As the first of two games on back-to-back nights, Saturday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks was nearly perfect.
The Canucks could count the number of blowouts they’ve had this season on one hand . But that’s what they managed to do on Saturday night, scoring six goals for just the second time this season. The first, of course, was also against the Blackhawks back in October.
The lopsided win allowed the Canucks to roll all four lines and limit the ice time of their top players. Kiefer Sherwood, who played on the fourth line, led all Canucks forwards in ice time with just 17:37, then the rest of the Canucks forwards played around 16 minutes or less.
“We have two games in 22 hours,” said head coach Rick Tocchet, noting the earlier start time for Sunday’s game against the Utah Hockey Club. “That’s a positive where you’re using the bench. Obviously, a guy like Hughes is going to get his minutes — it’s nice to see he only got 22 tonight, saved him a little bit,” he added with a smirk.
Spreading the ice time around should, in theory, keep the Canucks’ top players fresher for Sunday’s key divisional game with Utah. It couldn’t have gone much better.
And then the Blackhawks’ Jason Dickinson ran Filip Chytil from behind with five minutes left in the game.
Dickinson came from the blindside, with Chytil having no reason to expect a hit as the man checking him was on his left. It was an ugly, unnecessary hit directly through the numbers that caused Chytil’s head to whiplash violently. Chytil stayed down for a few seconds before struggling to his feet, stumbling, and then eventually skating off under his own power.
It was particularly devastating to see because Chytil has a bad concussion history, with almost his entire 2022-23 season wiped out due to a concussion.
Somehow, the on-ice officials didn’t see fit to call any penalty on Dickinson, a shameful derilection of duty. Tocchet said he received no explanation for the non-call and had no update on Chytil’s condition after the game.
That’s two dangerous hits against the Canucks in as many games. Calgary Flames forward Connor Zary elbowed Elias “Junior” Pettersson from behind on Wednesday in retribution for a clean hit on Nazem Kadri, which earned him a two-game suspension. Will Dickinson likewise receive a suspension despite not even getting a minor penalty?
Some fans might question why the Canucks didn’t respond with a fight or some other revenge after either hit.
Victor Mancini seemed to think about going after Dickinson but second-guessed himself. Then Dickinson left the ice and was promptly benched for the final five minutes of the game, removing any further chance for the Canucks to exact retribution.
I asked Tocchet if he felt there was enough of a response from the team.
“That’s a touchy one for me,” said Tocchet, who certainly seemed like there was something he wanted to say but couldn’t, eventually saying, “I don’t know how to answer this. Would I like somebody to grab somebody, is that what you’re asking me? I don’t know if that’s today’s game. I don’t know.
“But we have to have a wolfpack mentality, and it’s near the end of the game and stuff like that. We’ll talk about that another day.”
Kiefer Sherwood certainly didn’t like the hit and made it clear that there would have been a response had Dickinson stepped over the boards again.
“There’s a reason that guy didn’t play the rest of the game,” said Sherwood. “It’s unnecessary. I didn’t like it. No one liked it. Once the game’s out of hand, we’re not going around trying to kill guys. I get you’re frustrated and you’re pissed off, but we’re not taking liberties on 98 [Connor Bedard] or their young guys. You’ve got to play hard but, at the same time, you’ve got to respect the game.
“Zary, he’s got it coming once we play them next time because that was a cheap shot too. We want guys to stand up for each other but, at the same time, there’s a place to do it. We’ve got to take care of our game first and, when the time comes, we’ll answer the bell. The biggest thing is that we’re there for each other. I’m sure he’ll have to answer for that sometime down the road.”
Like Dickinson for the final five minutes of regulation, I watched this game.
- The game got off to a slow start in the first period, as it took some time for the Canucks to realize just how much better they are than the Blackhawks. Once they figured that out, the Canucks were all over the offensive zone but still couldn’t hit the net, with just two shots on goal in the first 17-and-a-half minutes of the game.
- “I still think we’ve got to get, in the first half of the game, more shots,” said Tocchet. “We’re still working on that. We’ve got to funnel pucks to the net.”
- Hughes was wheeling and dealing, looking back to his pre-injury form. On one long shift in the offensive zone, he broke Nick Foligno’s ankles with a quick change of direction at the top of the zone but Foligno got his revenge, tagging Hughes with a solid check along the boards moments later. To me, that was a great moment, a battle of two players with opposing styles devastating their opponents the best way they knew how.
- All of that offensive possession nearly backfired for the Canucks, as the Blackhawks counter-attacked with a great chance on a 2-on-1 against the flow of play after Chytil dove in after the puck. Ilya Mikheyev came close to opening the scoring — imagine the response from Canucks fans to that! — but Arturs Silovs made the blocker save, then awkwardly flopped onto his back as the rebound caromed to the top of the crease. It wasn’t a pretty save but he kept the puck out.
- “I know it’s important to make that save,” said Silovs. “We scored two goals after that and I think that was the game-changer.”
- A minute later, the Canucks’ constant pressure burst the dam . Nils Åman and Elias Pettersson won a battle on the sideboards, with Pettersson banking the puck to the point. Filip Hronek relayed the puck to Hughes and he took advantage of the Blackhawks’ overload on the right side to jump up the left side and beat Arvid Soderblom on the glove side.
