Penalty Kill Continues To Underperform As Canucks Lose 4-1 To New Jersey

The Vancouver Canucks’ penalty killing woes continued in their 4–1 loss to the New Jersey Devils today. All but one of the Devils’ goals today came while Vancouver was on the penalty kill. Linus Karlsson scored the lone goal for the Canucks while on the power play, while Leevi Meriläinen made 31 stops on 34 shots faced in today’s effort. 

Vancouver opted to make some changes to their lineup after Thursday’s loss, taking Aatu Räty and Victor Mancini out of the lineup in exchange for Brendan Gallagher and Luke Schenn respectively. With Räty being taken out of the lineup, Vancouver was down to three natural centres. Drew O’Connor skated down the middle on Vancouver’s third line as a result. 

The biggest component to today’s game was Vancouver’s struggling penalty kill. The Canucks allowed a goal on almost every single penalty they took today (3), bringing their season’s PK total down to 52.2%.  

A couple of minutes after Vancouver opened the game’s scoring with Karlsson’s power-play goal, Jonathan Lekkerimäki took a high-sticking penalty that put the Canucks on the penalty-kill. Still appearing to be experimenting with their penalty-killing units, a duo of Brock Boeser and Liam Öhgren came onto the ice for Vancouver on the Devils’ first goal. 

Later, during the second period, Vancouver surrendered yet another power-play goal on a hooking penalty taken by Boeser, this time with a unit of Gallagher and Max Sasson on the ice for the goal-against. This was followed-up by a third power-play goal-against scored by Nico Hischier after a dominant, possession-filled power play for New Jersey. 

Today’s game also featured an odd occurrence that resulted in both Canucks goaltenders being in net for the second-consecutive game. While Meriläinen started today, with around five minutes left in the first period, a shot from Luke Hughes hit the Canucks goaltender’s skate and knocked the blade out. After a TV time-out, Kevin Lankinen came into the game in Meriläinen’s place. Despite his skate blade coming out yet another time, Meriläinen came out for the second period and played out the remainder of the game. 

New Jersey’s lone even-strength goal came at the end of the first period. Filip Hronek boggled the puck while attempting to re-set, allowing Jesper Boqvist and Amadeus Lombardi to pounce on the opportunity. While Lankinen made the initial stop, Boqvist was able to jump on the rebound to give his team the lead. 

Because of the fact that Lankinen allowed the goal that ultimately won New Jersey the game, today’s loss is credited to him instead of Meriläinen, despite Meriläinen starting the game and playing in nearly the entire matchup. Lankinen played in a total of 5:27 minutes today. 

Towards the end of the second period, Marco Rossi made a move to push Devils forward Evan Rodrigues out of the faceoff dot, prompting Rodrigues to spear the Canucks centre in the throat. Vancouver was given a four-minute power play for the sequence. While they had a little more than two minutes on the man-advantage to start the third period, another hooking call taken by Boeser cancelled out the power play. Because of the slight overlap at the end of Rodrigues’ double-minor, the Canucks spent nine seconds on the penalty kill. This technically gave Vancouver their first successful penalty kill of the game. 

As a whole, Vancouver wasn’t quite able to establish genuine offence in today’s game. New Jersey played the Canucks well, jumping on their opportunities and smothering Vancouver when they could. On the flip side, however, Vancouver gave the Devils ample opportunities to seize the puck by giving it away or turning it over. 

Stats and Facts: 

• Vancouver allows a power-play goal-against in six consecutive penalty kills 

• None of the Canucks’ four centres recorded a faceoff win rate higher than 50% 

• Leevi Meriläinen plays in his first career game against the New Jersey Devils 

• Brock Boeser ties Andre Boudrias for 16th all-time in Canucks history in power-play assists (89) 

Scoring Summary: 

1st Period: 

5:27 - VAN: Linus Karlsson (1) from Brock Boeser and Jake DeBrusk (PPG) 

8:03 - NJD: Nico Hischier (1) from Arseny Gritsyuk and Luke Hughes 

16:24 - NJD: Jesper Boqvist (2) from Amadeus Lombardi 

2nd Period: 

4:36 - NJD: Jesper Bratt (1) from Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes (PPG) 

19:50 - NJD: Nico Hischier (2) from Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt (PPG) 

3rd Period: 

No Scoring. 

Up Next: 

Vancouver Canucks @ New York Rangers, October 11, 3:30 pm PT 

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