LAS VEGAS – The house always wins, so a lot of people have lost more than they could afford in Vegas. The Vancouver Canucks wouldn’t have been the first.
But on a night when their losses should have dominated discussion about the National Hockey League team, players instead were talking about everything they gained here Wednesday. And we don’t just mean the two points in a 3-2 shootout win against the Vegas Golden Knights that lifted the Canucks – are we reading the standings upside down? – to the top of the Pacific Division.
Already without their top two forwards in Elias Pettersson (concussion) and Brock Boeser (groin), the Canucks lost No. 1 defenceman Alex Edler early in the first period and No. 2 Chris Tanev halfway through the third. Sven Baertschi, probably the Canucks’ fourth-best forward, was injured in the second period when he took a shoulder to the head from Tomas Hyka.
And, still, the Canucks won.
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Sure, they were outshot 22-13 over the final 40 minutes of regulation, and towards the end they looked like they had run out of oxygen at the bench. But they battled, got good goaltending from Jacob Markstrom, who made 33 saves – plus four more in the shootout – and a fairly dominant performance from a jerry-rigged top line of Bo Horvat, Brendan Leipsic and Loui Eriksson.
Horvat scored both Canucks goals in regulation, and Markus Granlund had the shootout winner as Vancouver completed a stretch that saw it gather four wins in six games against the best teams from last season.
"That’s a helluva win," defenceman Troy Stecher said. "We’ve always had the belief that we’re going to win hockey games. We’ve shown that so far this year. We believe in the group in here. This is a big character win, though. This is one of those games we can probably look back on in a couple of months if we go through a tough stretch and it will keep us going."
The Canucks played the final 16 minutes with four defencemen. And the four were: Stecher, Ben Hutton, Derrick Pouliot and Erik Gudbranson.
Gudbranson missed a couple of shifts in the third period when his skate blade broke, and another time limped to the bench favouring his right arm or shoulder.
Stecher didn’t notice.
"I was too busy huffing and puffing," he said. "I was dying. That was a lot of minutes."
Stecher’s ice time of 22:47 was the least of the final four. Hutton had the most at 29:25.
They’ll get a little help Thursday night in Arizona against the Coyotes, but probably not from Edler or Tanev.
Edler is out with an undisclosed injury after being run by Max Pacioretty. Alex Biega will likely be recalled from the Utica Comets, and the Canucks also have defenceman Michael Del Zotto, a healthy scratch the last eight games.
Up front, Boeser is expected to play, which would be the replacement for Baertschi. Pettersson is also getting close to playing for the first time since he was injured nearly two weeks ago. Despite not playing for five games, Pettersson hung on to the team scoring lead until Horvat scored twice on Wednesday.
His deflection of Eriksson’s point shot offset Pacioretty’s goal early in the second period, and Horvat gave the Canucks the lead at 5:26 when he rifled a shot top-corner against goalie Marc-Andre Fleury after Tim Schaller’s pass sent him on a semi-breakaway. Ryan Reaves tied it for the Knights.
Horvat, whose line dominated possession, has seven goals and nine points in 10 games this season.
"Yeah, you want to step up and, yeah, you want to be a difference-maker in the game," Horvat said, reminded that coach Travis Green said after the morning skate that the team needed someone to step up. "But for me to think, "tonight is going to be the night"… every night I want to be that guy. I want to be a difference-maker night in and night out. But you do push yourself that much harder when you see guys go down."
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The rebuilding Canucks, who had 73 points last season, are 6-4 and have beaten Calgary, Tampa Bay, Florida, Pittsburgh, Boston and Vegas. Four of these wins were on the road.
Wednesday’s may have been the most impressive and meaningful yet.
"It means everything," Gudbranson said. "That was a hard hockey game. But that’s the difference with this team this year: we just get our noses dirty and find a way to grind it out. That’s a really good win, a really positive win for us. Knowing you can come into a building like that… that’s one of the hardest buildings to play in in the NHL."
"We were tired at the end of the game there," Markstrom said. "But we battled really hard in the third with a limited lineup to get a win in Vegas. I think that shows some character."
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