Canucks vs. Oilers: Some lessons learned from a seven-game thriller

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The Vancouver Canucks won a series in their first playoff campaign in four years, and they nearly won a second.

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It was a tough finish Monday night, losing 3-2, but if we zoom and look at what was achieved, the Canucks did some remarkable things: They stuck to their guns. They played their way. They pushed a Stanley Cup contender to the limit.

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But there are, of course, lessons to be drawn from all this.

Oh, so close

J.T. Miller’s shot, a perfectly set one-timer by Elias Pettersson, was surely going in, just about all observers agree.

Too bad about Nikita Zadorov’s massive leg.

That’s a bounce that goes against you. That’s how it goes sometimes. That’s how close the Canucks were to sending Game 7 to overtime, even in a game where they’d looked flustered and without answers for long stretches.

That they found resilience at the end of it all is a strong point in this team’s favour and something to build on, but lean less on, in 2024-25. They want to be like the Oilers, leading the way. That’s through higher skill built on top of confidence and hard work.

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Special teams

We knew coming into the Pacific Division final series that for the Canucks to have any hope of success they would have to find a way to slow down the Oilers’ famed power play.

Edmonton had skated past Los Angeles in the first round largely because of their prowess on the man advantage.

The Oilers scored nine goals in five games against the Kings.

Remarkably, the Canucks did slow down the Oilers’ power play: Edmonton managed just six goals across the series’ seven games and just two of those were in the final four games.

Instead it was the Oilers’ penalty kill that proved to be the real difference-maker in the series.

The Canucks struggled to get setup on many of their opportunities, the Oilers doing a masterful job of just yielding no space inside the blue line on zone entries.

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And so the Canucks scored just three power play goals across the series.

The Oilers won the special teams battle — just not quite in the way we thought they might.

Chasing the game is hard

There’s a simple truth in hockey: score first and you’ve got a very good chance of winning the game.

In the 2023-24 regular season, teams win about two-thirds of the games where they score the first goal. In the current Stanley Cup playoffs, the scoring-first winning percentage actually drops to 57.9 per cent … but would you believe that the four teams with the best records when scoring first are the four teams remaining in the playoffs?

Remarkably the Oilers have scored first in 10 out of their 12 playoff games this spring.

Seven of the eight wins they’ve collected in their first two rounds saw them score first.

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It’s just really hard to come back against the best teams.

The Canucks only scored first in one game, Game 2, and they lost that game.

That they were able to take two come-from-behind wins in the series is quite remarkable really.

But it’s also why the Canucks lamented their failure on a four-minute power play in the first period of Game 7. Score there and the game is very different.

Relentless schedule plays no favourites

When you’re playing every other night, there’s no time for proper recovery.

And if you’re trying to chase the game, your energy reserves are going to be even more sapped.

There’s little doubt Quinn Hughes, for instance, was giving his all at the end of Game 7, but you could see the fatigue in his game.

The Oilers had a grinding, puck-killing offensive zone shift with about three minutes left in the game. Zach Hyman and Warren Foegele combined to pin the Canucks’ top line in their own end for about a minute, forcing them to burn off energy and time in a way that was absolutely the opposite of what they wanted.

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Edmonton had nearly a week off before the series started. The Canucks had just a few days after their first-round series versus Nashville. That rest advantage was evident by the end of the series.

Draisaitl, the monster

We love the underdog narrative but in the end, you’ll only go so far as your stars.

There was so much talk about Connor McDavid’s play, many missed what a monster performance Leon Draisaitl put in.

Playing with what sources said was a bad back, Draisaitl willed his team forward. He collected 14 points over the series. And the decision of the Oilers’ coaches to put him back on his own line midway through the series was a big turning point in the Oilers’ favour in the long run.

The goalie question

Arturs Silovs was pushed to his maximum and he performed admirably on the second-biggest stage he’s ever stood on, but let’s be clear: Thatcher Demko was a breath away from a return.

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Even when his injury was first diagnosed, it was believed he had a small chance of returning for Game 7.

He nearly did it.

You do have to wonder if the coaches pondered bringing him back at the last minute, as if he were a hero returning on a horse to save the battle.

But in the end, the Canucks stuck to their plan and Demko came up one full practice short.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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