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The Vancouver Canucks opened the game discombobulated, fell behind early and lost Thatcher Demko to a second-period injury — an apparent left leg injury, which is concerning given his recent injury history.
There were a million reasons the Canucks might struggle, but they didn’t, even if a fortunate late Kraken bounce squandered what should’ve been a regulation victory.
Vancouver spent Thursday as the top national news story across the hockey world, with various insiders and former Canucks teammates chiming in, once again, on the subject of dressing room tension among the team’s core. The club remains without Filip Hronek, Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson. Rick Tocchet and his coaching staff made a change to the lineup, inserting Guillaume Brisebois for Erik Brännström, which moved betting lines against the club and resulted in a torrent of criticism from Canucks fans on various social media platforms.
And after Demko left in the second period, Vancouver promptly gave up several consecutive scoring chances, forcing Kevin Lankinen to be sharp off the hop. Thankfully, he was.
For all that was stacked against Vancouver on Thursday night at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, the Canucks put together their most impressive 20-minute stretch of hockey in a long time in a dominant second period, eliminated an early deficit and mostly took control in the third period before an undisciplined penalty resulted in a Matty Beniers power-play goal and permitted the Kraken to score a lucky one late to force overtime and eventually a shootout. In the skills competition coin flip, a J.T. Miller goal and three Lankinen saves allowed Vancouver to come away with the extra point.
Here are three takeaways from Vancouver’s win.
Demko departs
After permitting a tough goal he’d want back in the early stages of the game to Chandler Stephenson, Demko was dialed in Thursday night. He stymied Oliver Bjorkstrand on multiple breakaways and held Vancouver in it as its defensive game listed in the first seven minutes.
Late in the first frame, however, Canucks defender Noah Juulsen collided with Demko, and the Vancouver starter stood up slowly, appearing to favour his left knee. That’s the same knee Demko injured late last season and then sustained an unprecedented tear in, in Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs.
This is the seemingly innocuous bump from teammate Noah Juulsen that caused Thatcher Demko to leave the game for #Canucks.pic.twitter.com/cjZrBIbTzb
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) January 3, 2025
Demko left the game in the second period. His recovery after his second breakaway stop on Bjorkstrand looked a bit tentative, and after Conor Garland scored to spot the Canucks a 2-1 lead, Demko went down the tunnel and didn’t return.
After the game, Tocchet suggested his star goaltender was dealing with back spasms as opposed to anything involving his lower body.
In relief of Demko, Lankinen was excellent. He made a variety of high-difficulty saves immediately after the change, which helped preserve Vancouver’s lead. It took a special Beniers shot to finally beat him on the power play, and by that point, Vancouver had padded its lead.
Lankinen has been excellent all season. He has given the Canucks a level — and a volume — of performance consistent with what you’d expect from an above-average starter.
There’s a material difference, however, between what Demko is capable of providing when he’s at the height of his powers and Lankinen. This isn’t a slight against Lankinen. Demko might have the highest upside of any netminder in the sport.
Accordingly, Demko’s status will be something to monitor closely. If Demko’s injury is serious, it would significantly alter Vancouver’s campaign, in part because of Demko’s excellence and in part because the club hasn’t been able to depend on quality backup goaltending and is facing a condensed series of games this month.
Garland takes over
Down some of their most important five-on-five engines, Garland produced a vintage performance.
The gritty, undersized winger was whirling around Thursday, controlling play on an every-shift basis and scoring a critical 2-1 goal in the second period. Before the score effects got wild in the final minutes of the third period, with Garland on the ice, Vancouver had outshot the Kraken 9-3 in Garland’s five-on-five ice time while controlling 74 percent of shot attempts.
Without Hughes, Vancouver has regularly been getting outshot by crooked margins at even strength. Garland was the key driver who arrested that trend and helped the club overpower Seattle in the second frame and continue to dictate the pace and tempo of the contest for much of the third period (even if the Kraken found their way back into the game).
Miller’s ice time
It was a quiet night for Vancouver’s first-line centre despite a key assist on Tyler Myers’ third-period goal.
Miller found himself in the middle of national speculation about his Canucks future Thursday, which seems like a permanent feature of the conversation around the hockey club whenever the results sag for a stretch. Given that context, however, it seems notable that in the late stages of Vancouver’s win, Miller had logged the fewest five-on-five minutes among all Vancouver skaters against the Kraken.
There wasn’t an evident stretch in which Miller was benched or extended shifts where his wingers were logging shifts in his absence. There wasn’t an obvious matchup play impacting things, either.
Tocchet just seemingly elected to play Miller, Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser more sparingly than he did every other Canucks forward line against the Kraken. In overtime, Miller wasn’t the first forward over the boards. That responsibility fell instead to Garland and Pius Suter.
By the end of the night, Miller had used his signature move to win the shootout and secure the extra point for the Canucks. The superstar centre is also on a five-game assist streak.
Still, Miller’s level of play and his contributions — in terms of his two-way game and offensive production — haven’t been at the superstar level he sustained throughout last season. There’s also the back-to-back aspect to consider as a potential factor with the Canucks traveling postgame Thursday and facing off against the Nashville Predators on Friday night at Rogers Arena.
It’s still rare and worth noting when a workhorse, all-situations forward like Miller ends a game trailing all his teammates in five-on-five ice time, the way he did Thursday evening.
(Photo of J.T. Miller: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
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