Rossi picks up an assist and the OT winner in Canucks’ win vs. Ducks

First Period

The game started with a bang, as Radko Gudas stepped up and threw a booming (but clean) hit on Liam Öhgren. Öhgren’s new linemate, Teddy Blueger, immediately went after Gudas, breaking his stick over the Ducks captain. On the scoresheet, that resulted in nothing more than a two-minute minor for cross-checking assessed to Blueger, but in the eyes of fans, that’s the exact kind of thing you want to see from a veteran player — and any Canuck, really — when a young player gets laid out.

Just as the Ducks’ power play expired, Cutter Gauthier found himself all alone at the side of the net and ripped a shot past Nikita Tolopilo to open the scoring:

1-0 Ducks. 

The Canucks answered back just seven minutes later when Curtis Douglas scored the first goal of his NHL career. Picking up an assist on the play, Kirill Kudryavtsev also notched his first career point. Seeing the excitement from not just Douglas, but every other player on the ice was awesome. You always remember your first!

1-1.

Shortly after the tying goal, Blueger and Gudas took care of their unfinished business.

Major props to Blueger.

The fights kept coming, and Curtis Douglas put himself on Gordie Howe hat trick watch when he dropped the gloves with Jeffrey Viel. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first fight of Douglas’s career. $10 to the first person to tell me if there has ever been another player to pick up a Gordie Howe hat trick in the same game that he scored his first career goal (noting, of course, that Douglas still needs the assist at the time of this writing).

Tyson Hinds was called for tripping up Elias Pettersson, the forward, and on the ensuing power play, Jake DeBrusk once again made scoring on the man advantage look easy.

Canucks up by one after 20.

One big takeaway from the first:
-I love some of what I’m seeing from Elias Pettersson (the defenceman) the lately. I get real Mattias Ohlund vibes from him; he really just needs to sharpen his decision-making and get back to being closer to the player we saw in his rookie season.

Second Period

The Canucks began the second period with some time left remaining on a power play that began at the tail end of the first, but they failed to get set up, and we were back to even strength.

The Ducks turned up the pressure after this, and Nikita Tolopilo made some of his best saves of the night during the next seven or so minutes:

The Canucks did a good job of supressing the Ducks’ attack before they could even get the neutral zone, and their defencemen were sharp on their retrievals when the Ducks dumped the puck in.

The Ducks had 20 minutes left to muster a comeback and punch their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Some takeaways from the second:
-There was a shift with about nine minutes left in the second where Kirill Kudryavtsev skated the puck in with ease and jump-started a sequence where the Rossi line cycled the puck around. Kudryavtsev looked more than comfortable being involved in that — a nice sign for a young defenceman.

Third Period

Early in the third, Drew O’Connor flipped the puck over the glass from his own end, resulting in a delay of game penalty.

On the ensuing Canucks penalty kill, Brock “I kill penalties now” Boeser pressured the Anaheim blueline, reading and subsequently chipping an attempted pass back to the point past John Carlson. Boeser was off to the races and made no mistake on his breakaway attempt, beating Dostal on the blocker side:

3-1 Canucks. 

Anaheim’s final two regular-season games are against the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators, and as noted earlier, a win tonight would result in them clinching a playoff berth.

Cutter Gauthier got that memo, as less than a minute after Boeser’s goal — with the Ducks still on the power play — he launched a one-timer that beat Nikita Tolopilo five-hole:

3-2. 

Anaheim kept up their pressure, and less than two minutes later, Leo Carlsson scored a bit of a weird one. Carlsson scooped up a loose puck out in front of Tolopilo and tried to draw him out before trying to roof a backhander.

Carlsson’s attempt went off Tolopilo and into the Canucks’ net, evening the game at three.

The teams got back to the tight-checking nature we saw of the second period, and surprise surprise, this one needed overtime.

Overtime

The first big highlight of overtime came when Drew O’Connor had a phenomenal read and takeaway as Anaheim tried to go the other way out of their end. O’Connor moved in on a partial breakaway, and drew a slashing penalty. Because referees hate fun, the Canucks got a power play instead of a penalty shot.

The ensuing power play was action-packed, and got a nice dose of chaos after Radko Gudas lost his stick while defending. With nine seconds left, Marco Rossi (who’s been the straw that stirs the drink on the Canucks’ first power play unit, if you ask me) blasted home a one-timer of his own to give the Canucks the win.

4-3 Canucks final.