VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks keep getting away with it. Almost, anyway.
Tuesday night the Canucks contested a mid-December game against the St. Louis Blues and, for most of the sloppily played, low-energy contest at Rogers Arena, the performance matched the stakes.
In a game in which one might’ve expected the Canucks to come out flying, given the boost from the long-awaited return of star netminder Thatcher Demko, Vancouver put in a largely lethargic, listless effort. Thankfully for Vancouver, that effort was largely matched by its opponent.
While outperforming Vancouver for much of the contest, the Blues failed to take their chances in regulation. Demko robbed them repeatedly, and several of their best chances hit posts or crossbars as the night went on.
Vancouver, meanwhile, found itself chasing, and as time disappeared from the clock, the Canucks set up shop in the Blues’ end of the rink and peppered Blues netminder Joel Hofer with scoring chances, finally breaking through when Jake DeBrusk scored a clutch one to level the score.
Ultimately in overtime it was the Blues who broke through, with Canucks killer Dylan Holloway sticking the dagger in as the Blues won 4-3.
Here are three takeaways from Tuesday night’s Canucks loss.
Thatcher Demko looked like himself
It was never going to be a smooth re-entry for the Canucks’ star netminder.
Demko has made three starts since mid-March. He hasn’t played in an NHL game environment since late April.
In the interim, he’s dealt with an unprecedented knee injury, a lengthy recovery with very little established science to use as an aid and an unrelated surgery. Some rust was to be expected, at a minimum.
Tuesday night, however, in his return to the Canucks crease, Demko looked very much like himself. Patient, positionally sound, athletically explosive. An out-and-out felonious goal thief.
It’s too bad his teammates weren’t sharper in front of him — Canucks defenders left too many Blues skaters open in the high slot and permitted far too many breakaway opportunities in the second period — but Demko stood tall. He gave his team an opportunity to win in a contest in which they otherwise didn’t play well enough to warrant the 2 points.
Stylistically, his game looked unchanged. His movements looked unencumbered by the concerning injury and the lengthy rehab process he’s been through. Now the real test comes, of course, over the next 48 hours — as he recovers from his first NHL start in nine months, and in the days, weeks and months ahead as he continues to ramp up his workload.
Tuesday night, however, it was great to see one of the game’s best stoppers back at work. And looking sharp to boot.
“[Game was] fast, for sure. I thought I felt better as the game went along. The speed of things, traffic in front of you – those are just in-game reads that will get sharper over time.”
🗣 Hear from Thatcher Demko following his first start of the season.#Canucks | @theprovince pic.twitter.com/abgRiKvSrK
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) December 11, 2024
Accentuating the negatives
Tuesday night the Canucks made a baffling decision to scratch puck-moving third-pair defender Erik Brännström, whose regular spot in the club’s lineup was filled by Mark Friedman against St. Louis.
After six incredible weeks to open his Canucks tenure, Brännström’s form has flatlined somewhat over the past 10 games or so. The Canucks have tried him elevated up the lineup, with mixed success. They’ve returned him to the third pair to play sheltered minutes on Vincent Desharnais’ left side, and as of late, while the club has remained in keep-things-running mode, that pair’s performance has been more uneven than it was earlier in the year.
Brännström, in short, hasn’t performed at the level he did through much of October and early November, when his contributions were revelatory for a club that’s desperate for the sort of puck-moving push from the back end Brännström is capable of providing.
All of that might be true, and there might be some fair justification for the Canucks’ decision to scratch him Tuesday, but the results from the Vancouver defence in Brännström’s absence Tuesday night were also something of a reminder. As constructed, the Canucks blue line requires what Brännström provides.
Tuesday night, with Vancouver’s non-Quinn Hughes defence pairs on the ice, for example, Vancouver was outshot by a 1-6 margin at five-on-five through the first two periods, before score effects kicked in.
The icings were a constant feature of Vancouver’s breakout, which far too regularly got turned around in the neutral zone. It limited what the Canucks were able to generate offensively and added to the volume of time the club spent defending.
Removing Brännström, effectively, accentuated some of the negatives of Vancouver’s blue-line construction and contributed gravely to what was a flat effort overall from the Canucks against St. Louis.
Phantom calls and the preposterous goals
This game turned on two key special teams sequences, both coming off of phantom calls — the first of which was a pure miss by the on-ice officials, the second of which was a makeup call.
Late in the second period, Brock Boeser was hounding Blues defender Colton Parayko on the forecheck. While using his massive, Ent-like frame to protect the puck, Parayko lost his footing and slid awkwardly into the glass feet first. From afar and from a glance it did look like a penalty, given the physics of how Parayko fell, but the official who was right on top of the play didn’t raise an arm.
Instead, it was the back referee who assessed a tripping penalty to Boeser, for a trip that did not — in fact — occur. On the ensuing power play, Blues playmaker Robert Thomas expertly found a seam in the Canucks penalty kill, and Jordan Kyroue gave the Blues a 3-2 lead.
Given the costly nature of the phantom tripping penalty against Boeser, one knew a makeup call was coming. And it arrived in the form of a phantom holding call against Brayden Schenn.
The ensuing power-play sequence was one of the wildest of the season. In an otherwise sleepy game, the rare display of passion and persistence and energy from both sides was welcome.
Vancouver’s first power-play unit peppered St. Louis with scoring chances, and Joel Hofer had to be sharp to make some incredible saves. As the pressure mounted, however, Hofer lost his stick. Then Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich lost his stick but kept killing the penalty, shadowing Quinn Hughes to the point Hughes just skated into the neutral zone and permitted his teammates to continue attacking four-on-three.
Of course, the sequence had a fitting end, when Parayko — who drew the original phantom penalty — deflected an Elias Pettersson pass attempt past Hofer and into the net. At that point, it was 3-2 and the Canucks were still alive — and close enough to tie it up late.
(Photo: Bob Frid / Imagn Images)
