You possibly can attempt counting the variety of instances Elias Pettersson touches the puck on this purpose, however that is not a activity I am occupied with signing up for. First, he accepts a move from Teddy Blueger after which dangles the puck across the stick of a sliding sprawled defenseman, which is the suitable response for when Pettersson has Brock Boeser throughout the best way—take away the move! Then Pettersson fires a shot instantly into Igor Shesterkin, who makes the save. Then the puck rebounds again, and Pettersson corrals it on his backhand, taking a bit of dive beneath the purpose line round Shesterkin’s prolonged left leg earlier than bringing it again into the crease. Then he switches again to his forehand and faucets the puck into the purpose whereas being tackle-tripped to the ice by a late-arriving Vincent Trocheck.
It is a miracle solo effort purpose, courtesy of Pettersson’s contact and stone-cold determination making that noticed him by way of pulling off a Forsberg as a rookie. And since that is the 2023–24 Vancouver Canucks, Nils Höglander follows it up roughly 30 seconds later by passing the puck between his personal legs and batting it by way of the five-hole to make the rating 5-2.
However that is outdated information. That occurred Monday night time, an entire two days in the past. On Tuesday night time, the Canucks crossed city and confronted the Islanders in a type of basic zero days’ relaxation vs. two days’ relaxation matchups, which is the perfect time to each expertise and justify experiencing a beatdown.
Solely, the Canucks got here out to a fast-paced first interval that finally resulted in a few objectives, although neither of have been significantly fairly—through the first, Casey Cizikas was writhing on the ice after blocking a shot, and through the second, the Islanders briefly stopped taking part in, uncertain of whether or not or not the puck had escaped the blue line. This clearly couldn’t stand, and so midway by way of the second interval, with assistance from Filip Hronek, Pettersson stole the puck within the Islanders’ personal zone and managed to execute a give-and-go with J.T. Miller with Ilya Sorokin virtually in between them.
So the Canucks notched a 6-3 victory and a 5-2 victory on back-to-back days, sustaining their regular lead on the remainder of the Pacific Division, and did it in model. You want xG? This is a sophisticated stat for you: xGrit, a proprietary Defector mannequin that determines how in it to win it the blokes within the locker room are. Quinn Hughes answered a query about whether or not or not he may take a second to savor their win towards the Rangers by saying, “I want I may inform you guys that I’m having the very best 12 months of my life and that every part is rainbows. But it surely’s nonetheless lots of stress. In my thoughts, I’m already fascinated by tomorrow.” It is nearly essentially the most miserable method of reframing the basic “one recreation at a time” mentality, nevertheless it definitely will get the purpose throughout: No matter else Rick Tocchet is doing, the xGrit is off the charts.
The final time we checked in with the Canucks, they have been additionally taking part in the Islanders, little doubt fueled by their Bo Horvat–associated angst to be narratively important. They have been additionally using a exceptional PDO—or, mixed goalie save proportion and skater capturing proportion—excessive. An unsustainable PDO excessive, in actual fact, and certainly it would not fairly be sustained. Thatcher Demko’s save proportion dropped from .932 and now sits at a still-very-good-but-much-more-mortal .916. Besides quick ahead one other month, and their PDO has rocketed back up, and most significantly, the Canucks are nonetheless successful convincingly. They’ve scored no less than 5 objectives in every of their previous six wins. All of these wins have been by no less than two objectives.
So: Are the Vancouver Canucks simply good? PDO, a hacky stat by design, is not solely a measure of luck—in spite of everything, environment friendly groups with good goalies will naturally have a excessive PDO. Then once more, there are 5 (5!) Canucks within the prime 10 certified gamers by capturing proportion, which admittedly is just not sustainable. However watching them play, it is solely a pure results of every part that makes them enjoyable to look at. It is obscene to suppose {that a} fifth of the time that Brock Boeser—who’s at the moment on tempo to crush his earlier season excessive in factors and objectives—shoots the puck, it is going into the purpose. Then you definately get watch his shot and you may consider it. It is much more obscene to suppose that quarter of the time Nils Hogländer shoots the puck, he scores a purpose. Then you definately scroll again up and take a look at the video of him passing the puck to himself between the legs, and, like, aw, man. Positive, why not?