Canucks eliminate favoured Blues in Stanley Cup playoffs

Photo: Vancouver Canucks

With their first playoff series win since 2011, the Canucks move on to face the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The series between the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues was as tight as they come, with three one-goal games, including two that went to overtime. Even the Canucks’ Game 5 victory was a narrow one, with the Blues nearly tying the game up in the dying seconds, with video review showing that time had expired just in the nick of time. 

Throughout the series, the Blues looked like the better team. They out-shot the Canucks by a wide margin in every game, with the shots 173-to-141 through the first five games. Even in the games the Canucks won, it took heroics by Jacob Markstrom, the power play, or even Tyler Motte to make up for the dominance the Blues showed at 5-on-5.

Game 6 wasn’t even close. The Canucks took the lead just a few minutes in, then made that lead insurmountable before the game was even 30 minutes old. For the first time all series, the game wasn’t close and the Canucks clearly looked like the better team. 

There was no overtime needed, no come-from-behind heroics, no last minute scramble to defend the net — there was just pure, unadulterated domination. It might have been the best complete game the Canucks have played in years.

“It was impressive by our group,” said head coach Travis Green. “We wanted to come out and play extremely fast. We wanted to spend time in their zone. Again, the caliber of team that we played is exceptional and that was a 60-minute game.”

The Canucks have made a habit this season of letting their play lapse for five or ten-minute stretches, losing games they should have won in that time. In this game, there was no lapse, no moment where the Canucks got completely lost in the defensive zone. The closest they came was late in the second period, when Brandon Sutter, Antoine Roussel, Adam Gaudette, Jordie Benn, and Oscar Fantenberg got stuck on the ice for a shift that lasted 2:38, but even then, the Canucks kept their cool and played stalwart defence, not allowing a single shot on goal despite all the zone time for the Blues.

Instead of a five-minute lapse, the Canucks had a six-minute surge. They were all over the Blues early in the second period, forcing turnovers, creating chances, and scoring goals — three of them, putting the game out of reach and sending the Blues reeling.

“We were pushing hard, skating hard, backchecking hard, and everything kind of fell into the places,” said the delightfully-French Antoine Roussel, who scored the 2-0 goal. “We kind of killed their spirit there with a couple good goals back-to-back.”

From there, it was all about defence for the Canucks, even as they added two more goals in the third period. Defensively, they didn’t give up much, even as the defending Stanley Cup Champions threw everything they had towards the net. They didn’t get a goal until the third period and wouldn’t score again until there were less than two minutes left in the game. It was far too little and far too late.

“It’s commitment,” said Tyler Motte to explain their defensive game. “Everyone in the room, throughout the lineup, has beared down in the D zone. It’s something we talked a lot about in camp, we worked on a lot in camp. We came into the Minnesota series, I don’t think we gave up a lot 5-on-5 in that series. 

“Again it’s just commitment, it’s the will to pay the price, we had a lot of guys blocking shots, some guys that you don’t even expect to block shots — Boes had a few tonight, Huggy had a few in Game 5 — guys are laying it on the line.”

A lot of it has to do with Jacob Markstrom, who has been stellar in his first ever NHL postseason. He made another 34 saves, giving him a playoff-leading 325 saves through the first round.

“I don’t know if we’re in this spot without Marky,” said Troy Stecher. “It’s absolutely mindboggling to me that he wasn’t a Vezina candidate. We’re very thankful to have him on our team.”