VANCOUVER — On a night when they earned few touches of the puck, it was cruelly ironic — and yet not surprising — that the Vancouver Canucks’ final touch ended up in their own net.
Trying to block Evan Bouchard’s goal-side pass, Canuck defenceman Ian Cole accidentally steered the puck into his own net at 5:38 of overtime as the Edmonton Oilers won 4-3 at Rogers Arena on Friday to tie Stanley Cup quarterfinal series at 1-1.
It was more bad luck for Cole, who also had an own goal when the Canucks rallied to win 5-4 in Game 1 on Wednesday.
But bad luck was, really, the least of their problems on Friday. Most of their problems were Oiler mega-stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Joined by Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch on a power line with winger Zach Hyman, McDavid and Draisaitl played on another level than everyone else. After the second period, though, the Canucks hardly played at all.
Since the start of this unexpected treasure of a season for the Canucks, coach Rick Tocchet has exhorted his players to meet pressure with pressure, to defend by moving forward and forcing the opposition to play in their zone and make mistakes there.
But on Friday, the Canucks tried to play in the fetal position. Third-period shots were 15-2 for the Oilers. Scoring chances at five-on-five when McDavid, Draisaitl and Hyman were on the ice — usually against J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser and Pius Suter — were 18-1 for Edmonton. High-danger chances were 9-1.
The only reason the Canucks were in position to lose on a bad break in overtime is because Vancouver goalie Arturs Silovs was outstanding in a game in which shot attempts were 75-39 for the Oilers.
When McDavid, as close to invisible as he will ever be in Game 1, plays like he did in Game 2, the Canucks may not be able to win no matter what they do. But they will certainly lose when they spend as much time stuck in their zone as they did on Friday.
In the third period, Vancouver looked terrified of the puck on the rare occasions it had it. The Canucks kept flipping it out of their zone and back to the Oilers, which meant it came right back into the Vancouver zone, which led to more pressure and more scoring chances. It was a vicious cycle.
“Too many guys are flipping pucks out and we didn’t have to,” Tocchet told reporters. “I guess that’s playoff experience. You have the puck, you have somebody on your back, skate with it. Keep your heart rate down. I just felt soon as somebody got (the puck), they flipped it. Like, everybody. I think there was plays to be made. We never gave them anything to defend.
“When you throw pucks away. . . you’re just giving the puck back to the other team. When McDavid and Draisaitl are on the ice, you’ve got to hold on to some pucks. You’ve got to make some plays. But the rest of the lines have to do the same.”
McDavid and Draisaitl were involved in all four Edmonton goals.
McDavid scored the tying one at 5:27 of the third period, burying a breakaway forehand after Canuck defenceman Carson Soucy went for a big hit and partner Tyler Myers went for the puck but was beaten to it by one of the fastest skaters who ever played hockey.
The Canucks were actually pretty good for two periods. They led three times and took a 3-2 lead at 18:17 of the second period when Nikita Zadorov beat Stuart Skinner short-side from an acute angle with a shot that made the Oiler goalie look bad even if the puck did glance off Edmonton defenceman Cody Ceci.
The third period was no-contest. The third period looked like most skeptics of the Canucks predicted the whole series would look.
“I played almost every single shift against them,” Miller said of facing McDavid. “We don’t win battles in the O-zone, we miss. . . our chance to get the puck back. We made it very easy on them. You can’t play the whole night against them in (the defensive zone) and expect them not to get something, so we’ve got to be better.
“I thought they were the better team today. We had a good opportunity to maybe steal a game there, but they had a lot of time in our end. We just didn’t win enough battles on the walls. And we just have to be better in that area, and (then) we won’t be making their night as easy.”
When McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t on the ice, high-danger chances were 5-4 for the Canucks. Vancouver scored one goal on its power play, the first of the National Hockey League playoffs for Elias Pettersson, and got another on Boeser’s deflection in the high slot.
But none of the Canucks’ other lines took advantage of, you know, not having to play against McDavid.
“It’s a really good point,” Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes said. “I think, obviously, with them loading up that line, maybe we need to capitalize on some chances elsewhere.”
“Some guys here, they’ve got to pick it up, too,” Tocchet said. “I mean, they want to play, but you’ve got to dig in. You can’t be a liability. You know, if you’re not getting much ice time, there’s a reason why. And we need some guys to pick it up a little bit.”
It won’t be any easier for the Canucks in Game 3 on Sunday because the Oilers will dictate the matchups. The only matchup the Canucks won on Friday was Silovs vs Skinner, and even that was not enough.
“I just thought if we make some good passes, if we hold on to a puck, if we make a play, that’s less possession time for them,” Tocchet summarized. “But if we’re just going to flip pucks out and give it back to them, of course, they’re going to keep coming down our throat. But hey, lose in overtime, beat them last game, like, we’re in the series. We’re in this series.”
ICE CHIP — Tocchet said there were several storylines to the game, but the top one was McDavid and Draisaitl. Another one was officiating. There was an unpenalized high-stick by McDavid on Hughes that cut the Canuck and should have been a four-minute penalty in the second period, and a third-period slew-foot by Oiler Evander Kane on Vancouver’s captain. Kane used the same technique to topple six-foot-six Zadorov in the first period.
“Tough job,” Tocchet said of veteran referees Kelly Sutherland and Eric Furlatt. “The only thing I don’t like is the slew-foots. There was a couple of slew-foots there on Huggy I didn’t like. But other than that, I mean, what are you going to do? It’s a tough job. There was a lot of stuff out there tonight.”
Power plays finished 3-3, and each team scored once with the man-advantage.
