Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes were twin terrors in Halloween victory
The Vancouver Canucks made Rogers Arena a Halloween fun house for their fans and a haunted mansion for the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night. Elias Pettersson recorded his second NHL hattrick and moved within two points of the NHL scoring lead while Quinn Hughes chipped in with three assists.
Here are some thoughts and observations as the Canucks improved to 6-2-1.
*The Canucks won without their best stuff on Tuesday. Fortunately for them their best players were able to carry the day. The Canucks were outplayed and outchanced by a wide margin for long stretches in the hockey game. According to Natural Stat Trick the Predators controlled 62.2% of all shot attempts at 5-on-5, held a 32-16 edge in scoring chances and a 16-6 advantage in high danger chances. But Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko are difference makers and certainly did their parts in the victory.
*Pettersson, by the way, now has multi-point outings in six of the Canucks first nine games and is up to 5+11=16 on the season. Hughes, meanwhile, picked up the 250th point of his career in just his 292nd NHL game. That's a mind-boggling stat for a player who just looks so determined every night out to reverse the fortunes of this hockey club.
*The Canucks are now 5-0 against Western Conference opponents. With only one meeting remaining with Nashville they have already secured the season series. The surest way to work your way up the standings is to beat the teams you'll be battling all season in regulation time. The Canucks are doing a masterful job of that so far.
*Give the Canucks credit for their work in front of the opposition net. Tuesday may have been their best outing of the season in that regard. The first four goals were all a direct result of traffic in front of Kevin Lankinen. Sam Lafferty had the puck go in off of him. Ilya Mikheyev and Brock Boeser set great screens for Elias Pettersson's first two goals. And JT Miller battled at the net front to score the 4-2 goal that gave the Canucks some breathing room.
*Rick Tocchet seems to be pushing all the right buttons with this team these days. And that included cracking the whip on JT Miller for the final seven minutes of the second period. After Miller's third minor penalty of the night (inlcuding an unsportsmanlike conduct call in the first period), Tocchet sat Miller down. He had one five second shift over the final 6:47 of the period. That was the time it took to skate from the penalty box back to the bench where he remained until the buzzer sounded. Miller watched as he was replaced on the power play by Filip Hronek and the Canucks scored what turned out to be the game winning goal with the man-advantage while Miller was parked at the end of the bench. Tocchet said after the game that the two talked things out in the intermission and there were no hard feelings. Miller then scored 4:11 into the third period to give the Canucks a 4-2 lead. On the night, though, Miller's final ice time of 13:02 was notably low.
*Anthony Beauvillier is quietly coming out of his season-long slumber. He picked up a pair of assists on Tuesday including one on the game's opening goal. He still hasn't scored this season and didn't look particularly dangerous against the Predators. But there are some signs of life in his game. Hopefully, it's something to build on.
*It was another solid showing for Thatcher Demko who made 23 stops and was beaten for a pair of goals 30 seconds apart late in the first. Otherwise, he closed the door over the final 40 minutes. Demko improved to 4-2 on the season and has allowed more than two goals against just once -- a 4-3 loss in Tampa a few weeks back. It will be interesting to see how the Canucks handle their goaltending over the next three games with a visit to winless San Jose on Thursday followed by home games against Dallas and Edmonton. Perhaps Casey DeSmith gets the Sharks to keep Demko rested and ready for two teams with significantly more firepower.