The Vancouver Canucks didn’t seem to be ready when the puck dropped on Tuesday night in Tampa Bay, and it cost them.
The Tampa Bay Lightning might not be the imposing, quasi-dynastic side they’ve been in years past, but this is still a team loaded with top-end talent, supported by a lineup of hyper-competitive puck hounds. That showed in the first period and eventually powered the Lightning to a 4-1 victory.
The Canucks have now lost three consecutive games to open the 2024-25 campaign.
Ultimately it was a bad start that cost Vancouver. In the opening 20 minutes the Lightning completely outworked and dominated the Canucks, repeatedly forcing turnovers and turning Vancouver’s forwards back in the neutral zone. Pouncing off of a Noah Juulsen giveaway, the Lightning built an early 1-0 lead on a Nikita Kucherov goal.
In truth, if not for some timely saves from Artūrs Šilovs, the damage in the first period would have been far more severe.
Having escaped the first frame, Vancouver belatedly found their footing in the second. It was the Lightning, however, who broke through again, adding some salt to the wound when Brayden Point scored against the run of play to pad the Lightning lead and ensure uphill sledding for a Canucks side that’s started slowly this season, but only picked up their first regulation loss on Tuesday evening.
Still, it was another loss defined by sloppy puck-moving from the back end out and a new-look top-six forward group that’s clearly still a work in progress from a chemistry perspective. The Canucks didn’t perform poorly, per se, but were still clearly the second-best side on the ice.
It’s still early enough that a tough first week shouldn’t represent a crisis point for the team, which entered the season with elevated expectations. It’s getting late enough, however, that the club should feel some urgency to arrest this early-season slide on Thursday evening in South Florida.
Here’s three takeaways from the Canucks’ loss in Tampa Bay.
Šilovs bounces back early
It was a dicey showing for Šilovs in Vancouver’s home opener, but he was excellent on Tuesday night, especially in the first period when the Lightning mauled Vancouver territorially and regularly took a can opener to the club’s vaunted defensive structure.
The Lightning racked up heavy shifts in the first frame, peppering Šilovs with high-quality chances and second-chance opportunities. As the Lightning buzzed around Vancouver’s crease, Šilovs stood tall repeatedly.
The Lightning’s scoring chances were worth 1.97 expected goals in the opening 20 minutes alone according to Natural Stat Trick. Šilovs, however, was able to hold the fort, limiting the damage and giving his club an opportunity to come back.
On balance, Andrei Vasilevskiy — still the dean of NHL workhorse starters — outplayed the young Canucks netminder, helping to key the Lightning victory. But it was still a solid bounce back showing for Šilovs, who performed at a high enough level — especially early on — to give his team a chance when they were far from sharp in front of him.
Andrei Vasilevskiy got the better of the Canucks on Tuesday, giving up one goal on 27 shots. (Mike Carlson / Getty Images)
Elias Pettersson’s struggles and the second-period response
When frustration mounts around an individual player, especially a top offensive player like Canucks centre Elias Pettersson, you notice the misses. The wasted opportunities. The things that aren’t going that player’s way.
It’s easy as that dynamic settles in to ignore what a player is contributing, and in the second period, despite some frustrating misses, a key Pettersson shift early in the frame settled the Canucks’ game down.
The second period was like a mirror image of the first frame. Where the Lightning completely dominated the opening 20 minutes, it was all Vancouver in the second aside from Point’s goal.
Conor Garland nearly got Vancouver on the board with a nifty move out of a goal-mouth scramble, Quinn Hughes challenged Vasilevskiy with a smart shot from a sharp angle and Brock Boeser nearly converted on a slap pass, forcing Vasilevskiy to make a difficult save.
It wasn’t sufficient, especially because the Lightning were able to extend their lead with that excellent Point finish, but results aside, it was the sort of response you want to see from a team with meaningful ambitions of contending.
As for Pettersson, his line lost their even-strength matchup decisively against the Anthony Cirelli trio, which was a nightmare for Vancouver all night long. Pettersson helped manufacture some scoring chances, but still doesn’t look particularly sharp. There’s a certain lack of juice characterizing his performances at the moment, and at the moment, Vancouver isn’t really controlling play with him on the ice the way they customarily have throughout his career.
Pettersson was hardly alone among Canucks skaters to struggle Tuesday night, or across Vancouver’s first three games more generally, but at some point this team is going to need their best players to be the reason they win some games. On Tuesday night, at least, Vancouver’s core group wasn’t quite up to that task.
The newer, more aggressive penalty kill
A sore spot for many years, Vancouver’s penalty kill got into league-average territory last season and ended the year — especially following the acquisition of Elias Lindholm — as a legitimate strength of Vancouver’s game.
Several key contributors from Vancouver’s penalty-killing group last season — Lindholm, Ian Cole, Nikita Zadorov — departed this past summer, and we were skeptical about this team’s ability to continue to progress in four-on-five situations this season. In the early going, however, that skepticism appears to be unfounded.
On Tuesday night, Vancouver killed all four Tampa Bay power plays. They did it with a level of tactical aggression, especially with strong-side pressure on puck carriers through the neutral zone, that we didn’t often see from Vancouver last season. There’s a systematic tweak here, one that’s working well in the early going.
Vancouver consistently stymied the Lightning’s attempts to enter the zone. In concert with Tampa Bay’s struggles in the faceoff circle with the man advantage, Vancouver’s success through the neutral zone effectively minimized the amount of time Kucherov and company were able to spend setting up and snapping the puck around, probing Vancouver’s penalty kill for weakness.
Although they did damage in their first game of the season against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Lightning power play isn’t quite as fearsome as it’s been in previous years. Stamkos’ absence is felt, both in the faceoff circle and in moving the puck around up high.
That takes nothing away from how imposing and comfortable Vancouver’s penalty kill looked throughout Tuesday night’s game. The early returns from Vancouver’s higher-pressure approach is promising, even if the club has some other issues in its game that need ironing out.
(Top photo: Mike Carlson / Getty Images)
