Saturday Feb. 19 - Anaheim Ducks 7 - Vancouver Canucks 4

Monday, Feb. 21 - Seattle Kraken at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m. PT

Did you catch Dan Murphy's interview with Anaheim forward Troy Terry during the first intermission of Saturday's Canucks game?

Asked one question, Terry immediately started talking about how his team had collectively made a decision to seize this moment — not to squander the opportunity they had created to play meaningful games for the rest of the year and try to put themselves in position to grab a playoff berth.

Out of the All-Star break, the Ducks had shot themselves in the foot, logging three straight losses and giving up a total of 17 goals to Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton.

Playing their third road game in four nights, they headed into Saturday's game sitting 10th in the Western Conference standings, two points out of a playoff spot.

I don't know whether that determination came from coach Dallas Eakins or from inside the room — possibly even from veteran captain Ryan Getzlaf, who played in Calgary but missed the games in Edmonton and Vancouver with a lower-body injury. Whatever the origin, Terry's words made it clear that he'd take the message to heart. And the Ducks' play from the very first shift offered more undeniable evidence.

For all intents and purposes, Saturday's game was decided at the 44 second mark of the first period, when big-bodied Nicolas Deslauriers pasted Kyle Burroughs into the end boards behind Thatcher Demko.

Definitely more comfortable as the initiator of hits, Burroughs crumpled to the ice. And as he tried to get to the bench, the Canucks were slow to get another defenseman into position. Thirteen seconds later, Terry had opened the scoring with his 26th goal of the year.

Then, as Boudreau put it after the game, the Canucks did their best Eeyore impression, hanging their heads and watching as Deslauriers scored his first of two goals on the night at 3:23. Shots in the first period were a grim 8-2. What a way to welcome back a full-capacity crowd to Rogers Arena! And the score after one was 3-0 after Rickard Rakell added a power-play goal while J.T. Miller was sitting for a slashing penalty.

As I'm sure you've noticed, I spend as much time watching other teams as I do watching the Canucks. This weekend, the L.A. Kings showed me their resilience as they erased two-goal deficits on back-to-back nights to earn a pair of wins.

On Friday, they got down 2-0 early in Vegas, got the score to 3-3 by the late stages of the second period, then won in overtime. Saturday, they spotted the rested Arizona Coyotes a 3-1 lead before a power-play goal from Drew Doughty late in the second period started a comeback that ended up as an easy 5-3 win for Los Angeles.

Those two wins keep the Kings in a playoff spot, for now — and only one point behind second-place Vegas, in the Pacific. And they show a measure of determination that seems to mostly have been missing from the Canucks this season.

Vancouver hasn't been as terrible out of the gate as you might think, scoring first in 23 of their 51 games so far this season (45%). And when they do score first, they've been much better at earning points, going 15-6-2 for a .652 winning percentage.

When they don't score first, their chance of winning is just .286, based off a record of 8-16-4 in 28 games.

Ottawa and Philadelphia have also given up the first goal 28 times — and their ability to bounce back is actually much worse than Vancouver's. The Senators are 5-19-4 for a .179 winning percentage, and the Flyers are a brutal 3-22-3 for just .107. The only team with a worse conversion rate is Montreal — 2-27-4 over 33 games for .061.

Edmonton has given up the first goal 34 times this season, tied with Seattle for the league lead in that category. The Oilers have been reasonably resilient in this situation, going 13-18-3 for .382. But they're a perfect 15-0-0 when they do score the first goal. If I'm Jay Woodcroft — not that he needs my advice, the way things are going for his Oilers — my Job #1 is trying to find ways for my team to get that early lead as often as possible.

The other team that gives up the first goal a lot but is still in a playoff position? Yep, the Los Angeles Kings.

They're 13-5-3 for .619 when they do score first — not bad, but not even as good as the Canucks. But impressively, they're above .500 when they give up the first goal — 13-12-4 for a winning percentage of .448.

Best in the league? St. Louis — actually 15-8-4 when they score first (.556) but even better when they give up the first goal at 14-6-2 (.636).

The two teams that have given up the first goal least frequently? Calgary — which makes sense, given the kind of season Jacob Markstrom is having — and Washington, which is a surprise. They're at just 17 games each, half of Edmonton and Seattle's numbers.

Based on what I'm seeing from this data, the first goal situation actually isn't a massive problem for the Canucks.

Let's see where they stand when they're behind later in games...

The Canucks have scored 34 first-period goals this season, tied with Seattle for eighth-fewest in the league. They've given up 47, tied with Detroit for 11th most.

With that minus-13 differential, they've had plenty of opportunity to play from behind. And they're actually not terrible at it — 6-10-2 for a .333 winning percentage. That ties them with Toronto and Vegas for the eighth-best win rate in the league.

But Vancouver has done it a lot more often — 18 times, compared to 12 for both the Leafs and the Golden Knights.

Vancouver's second-period goal differential is much better — 49 goals for compared to 47 against. But when they're still behind after two periods, they have a much tougher time climbing out of their hole — 3-16-3 for a winning percentage of .136. Relatively speaking, that's not terrible; Vancouver is tied with Detroit for 17th in that category, with teams like Washington, Winnipeg, Calgary and Anaheim below them.

But it looks like the real key to success is not to put yourself in that position too often.

For example, even though the Blues often give up the first goal, they've only trailed after two periods 11 times this season — tied with the Flames for the fewest occasions in the league. And St. Louis is 3-8-0 in that situation. Only Florida and Colorado, as you might expect, have erased more two-period deficits.

I'm sure the Canucks will be eager to put Saturday's affair behind them. Sunday's a day off, so we'll have to wait to get any firm updates on the state of the defense. Burroughs is not expected back, and it sounds like fellow righty Madison Bowey will be getting called up from Abbotsford. Oliver Ekman-Larsson also left Saturday's game in the third period, so his status is currently a question mark.

If there's any good new for the Canucks out of all those numbers I just crunched, it's that Seattle tends to start even more slowly than Vancouver.

They'll make their regular-season debut at Rogers Arena on Monday riding a 1-4-0 record since the All-Star Break, and coming off a 2-1 loss in Calgary on Saturday night — a game where they kept the Flames' vaunted scoring machine in check, but still allowed the first goal just 3:02 into the first period, and skated away with no points.

The Canucks are 2-0-0 against Seattle so far this season, thanks to 4-2 and 5-2 wins at Climate Pledge Arena.

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