that was punctuated by the club’s run of flat performances on their recent disappointing six-game homestand (although the loss to the New York Rangers, internally, was seen as evidence of some progress).
On Saturday night the Canucks started well, won far more than their fair share of 50/50 battles all evening, overcame some of the harsh breaks of the game and ultimately flummoxed the Senators in a decisive 4-3 road victory that was more convincing than the score line indicates.
Here are three takeaways from a big Canucks victory to set a positive tone for the opening of this six-game road trip.
1. The harsh Quinn Hughes ejection
Down a trio of star performers already, Quinn Hughes, the Canucks’ captain, compounded his team’s short-handed status by earning a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct for a hit from behind on Senators forward Josh Norris.
Josh Norris heads down the tunnel after receiving a check on the numbers from Quinn Hughes.
Quinn Hughes was given a 5-minute major and a game misconduct. pic.twitter.com/35jcED8ema
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 24, 2024
It’s an obvious boarding penalty, but it’s only a borderline major penalty. The contact with Norris is reckless given the forward’s positioning along the glass, but it clearly wasn’t an especially forceful or malicious bit of contact from Hughes. It was more a battle gone wrong, especially as Norris hit his nose on the dasher and sustained a cut, than it was a hit that would warrant a major penalty and a game misconduct.
Rule 41.5, however, calls for the officials to assess an automatic game misconduct for a boarding major penalty that results in an injury to the face or head of an opponent. So the on-ice officials were in something of a bind. The moment that Hughes was assessed a major penalty for a play on which Norris sustained a minor facial injury, the ejection was baked in. Automatic. Not subject to the discretion of the on-ice officials.
The call is wildly harsh, but that’s how the rule book is written. There just isn’t much latitude here. For a Vancouver team that was already playing without three of their five most important players on Saturday night, to lose another key contributor — and very probably the singular most important contributor among the five — due to the equivalent of a bad break is extraordinarily unlucky.
That the Canucks were able to rally in the second period, lockdown the Senators defensively and capitalize opportunistically off of a pair of neutral zone mistakes by Ottawa is more evidence of a team that found a way to rally, and play the right way.
2. Canucks’ blue-line usage
Hughes is Vancouver’s most impactful five-on-five engine, a player that dictates the pace of play and exerts a nearly unparalleled level of gravity over where the game is played. In his absence for most of Saturday night’s game, Vancouver had to lean heavily on their other defenders, and the results were largely solid.
Defensively, anyway, Vancouver dug in and put in one of their most complete efforts of the season. The Senators were granted no quarter, and couldn’t appear to find the inner slot with a map.
Carson Soucy, who has struggled for much of this season and was dropped down to the third pair to open Saturday night’s game, led all Canucks skaters in five-on-five ice time for most of the evening. Tyler Myers squeezed in the neutral zone and created the counter-attacking opportunity and spotted Vancouver a key 2-1 lead in the second period.
Filip Hronek led all Canucks defenders in overall ice time and Erik Brännström played top pair minutes five-on-five, as Vancouver’s remaining puck movers were able to do enough moving the puck to make up for Hughes’ absence. And Noah Juulsen was heavily leaned on, had exceptional success on the penalty kill and while he got away with chasing a hit late in the second period on a play that sprung a late Senators breakaway opportunity, he was effective throughout Saturday night’s game.
The play of Vancouver’s blue line held up and the Canucks’ forwards were diligent defensively as well, but it’s worth noting that even before Hughes was tossed from Saturday night’s game, the club had tweaked their defense pairs. Brännström started the game on a pair with Myers, while Soucy dropped down to play with Juulsen.
The organization is aware of the need to try something different, as we reported on Friday. It just hasn’t worked for Vancouver’s second pair this season. Hughes’ misconduct perhaps obscured the depth of those changes, but on the other hand, the way Vancouver’s defense responded without their captain in the lineup is also a spot of evidence suggesting that the blueliners on this roster have the ability to play at a higher level going forward than they had through the first 18 of the season.
3. Jake DeBrusk steps up
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for Jake DeBrusk to begin his Canucks tenure, but with the club short-handed on Saturday night and desperately in need of a game-breaker, DeBrusk stepped up.
The streaky scoring winger managed to open the scoring on Saturday night with a deft net-front deflection off of a Conor Garland shot on the power play, and then produced a critical insurance marker in the second period, combining with Kiefer Sherwood to pounce off of a brutal read by Tyler Kleven to create a two-on-one, which DeBrusk finished wonderfully with a cross-crease deke off of the rush.
Even beyond his individual contributions, DeBrusk and Sherwood have appeared to be building some meaningful momentum on a line with Elias Pettersson over the past few weeks. Perhaps that can help Vancouver’s marquee unrestricted free-agent addition find something of a groove. The club could certainly use that on this current road trip.
As good as DeBrusk and his linemates were on Saturday night, the defensive play was the story, at least until the Senators pulled their goaltender. Still, if the Canucks can consistently defend as effectively as they did in Ottawa on Saturday night, they’re going to win a lot of games regardless of who is in or out of the lineup.
They’ll still need someone who can break games open on occasion, however, and DeBrusk on Saturday night served up a reminder that he has the raw ability and attacking instincts to be that sort of X-factor in Vancouver.
(Photo: Marc DesRosiers / Imagn Images)
