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Elias Pettersson sets team record as Canucks' win streak reaches 3 vs. Avs |
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Friday Nov 2 - Vancouver Canucks 7 - Colorado Avalanche 6 (OT)
What.A.Game!
Elias Pettersson continues to outdo himself. On Friday, he became the first Vancouver Canucks rookie and the youngest Canuck ever to record a five-point game as his team traded punches with the Colorado Avalanche on the way to a 7-6 overtime win.
Here are your (many) highlights:
I expected plenty of offensive fireworks with the Avs in town. Remember how Colorado torched Vancouver with five power-play goals as they came back from a 4-1 deficit to win 5-4 in OT at Rogers Arena last year?
What I didn't expect was a wild back-and-forth effort where neither team ever led by more than a goal, and where the momentum built and built until the roof nearly came off at Rogers Arena when Derrick Pouliot scored the game winner on a 4-on-3 power play with 22 seconds left in overtime.
Pouliot now has six goals in his NHL career and every one has been a game winner. Clutch!
I feel like a week at home, with some practice time, paid off for the injury-riddled Canucks. My big early takeaway was that Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser have been able to start developing an understanding of how each other plays the game.
EP40 was in full-on playmaker mode early on, setting up Boeser for the Canucks' first two goals.
First, he sprung Boeser on a breakaway with a perfect tape-to-tape pass.
Then, he got creative.
"I saw him with more speed than the defender," Pettersson explained of his decision to bank the puck off the boards to Boeser when he spoke to the media after the game. "I just quickly thought that with hybrid icing or whatever youâd call it, I made a play and it worked out.
"I tried it too at the beginning of the season and it went to icing. So it wasnât that good then. But Iâm glad it worked out today."
I was very worried that we'd lost Boeser near the midway mark of the second period, when he went down hard after taking a cross-check from Matt Calvert.
Boeser continued to wince after making his way to the bench...
...but was right back out with Petey and Goldy for his next shift less than one minute laterâafter Loui Eriksson's first goal of the season, which put the Canucks up 3-2.
After playing 6:54 in the first period, Brock ended up playing 4:56 in the second and a whopping 7:07 in the third, as well as 2:10 in overtime. He finished the night at 21:07, less than a minute shy of his season high of 21:45, against Chicago on Wednesday. He also picked up two crucial late assistsâon Pettersson's 6-6 game-tying tally with 36 seconds left in regulation and on Pouliot's winner.
I hope the back isn't causing him too much grief this morning, now that the adrenaline has subsided. The way things have been going lately, it's almost unfathomable that the team may have not only gotten the win, but also escaped without a new injury. Boeser was moving well and showed his old confidence on Fridayâreally, for the first time this season.
Hopefully it is nothing more than a rest day, maybe with some treatment on his back?
In the end, Brendan Batchelor neatly summed up the feeling in the arena when all was said and done.
My night of statting was nothing short of frantic and left me breathlessly trying to collect myself as the chants of "MVP" echoed through the arena while Pettersson was, once again, named the game's first star.
The way the game unfolded, I had more than one moment of doubt that the Canucks were going to maintain their perfect record after scoring the first goal, but here we are. It has only happened four times in 15 games, but they're 4-0-0.
The Canucks are also now 3-0-0 when they outshoot their opponent. They hit a season high on Friday, with 37, and gave up just 29 to the high-flying Avs. That's now two straight games that they've now outshot their opponents, reversing a trend where they had been outshot in 12 of their first 13 games.
And on a night when he gave up a six-spot, Jacob Markstrom earned his sixth win of the season, which moves him into a tie with Andrei Vasilevskiy, Juuse Saros and Freddy Andersen for tops in the league. Markstrom's .899 save percentage and 3.27 GAA look a little out of place up there but last night's game now has the Canucks sitting in the middle of the league at 3.07 goals scored per game. That's an impressive improvement after the last few seasons.
Friday's game also caps off the Canucks' first three-game streak of the seasonâand it comes on the winning side. Props to Travis Green for successfully hitting the reset button with his group after those discouraging losses to the Coyotes and Penguins last week.
Yes, we've been here before, where the Canucks offer early-season hope before the wheels eventually fall off the wagon. But let's enjoy this while it lasts.
In the press box before the game, there was some talk that Pettersson's production will inevitably taper off at some point. Instead, he delivered his most dominant performance yet. And he still hasn't even hit the 10-game mark in his career. How high *is* the ceiling for this kid??
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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