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How Conor Garland, Quinn Hughes and Kevin Lankinen drove a gutsy Canucks win: 3 takeaways

30 November 2024Last Update :
How Conor Garland, Quinn Hughes and Kevin Lankinen drove a gutsy Canucks win: 3 takeaways

No Filip Hronek, no problem — at least for one game.

The Vancouver Canucks, in the first game without their top-flight right-shot defender and still missing J.T. Miller and Thatcher Demko, pulled out a gritty 4-3 overtime victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Friday afternoon.

It didn’t look pretty or convincing. The Canucks were completely under siege in the third period where they blew a 3-1 lead. The Sabres outshot and out-chanced the Canucks by a decisive margin. But with so many key contributors out of the lineup, a polished, picture-perfect outing was never a realistic expectation against a rising Sabres team that had won seven of its last 10 games heading into Friday’s matchup.

Vancouver excelled on special teams, showed guts and leaned on brilliant individual performances from Kevin Lankinen, Conor Garland, Brock Boeser and Quinn Hughes to continue its sparkling road record.

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Lankinen’s excellence bails out Canucks’ blue line without Hronek

The Canucks’ blue line definitely felt Hronek’s absence against the Sabres. Give Vancouver’s blue line credit for blocking tons of shots and avoiding catastrophic errors, but the seams on the back end predictably showed at times, even though Tyler Myers was competent on the top pair next to Hughes.

Erik Brännström has come back down to Earth over the last couple of games. Vancouver was outshot 6-0 and outscored 2-0 with him on the ice at five-on-five against Buffalo. He was deked badly by Jack Quinn, which forced him to take a penalty in the first period. Brännström still has crucial value as a third-pair puck-mover, but the hope that he can seamlessly adjust to a significantly bigger role appears to be a long shot at this point.

Last year, the Canucks were decisive and comfortable defending leads in the third period. With Hronek out and Carson Soucy still searching for his game, the club was vulnerable against the Sabres’ late push.

Lankinen’s excellent performance — he stopped 31 of 34 shots — is arguably the biggest reason the Canucks came out on top. He was calm and confident moving in his crease and didn’t leave bad rebounds. He was in the perfect position to deny Tage Thompson on three separate occasions with time and space in the slot in regulation time. Lankinen robbed J.J. Peterka in the third period off a cross-seam pass. And before Garland scored the overtime winner, Lankinen again stole the show against Thompson.

The Canucks’ penalty kill was a perfect five-for-five against the Sabres as well. This is where the blue line deserves credit for stepping up. Collectively, they won battles, denied easy entries and protected the inner slot effectively.

Boeser’s best game since returning from injury

For the most part, the Canucks were compact and stingy defensively, but sustaining offensive pressure was a major challenge through the opening 40 minutes.

They generated virtually nothing off the rush besides a couple of against-the-grain counterattack looks. Vancouver’s forwards were fast, physical and forced Buffalo’s defencemen into turnovers in the first period, but the club couldn’t consistently translate those sequences into legitimate scoring chances. The Canucks’ forecheck slowed down in the second period, which forced them to defend for most of the middle frame and escalated the offensive dry spell.

Elias Pettersson’s line was quiet to begin the game, which prompted Boeser to take Kiefer Sherwood’s spot with Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk. The adjustment paid off in a major way.

DeBrusk’s tying goal was a perfect example of Boeser’s evolution as a two-way player over the years. The sequence started with Boeser’s hard work to steal the puck from Ryan McLeod in the corner and tee Pius Suter up for the initial Grade-A chance.

Boeser made a perfect cross-seam pass to hit Garland for a power-play goal in the third period.

This game was by far the best Boeser has looked since his concussion. The Canucks outshot the Sabres 6-1 with him on the ice at five-on-five.

Speaking of players shaking off injury rust, Dakota Joshua showed well, too. Joshua was anticipating the Sabres’ zone exits and forcing turnovers in the first period. He had a couple of outstanding sequences defending the blue line from zone entries on the penalty kill. He made a gorgeous backdoor pass on the power play that would have been a tap-in goal had Myers not failed to get his stick on the feed.

Both players still have another level or two to reach but it’s promising for the Canucks to see signs of life from them.

How Hughes and Garland dominated

Hughes logged a monster 28:31 and took the game over in overtime.

The Sabres barely touched the puck for the first half of OT as Hughes had the puck on a string and controlled the flow of play. He nearly scored early into OT himself. The work that he then did to draw Buffalo’s defenders toward him and hit Garland on the backdoor for a tap-in was outstanding.

Garland, meanwhile, is off to a scorching start with 21 points in 22 games. The way he battles to get open in the dirty areas is commendable. And who can forget his gutsy, sliding shot block that sprung Suter for a breakaway goal?

Vancouver’s recipe for success against Buffalo (big performances from its top players, solid special teams, excellent goaltending) is the formula that this team will need to continue relying on without Hronek and Miller.

(Photo of Brock Boeser and Conor Garland: Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images)

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