EDMONTON — The Vancouver Canucks need more than their goalie to start on time.
Thatcher Demko’s brilliant performance on Saturday wasn’t enough to save the Canucks, who were outshot 37-15 and lost 3-1 to the Edmonton Oilers.
This was a goalie-adjusted blowout. Without Demko, as Canucks winger Brock Boeser noted, the score could have been 5-1 or 6-1.
But had the Canucks just managed more in the first two periods, when they were outskated and outplayed and outscored 2-0, the game might have actually finished in their favour. That’s how good Demko was.
Two games don’t make a trend — especially when there are 80 remaining.
But in their National Hockey League opener on Thursday, the Canucks’ sloppy first half on home ice against the Calgary Flames looked like nerves, opening-night jitters for a team desperate for a strong start after an encouraging pre-season. But they also didn’t surrender many shots or scoring chances and dominated the final period in a 5-1 win.
Against the Oilers on Saturday, Vancouver was outshot 13-4 in the first period and, honestly, its most dangerous scoring chance was when Oiler Andrew Mangianpane nearly bobbled the puck into his own net with no one around except alert Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard.
Demko, meanwhile, faced a barrage of Grade-A chances. The goalie made point-blank saves against Matt Savoie, Trent Frederic and twice on David Tomasek.
The Canucks’ game plan, like every team that visits Edmonton, was built around stopping Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. And with Demko’s help, they held the best two players in the world off the scoresheet until Draisaitl scored an empty-netter with 1:13 to go.
But the Canucks needed to generate more. A forecheck and some offensive-zone time would have helped.
“Obviously, those guys (McDavid and Draisaitl) are good, but we’ve got to play our game and we’ve got to initiate more,” Canucks winger Kiefer Sherwood said. “Like, our forecheck is something that’s part of our identity, and when we’re not establishing that, it kind of trickles down. It probably starts with our passes. I didn’t think we made crisp passes and were throwing away too many pucks, and we just didn’t sustain possession when we had the puck. And then we’re kind of starting on the back foot, chasing it from the get-go.”
Sherwood said starting better is “something we’re going to have to address.”
“I don’t know, I think it’s a little different game plan when you’re going against, you know, those two guys,” winger Brock Boeser said. “You’ve got to be aware of them at all times. (But) I think we didn’t take advantage when they were not on the ice. It’s obviously something we’re going to talk about and push to be better at.
“I think we sat back a little too much in the first two periods there, and I thought when we tried to get some momentum going in the third we took a couple penalties and that kind of made us take a step back. I thought we were in the box a lot. We’ve got to be a little more disciplined and push a little harder.”
The Canucks were shorthanded five times for a total of 9:33, yet blanked the McDavid-Draisaitl power play. But holding on five-on-four didn’t help establish their game at even strength.
Tyler Myers, with an unlucky puck-over-glass penalty, and Filip Chytil’s offensive-zone trip twice put the Canucks shorthanded when they were trying to push in the third period.
Boeser, knocking down Quinn Hughes’ line-drive pass, spun and hooked a low shot past Pickard 47 seconds into the final frame to give the Canucks a chance to steal something from the game.
Demko stopped the first 20 shots he faced, but was beaten by Noah Philp at 12:21 of the second period after a give-and-go with Kasperi Kapanen. An undrafted 27-year-old who was signed out of the University of Alberta and took an entire season off hockey two years ago, Philp scored his first NHL goal with a shot that appeared to tick Myers’ stick and change direction on Demko.
With shots 21-8 for Edmonton, Vancouver needed to just survive the rest of the period. But Chytil gave the puck away to Mangiapane in the Vancouver slot, and the Oiler had time to pick his spot stick-side on Demko with 49.8 seconds left in the middle frame.
“That was a bad pass,” Chytil said. “That goal goes on my back. But, yeah, it happens. It’s just too bad that we didn’t get the win for Demmer because he was great. He was unbelievable. We just didn’t score enough goals to win a game. We should get a win for him in a game like that because, like I said, he was unbelievable.”
Boeser said: “It doesn’t surprise me; He’s a world-class goalie.”
But the way the Canucks played, especially yielding territory and scoring chances early on, a world-class performance still wasn’t enough.
“I think we’ve just got to stay out of the box,” coach Adam Foote said. “We actually didn’t have a bad (start). It wasn’t going too wrong early. We almost had four or five two-on-ones in the first; we hit one of them. We’re fine, and then we take an offensive-zone penalty. It happens. But, you know, a team like that, you’ve got to stay out of the box.
“You know, we were right there (in the third period). And when you have a performance from your goaltender like that, killing five power plays … you just have to be a little bit more patient.”
ICE CHIPS — Foote tweaked his forward lines for Edmonton, starting ex-Oiler Exander Kane up the lineup on a line with Chytil and Conor Garland. Kane, whose hit-of-the-game on Alec Regula late in the third period drew a retaliatory penalty that gave Vancouver a power play, was one of the best Canucks … Top centre Elias Pettersson finished with 16:38 of ice time, but 3:30 of that came in one chunk at the end of the game. He went 3-15 on faceoffs. Centre Aatu Raty was 9-2 in the circle.
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