The Vancouver Canucks narrowly avoided disaster on Thursday night.
Sure, losing to the St. Louis Blues in overtime was less than ideal, as the two points for the Blues pushed them past the Canucks in the standings into the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. But it could have been a lot worse. The Canucks were four seconds away from leaving St. Louis without any points at all.
Midway through the third period, the Blues took a 3-2 lead on two goals 24 seconds apart. It was a devastating blow after the Canucks had battled back from being down 1-0.
For the next ten minutes, with arguably the entire season on the line, the Canucks mustered up just one shot on goal.
Don’t get me wrong, they tried. The Canucks pushed hard to tie the game but the Blues blocked nine shots in those ten minutes and were smothering defensively. It seemed like there was no way to break down the Blues’ defensive structure.
With 17 seconds left, Justin Faulk sent a clearing attempt into the Canucks’ bench, giving the Canucks one last offensive zone faceoff — their last chance to tie the game. They called a timeout to rest their top players and draw up a play. Then Elias Pettersson lost the faceoff, the puck was cleared to the neutral zone, and the game seemed to be over.
But the Canucks’ stars had one last moment of magic in them. Quinn Hughes deked out his man in the neutral zone, passed the puck up to Pettersson at the Blues’ blue line, and he found Brock Boeser wide open on the right wing with a cross-ice pass.
The sniper settled the puck, wound up, and blasted a slap shot past Jordan Binnington with 3.9 seconds left on the clock.
Magic.
Unfortunately, the Canucks seemed to run out of mana and, regrettably, all of the flasks on the bench filled with blue fluid turned out to be Gatorade — not a mana potion to be found — so there was no magic left for overtime.
It was the Canucks’ league-leading 12th overtime loss.
“Hell of a resiliency and character to come back but we’ve still got to figure out our overtimes, obviously,” said Kiefer Sherwood. “Still looking for 60 minutes.”
Well, there’s your problem. The Canucks have repeatedly talked all season about playing a full 60 minutes; maybe they should have instead talked about playing a full 65 minutes.
Still, the Canucks got the game to overtime when, with 10 seconds remaining in the game, it didn’t look like they possibly could. That’s worth something.
Specifically, it’s worth one point. I watched this game.
- The Canucks’ struggled in the first period, getting outshot 12-to-3, but they were fortunate to have Kevin Lankinen, who stopped all 12 shots he faced to keep the Canucks in the game. He was sharper than Rick Tocchet’s cheekbones.
- The scorekeepers must have been listening to Salt N Pepa while working this game, because giving the Canucks credit for three shots on goal in the first period was pushing it. The Canucks had the first two shots of the game in the opening minute and didn’t get another until 15 minutes later when the scorekeepers graciously called an Elias “Junior” Pettersson clearance from the defensive zone on the penalty kill a shot from 164 feet.
- “I thought the second and third, we were better,” said Rick Tocchet. “I don’t think our first was that good. It wasn’t bad, I just think the first period, I don’t know if we didn’t have our legs — maybe that Winnipeg game took a little bit out of us — but once we started to get our legs, we started to come a little bit.”
- The Canucks definitely looked better in the second period and Nils Åman nearly opened the scoring in the midst of a great shift from his line with Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua. A loose puck popped out to Åman in the slot and he patiently skated past the defencemen to create a shooting lane and fired a wristshot off the bottom of the crossbar but the puck just barely stayed out. To paraphrase the Jonas Brothers, what’s Åman gotta do?
- Quinn Hughes is typically the guy shooting the puck for his forwards to tip but he showed on the Blues’ opening goal that maybe he should be in the lane tipping the puck instead. Zack Bolduc threw a puck towards the Canucks net from the point and Hughes tried to knock it down, only to tip the puck top corner past a screened Lankinen. Honestly, it was a brilliant deflection; it’s just too bad it was into his own net.
- Late in the second period, Jake Neighbours headed the puck like he was a soccer player and it actually worked. He controlled the puck and got a clean zone exit. It was neat. Now I’d like to see the reverse: a professional soccer player suddenly pull a hockey stick out of nowhere to hit the ball.
Now THAT'S using your head pic.twitter.com/uHVcjGfekZ
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) March 21, 2025
- After just one goal in the first two periods, the third was a rollercoaster, with the two teams trading leads. Those leads were weaker than the ones used by real-estate salesmen trying to earn the Glengarry leads. It’s a good thing for the Canucks that the Blues didn’t follow the ABCs — Always Be Closing — because the Blues couldn’t close out the game at all.
