The Vancouver Canucks had an explosive first period against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday, but it wasn't their most satisfying of games in front of The Great One.

In his legendary career, Wayne Gretzky scored more against the Vancouver Canucks than any other team in the NHL. To be exact, he had 76 goals and 163 assists for 239 points in 117 career games — an average of just over two points a game. 

Perhaps the presence of The Great One at Rogers Arena on Tuesday helped spur the Canucks to an explosive five-goal first period, on their way to a 6-3 win over the Ottawa Senators.

In his career, Gretzky logged six five-point nights against the Canucks. Four of those games were on home ice in Edmonton, and one was at the Forum in Los Angeles. But the final five-spot came in the building where he sat on Tuesday. He put up three goals and two assists in the New York Rangers' 6-3 win over the Canucks on Oct. 11, 1997, at what was then known as General Motors Place — in what was also the fourth game in a Vancouver uniform for Gretzky's former teammate, Mark Messier. 

In recent years, Gretzky has opened up about how close he came to signing with Vancouver during his playing days. On Tuesday, he was seated with Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini and Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, but the main reason for his visit was likely the opportunity to check in on the handiwork of another former teammate and, more recently, a broadcast colleague in Canucks coach Rick Tocchet.

The pair first played together on the 1994-95 Los Angeles Kings and have remained friends ever since. And since Gretzky spent New Year's Day in Seattle as part of the NHL on TNT broadcast panel for the Winter Classic game between the Kraken and the Vegas Golden Knights, it was a quick jaunt north to see what Tocchet has done with the franchise that he once feasted upon.

Seeing their first game action in five days, the Canucks played what their coach described as "probably one of our best periods in a month." In the opening frame, Vancouver outshot the Senators 15-9 and controlled over 85 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5, according to naturalstattrick.com.

Last time out at Rogers Arena, the visiting Philadelphia Flyers played a disciplined, structured first period and waited for opportunities to present themselves — a winning strategy. But after an encouraging 5-1 home win over Buffalo in their last outing on New Year's Eve, the Sens did things a little differently on Tuesday. They paid the price due to screens, deflections and literally falling on top of each other.

Pucks were coming from every which way, and Anton Forsberg's night was over after just 16:58 of action, following four goals on 13 shots. 

Less than a minute later, the Senators took their only penalty of the night. And after spending Tuesday's morning skate working on revitalizing a power play that had been red hot earlier in the season but accounted for just one goal in the last four games, Elias Pettersson quickly welcomed Joonas Korpisalo to the game with a blast to the far side that Sens defender Jake Sanderson deflected.

But what to make of the final 40 minutes? 

J.T. Miller had a goal and an assist to hit 50 points in 37 games, tied for fifth overall in the NHL scoring race with William Nylander and David Pastrnak. But he was not impressed with how the game played out.

"I liked our start," he said. "I think that no matter if we score those goals or not, it's good for the game. It's good for the pace. That being said, I feel like we totally sat on a five-goal lead after the first period. If we're going to take steps as a team, we need to play the second and third like it's 0-0. I thought we played worse after the first period."

The Senators deserve some credit. While they opened their five-game road trip with about the worst first 20 minutes you could imagine, they stuck with the game. Claude Giroux, in particular, showed his veteran leadership — getting Ottawa on the board early in the second, then setting up Vladimir Tarasenko on a sweet play right after the face-off that started the third.

Ottawa outshot Vancouver 29-11 in the final two periods and controlled 53.10 percent of expected goals. They outscored the Canucks 3-1 and could have done more damage, but Thatcher Demko was strong when needed in the Vancouver net.

And a comeback was not meant to be. When Tarasenko scored his second of the night to bring Ottawa to 5-3 with 2:31 left in the third, only 13 seconds elapsed before Pius Suter stripped the puck from Drake Batherson at the Ottawa blueline and fired a bouncer past Korpisalo to restore the three-goal lead.

"It took a good bounce," said the first-year Canuck — a defense-first forward who is now up to eight goals in 23 games this season.

After digging themselves such a deep hole, the Senators were cautious about suggesting that their final two periods could be something they can build off when their road trip continues on Thursday against the Seattle Kraken, who are 7-0-2 in their last nine games.

"The way we played the second and third, we were, in my book, obviously better than they were," said defenseman Thomas Chabot. "But you've got to do that for three periods in the NHL. And that's the only way you're gonna do it, if you want to be consistent and want to win games."

The 'new coach bump' hasn't worked for the Senators, who are now 3-4-0 since replacing D.J. Smith with Jacques Martin behind the bench. And Tuesday's loss is the first for the Ottawa organization since Steve Staios officially took the reins as the team's permanent GM on Sunday. 

Still mired in last place in the Eastern Conference, four points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets, big roster changes could potentially be on the horizon if a turnaround doesn't take hold before the March 8 trade deadline.

And while the Canucks were also unsatisfied with Tuesday's showing, they still picked up two points that put them back at the top of the Western Conference — in total points (51) and points percentage (.689). They're also just one point behind the Boston Bruins for first place overall. 

But arguably the toughest test of the year is just around the corner. Vancouver will kick off a seven-game, 12-day road trip in St. Louis on Thursday.