The Vancouver Canucks struck fast and early, riding their 4-0 lead all the way to a 4-3 win against the Washington Capitals. They came out of the gates hot, an oddity given how these games usually start for them, and really put the heat on the home team early. Two key injuries deflated some of that moment, but the Canucks did well to secure a win with the margin they had built up. Would it have been nice to have a little more breathing room? Sure, but the result was the big piece on the road.

Here’s the win, by the numbers.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

It felt like the Canucks continued exactly where they left off, putting together a very solid first frame that got them a commanding lead. They finished the opening period with a slight deficit in CF% at 47.06, but were able to rack up 1.34 xGF through just 4 high-danger chances at 5v5. That gave them a big 72.18 xGF% share in the frame, and they struck twice even strength to score over their expected goals total.

After that, it was one-way traffic from the part of the Caps. Washington would finish both the second and third with CF% shares over 80.00, outchancing the Canucks by a 23-5 margin in that span. Now, the slight silver lining is that the high-danger chances were only 7-2, meaning it could’ve been a lot worse. At the same time, there aren’t many teams that Vancouver can afford to be outchanced by like that.

Heat Map

The difference in sheer amount of scoring chances can be seen from this heat map. The Capitals had an expansive area where their scoring chances came from, green littering the offensive zone. At the same time though, their high-danger chances weren’t as concentrated as the Canucks’ were, leading to a more spread-out patch in front of the crease. At 5v5, the total scoring chances stood at 31-17 for Washington, but that gap shrank down significantly to 10-6 in high-danger chances. Vancouver did a solid enough job to limit the truly dangerous looks that their opponents got, and that’s never a bad thing.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: In the limited time that he had before his injury, Filip Chytil was absolutely flying. His 50.00 CF% might not have seemed like much, but that was enough to be 25.38 CF% rel to team average, meaning that the Canucks were able to possess the puck just over 25% more during the Czech’s TOI. In just 5:01 TOI at 5v5 play, Chytil was on ice for 7 shots and 8 scoring chances, which were 4th and 3rd on the team respectively. He was just getting into a groove too as the Canucks’ 2C, and one hopes he was removed only for precautionary reasons after taking a late hit from Tom Wilson.

Corsi Chump:  This might be a surprise, but there’s a perfectly valid explanation for this one. Elias Pettersson, the forward, brought up the rear of the Corsi department with an 18.18 CF%, which definitely doesn’t seem like a good thing at first. The Swede was deployed by Adam Foote primarily in defensive roles, thrown out there with only 14.29% of his shift starts being in the offensive zone and just 20.00% of his faceoff starts in the attacking end as well. Naturally, that’ll lead to some tilted statistics against him, which was the case here. Pettersson was on ice for 12 scoring chances against, five of which came at high danger. But, none of them converted at 5v5, and EP40 found himself contributing in big ways at the end of the game to secure the win.

xGF:  It was Chytil who led the Canucks with an 86.09 xGF%, again making the most of his time on ice. The Czech forward already had an 8-3 scoring chance edge and a 4-2 high-danger chance lead, which is pretty significant when looking at the proportion of those stats that he was on ice for. Vancouver didn’t get a whole much out of the rest of the team when he was gone (and understandably so), but one has to wonder the impact it’ll leave on the rest of the team. Linus Karlsson posted the best raw xGF at 0.48 at 5v5 play.

GSAx:  Thatcher Demko had his work cut out for him after the first period. With Washington dominating puck possession en route to a total 4.06 xGF, the netminder turned aside all but three chances for a 1.06 GSAx. Now, two of the goals were registered as low-danger, which Demko would probably have to like back. That was what probably made his numbers look a little bit worse off than they probably should’ve been. However, not giving up a high-danger goal against is always a plus.

Statistical Musings

PP1 Sherwood:  With Brock Boeser missing this contest, it raised some eyebrows to see Kiefer Sherwood slot in on that top power play unit for the Canucks. But, considering that Sherwood went into the game tied for the team lead in goals, it isn’t all that far-fetched. Certainly, this was a better performance than his previous two contests, leading the team with a 0.93 xGF across all situations, striking on the power play early to put the Canucks up by 3. Sherwood saw a lot of ice time with the injuries through the lineup, playing 23:16 and managing a respectable 10-12 scoring chance split across all situations. Really tidy work for being thrust up the lineup.

Hughes answering the bell:  Last couple of games, the Canucks captain didn’t look like his dominant self that had been his standard. But, Quinn Hughes put in some impressive numbers against the Capitals  in 25:00 TOI, where he led all defencemen in CF% (46.00, also the second-best on the team) and managed to split a 15-15 scoring chance battle with an 8-8 deadlock in high-danger chances. It might not sound like a lot, but given how shorthanded the Canucks’ roster was when it came to firepower, these contributions can’t be overlooked. It was nice to see Hughes towards the top end of the roster too after some more lackadaisical numbers recently.

As a team

CF% – 30.51% HDCF% – 36.00% xGF% – 43.78%

With this being their third game in four days, the Canucks performed admirably. The compression in their schedule and the early start time to this game seemed like the classic recipe for them to get absolutely blown out of the water, and yet it was Vancouver who came out of the gates hot. Now, they did post some pretty atrocious numbers through the second and third, but with the context of their schedule and two big losses in their lineup early in the game, it was a pretty gutsy effort to ride out the lead to a win.

Vancouver gets a little breather before heading into Pittsburgh to face the Penguins on Tuesday.

Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com