- Just 35 seconds later, Tyler Myers made it 2-0 with a near copy of Hughes’ goal. Myers ran over Frank Nazar near the blue line in the defensive zone to create a turnover, then jumped up in the ensuing rush. Kiefer Sherwood dropped the puck to Myers and drove the middle lane to give the giraffic defenceman room, then Myers also beat Soderblom past the glove.
- “I wasn’t focused on it too much,” said Myers when I asked if his shot location being so similar to Hughes was because of a pre-scout on Soderblom. “I was just holding the puck for a second to let Woody drive the D back. Honestly, just tried to shoot it to an area, and it ended up being a good spot.”
- Incredibly, there wasn’t a single commercial break in the entire first period, as the game was free-flowing with few whistles. The only whistles that came when a typical TV timeout would occur were for an icing, for which they do not cut to commercial as that would unfairly give the defensive players time to rest, and for the two goals. The entire period went by in about 27 minutes.
- The Canucks weren’t quite as good in the second period but Conor Garland still scored a gorgeous goal to extend the lead to 3-0. Nils Höglander fed Garland on the fly and he worked a give-and-go with Pius Suter to dissect the Blackhawks’ defence . Suter sent Garland in alone and his backhand went off the post and in.
- The Blackhawks got one back before the end of the period, however, as an Alex Vlasic point shot found its way through traffic and behind Silovs, who couldn’t see the puck past Myers and Mikheyev battling in front. That made it 3-1, an uncomfortably close score, heading into the third period. Really, it’s Silovs’ fault for not developing X-ray vision.
- “I felt fast, I felt like I was quick to the position,” said Silovs when asked what he liked about his performance. “I was pretty good at finding pucks in traffic. I know they scored one in traffic but, otherwise, I think I was pretty good.”
- The Canucks have let two-goal leads slip away too many times this season, so it was gratifying to see them put the game away in the third period not by sitting back to defend the lead but by continuing to push the pace and attack. Sure, they finished the game with just 15 shots on goal and you can’t always count on a goaltender having a .600 save percentage, but the Canucks were creating high-quality, dangerous chances.
- Elias Pettersson extended the lead to 4-1 with a brilliant move in the slot. Höglander stole the puck on the forecheck and fed Pettersson, but his pass was deflected. Pettersson neatly knocked down the bouncing puck, then toe-dragged around Artyom Levshunov and ripped the puck off the post and in. It was vintage Pettersson.
- “It’s easy to play with him. He’s speedy, he’s strong on the puck,” said Pettersson of Höglander. “Always trying to have him first on the forecheck and then I read the next play. He’s so good in the corners, so I’m just trying to get available, like on the goal: he won the puck and I just tried to be open in the middle.”
- The officials, however, missed that the puck went in as it deflected back out of the net so quickly off the back bar. No matter: Höglander collected the rebound, cut into the slot, and ripped a wrist shot past Soderblom’s glove. So, no matter what, the Canucks were up 4-1, even if Höglander’s goal had to be erased from the stat sheet.
- “I thought I saw the net behind the bar lift a little bit, so I was pretty sure it was a goal,” said Pettersson. It’s good that Höggy scored…but I knew it was a goal right away.”
- That’s four goals in five games for Pettersson after a long scoring drought. “Yeah, can you believe it?” he self-deprecatingly quipped with a big grin.
- Wyatt Kaiser kept it interesting shortly after, beating Silovs cleanly from the left faceoff dot after Hronek got caught skating in the wrong direction and lost his gap. Kaiser, , never missed a beat, ripping a wrist shot past Silovs’ elbow.
- The Canucks fully put the game to bed with two brilliant tic-tac-toe goals in the span of eight seconds from the bottom-six. It was a statement of some sort, even if the statement was, “Good gravy, the Blackhawks are disastrous defensively.”
- After a brutal turnover by Nazar to Nils Åman at the Blackhawks’ blue line, Teddy Blueger got the puck down low and swung it out to Kiefer Sherwood. That’s when Sherwood made an absolutely incredible pass to Åman for his first goal of the season. It was a behind-the-back backhand pass through his own legs. Call it Wizardous Sherwoodery, because that was a sublime bit of skill from anyone, let alone the fourth line.
- “I just watched video of the Sedins,” quipped Sherwood. “No, it was a great play by Teddy. We’d been trying to find the middle seam all night. Once he got it to me I knew I had a couple of guys converge on me. I was F3, so I saw [Åman] coming, and he did a good job to stay patient and bury it afterwards.”
- Eight seconds later, the third line tic-tac’ed some toes of their own. Off the faceoff, Dakota Joshua drove into the Blackhawks’ zone, then sent a cross-seam pass to Garland, who did what Ghostbusters should never do and crossed the seams again to give Pius Suter a wide-open net. Can the Canucks always play the Blackhawks?
- That was the game, apart from Dickinson’s, well, dickishness. That was followed up by a late scrum in the Canucks’ zone, with Connor Bedard losing his temper, which should tell you everything about where his headspace is at late in a dreadful season for the Blackhawks. Bedard, Nazar, Hronek, and Garland all got ten-minute misconducts to calm things down.
- The win vaults the Canucks over the Flames into the second Wild Card spot in the Wester Conference, though the Flames still have a game in hand. Sunday’s game against Utah will be crucial. Hopefully, racking up goals on the Blackhawks will give the Canucks some confidence. Honestly, it’s just nice to know the Canucks can score more than three goals in a game, something they’ve done just once since January 6.
