The Vancouver Canucks couldn’t get much of anything going last night, losing a 2-0 game to the New York Rangers in pretty hapless fashion. Not a lot of things went right for the home team, unable to threaten until it was too late yet again. Of course, the sheer amount of injuries that have piled up this early into the season has played a factor in the on-ice product, but it’s still a rough team to watch play. There aren’t many redeeming qualities to a contest like this one.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

Game Flow

There was some good jump out of the gate for the Canucks, but that fizzled out after the penalty kill in the first period. Things were ever so slightly in New York’s favour at the end of the first, and that was all the momentum the Rangers needed to push the game flow their way. The visitors put together a very strong second period, holding a 69.23 CF% share and 82.05 xGF% in the middle frame. That comes when a team is posting a 12-3 scoring chance advantage with a 6-0 lead in high-danger chances. Nothing came of that offensively for the Rangers, but it also showed that the Canucks were completely unable to generate any amount of offence to get back into this one. The third was better for Vancouver, as it was the only period of the game where they had the statistical advantage. But even then, the Rangers only limited it to a 4-3 high-danger chance advantage for the Canucks.

Heat Map

The heat map shows the disparity in scoring chances throughout the entire game. For a team that’s been on the road, the Rangers certainly didn’t show too many signs of fatigue. They had a 27-18 overall scoring chance advantage at 5v5 play, with that translating to a 13-7 high-danger chance lead as well. It shouldn’t be a surprise that their hot spot was significantly larger and deeper than the Canucks’, given the difference in the numbers that they put up. Only getting 3 scoring chances in the second and going without a high-danger chance certainly put a dent in Vancouver’s overall numbers at the end of the game.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: With Conor Garland going down, the Canucks’ lineup saw a bunch of shuffling within their forward corps. Out of all the skaters, Drew O’Connor led Vancouver with a 72.73 CF% last night, playing in a wide variety of situations against a wide spread of Rangers. It’s solid work by the depth forward to be deployed in the way that he was, without being an active liability. DOC finished with a 56.29 xGF% and split his scoring chances evenly against the Rangers. Ideally though, he’s able to find the score sheet more often.

Corsi Chump: Brock Boeser brought up the rear in the Corsi department, posting a 40.00 CF% while playing the majority of his minutes against the Rangers’ top line. On ice for a goal against, the winger recorded the 6th-lowest xGF% at 36.84. It wasn’t ideal, but considering his linemates were pretty much a revolving door beside him, and Boeser’s opposition, the numbers aren’t the worst.

xGF: Leading the way in xGF% was Aatu Raty, who tallied 77.39 last night against the Rangers. It was solid work from the Finn as he owned the 6th-highest xGF at 0.66 while posting the second-lowest xGA of 0.19. As nice as it is to see that the stats are favouring his play, it would be even better if Raty were able to start translating those analytics into actual points. In terms of raw xGF, Jake DeBrusk led Vancouver with an 0.85, but was dragged down by his team-worst 1.35 xGA at 5v5 action.

GSAx: Once more, Thatcher Demko gave the Canucks a fighting chance in this one. With how much the scoring chances favoured the Rangers, it was no wonder that they recorded a 3.48 xGF across all situations. The fact that Demko only gave up a single high-danger goal against speaks volumes to the effort that he put up between the pipes, finishing with a 2.48 GSAx on the night. Hopefully, the Canucks can figure out how to give him some run support, because these performances shouldn’t be wasted too often.

Statistical Musings

Willander’s debut:  With the injuries on the back end, Tom Willander drew into the Canucks lineup for the first time last night. Spending the majority of his limited ice time paired up with Elias Pettersson and PO Joseph, the results were decent with those pairings. Pettersson-Willander had a 60.00 CF% share and 68.51 xGF% share, while Joseph-Willander had 57.14 CF% and 60.61 xGF%. Obviously, this is an extremely limited sample size especially given how little Willander played (9:48 TOI at 5v5 action), but at the very least he wasn’t a liability.

D-Petey’s rough night: Being thrust into a top 4-ish role as a 21-year-old is either a really good thing for a young defenceman, or a sign of rough times for the team. For D-Petey, it was more of the latter as he did show signs of being a young defenceman in the NHL. On ice for a goal against, he posted the second-worst xGF% on the team with a 29.49, with the 6th-worst xGA at 0.87. This came along with a  1-4 high-danger chance hole, which just isn’t ideal for Pettersson to be giving up.

As a team

CF% – 51.38% HDCF% – 35.71% xGF% – 39.28%

The Canucks just didn’t look great. Even with getting a fantastic performance from Demko, the team in front of him couldn’t manage to suppress the chances against, nor were they able to generate enough on the offensive end. The big fat zero on the scoreboard was probably a little harsher than they deserved, but make no mistake – this team didn’t deserve to be winning this contest.

Vancouver hits the road again, landing in St Louis to play the Blues tomorrow night.

Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com