- Kiefer Sherwood tied up the game a minute into the third period after he and Pius Suter won the puck on the forecheck. The puck came around to Marcus Pettersson on the left side of the ice and he drew in the Blues before going back to Filip Hronek at the point, who relayed the puck to Sherwood, who had room on the right. With Jake DeBrusk cutting across Jordan Binnington’s eyes like an Umbrella Corporation laser defence grid, Sherwood fired the puck in on the short side.
- Five minutes later, the Canucks took the lead. Elias Pettersson picked off a pass inside his own blue line and sprung Nils Höglander on the counter-attack. Höglander fed Brock Boeser on the right wing before driving to the net to create some havoc, giving Boeser all the traffic he needed for a snipe inside the far post. That was Boeser’s 200th career goal.
- “It means a lot,” said Boeser about reaching the milestone. “I would have never guessed, being a young kid, that I’d score this many goals in the league, so it’s definitely awesome. It’s something that I definitely cherish.”
- The Canucks were feeling good but those positive vibes — as well as the one-goal lead — were erased a few minutes later. Brayden Schenn won a faceoff against Pius Suter in the Canucks’ zone and Tyler Tucker’s quick shot changed direction off Jake DeBrusk’s shin pad to beat Lankinen for the tying goal. That’s one where you’re just hoping DeBrusk can get DeBlock and if he DeDoesn’t, you’re in DeTrouble.
- 25 seconds later, the Blues took the lead once more. DeBrusk had a shot blocked and the Blues broke the other way. Quinn Hughes seemed to have Jordan Kyrou contained on the rush but Tyler Myers inexplicably shaded over to support Hughes anyway instead of taking his man, Dylan Holloway, as he drove to the net. Myers got a piece of Kyrou’s pass but that seemed to only help the puck land on Holloway’s tape for the finish. Myers…you’re playing with Quinn Hughes. He doesn’t need your help.
- I have to shout out Sherwood for his incredible effort on one third period shift with about five minutes left. It looked like the Blues were going to get an easy exit from the defensive zone, only for Sherwood to dive to the ice to block a pass. Then, while still lying on the ice, Sherwood swept the puck to DeBrusk with one hand on his stick to keep the play alive. That led to a shooting gallery for Hughes, who had four shot attempts in the next 30 seconds.
- With 18.3 seconds remaining, Elias Pettersson lost an offensive zone faceoff and the puck came out to the neutral zone. That’s when Hughes dangled around Pavel Buchnevich and fed the puck to Pettersson, who found Boeser cross-ice with a fantastic pass. Boeser made like he received a signal from Maximus Decimus Meridius and unleashed hell, blasting a slap shot past Binnington’s glove to tie the game 3-3 with 3.9 seconds remaining.
- Boeser is now tied with Bo Horvat for eighth all-time in franchise scoring with 201 goals. It was an incredible goal that ought to have stood up as a legendary Canucks moment, if only they had been able to win in overtime. Who knows? If the Canucks get into the playoffs by one point or because they have the tiebreaker on the Blues, maybe it still will stand up as a legendary moment.
- Lankinen did all he could to give the Canucks a chance to win in overtime. He made a brilliant post-to-post save on a Kyrou wraparound, dropping his stick and grabbing the post with his blocker to give himself leverage to keep his pad on the line as Cam Fowler followed up and tried to poke the puck in. The play went to review but it only confirmed that Lankinen held the line like he was listening to Toto.
- The Canucks stayed alive until late in overtime. Hughes, DeBrusk, and Pettersson kept circling in the neutral zone, unable to find an entry. Eventually, they made a mistake, as Pettersson lost control of a saucer pass from Hughes and the Blues took the puck. That’s when DeBrusk made a horrifically bad line change, giving up a 2-on-1. Hughes overplayed the puck carrier, leaving Phillip Broberg wide open for a Brayden Schenn pass, and he beat Lankinen on a deke to the backhand.
- It was actually the second time the Canucks gave up a 2-on-1 because of a bad change. The first time, Justin Faulk hit the post. You’d think they would have learned their lesson. DeBrusk gets a DeMerit for that one.
- “We did a nice job [in overtime] in Calgary. I don’t know, we aborted the plan,” said Tocchet. “When you don’t have speed, just throw it back and get some fresh people out there. We were making those short passes with people standing still. And then, obviously, we’ve got to get back on that 2-on-1 — we don’t play it right.”
- “We haven’t done so hot in overtimes,” said Boeser. “We know that we need to have good line changes and possession of the puck. It was just unfortunate. I thought we battled hard and we fought to the end and it was a huge point for us.”
