Nilsson shines as Pettersson & Boeser fuel Canucks comeback vs. Lightning (canucks)

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Nilsson shines as Pettersson & Boeser fuel Canucks comeback vs. Lightning

By Carol Schram

Oct 12, 2018 • 2:45 pm

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Thursday October 11 - Vancouver Canucks 4 - Tampa Bay Lightning 1

The final score flatters Vancouver thanks to two empty-net goals, but that kind of balances out the two that they allowed in their loss in Calgary last Saturday.

Stats on empty-netters are hard to come by but this early in the season, it's not too bad to go back through the game sheets. Tyler Motte also scored into the empty net in the season-opener at Rogers Arena, so the Canucks are now plus-1 in this department through four games.

But I'm getting away from the key points of Thursday's win: a tremendous season debut for Anders Nilsson, a rare come-from-behind win, the first goal of the year for Brock Boeser and a dirty one for Elias Pettersson to extend his career-opening point streak. Good stuff all round!

Here are your highlights from Tampa:

The Lightning may have been feeling a bit discombobulated coming into the game, having played just once in the previous 11 days. As Ryan McDonagh put it in an interview on the ESPN on Ice podcast this week, "We had training camp to get ready for another training camp."

The team that's favoured by many to be the class of the Eastern Conference this season didn't show any signs of rust in the first period, blanketing the Canucks with offense just like they did last season and outshooting Vancouver 17-5 in the opening frame. Making his first regular-season start of the year, Anders Nilsson was outstanding in keeping his team in the game, allowing just one goal, from Brayden Point, and stopping all five shots he faced on two opportunities from a power play that's often lethal.

The Canucks took three more penalties in the second, but so did the Lightning, including one where McDonagh had to corral Brock Boeser shortly after he got out of the box in order to prevent a breakaway. The Lightning kill was also strong—special teams were not a factor at all in this game.

The Lightning maintained their 1-0 lead after 40 minutes but the Canucks were showing signs of life, outshooting Tampa Bay 10-8 in the middle frame.

Still, a comeback seemed unlikely. In addition to their propensity for giving up the first goal, the Canucks were a humble 3-35-4 last season when trailing after two periods. So they were trailing after two in more than half of their games last year and able to salvage just a .071 winning percentage in that situation—28th overall in that category, ahead of only Colorado, Montreal and Detroit.

But two goals in the span of 70 seconds midway through the period changed the game on Thursday.

The first deflected into the net off Elias Pettersson's chest after a point shot from Derrick Pouliot:

EP's quote game also remains on point. "Every goal is worth one goal," he told reporters after the game. "Doesn’t matter how ugly or nice it is."

With the addition of Pettersson to the lineup, do the Canucks now have enough gamebreakers to see better results in the standings? Bo thinks so.

Speaking of Boeser, he got the scoring monkey off his back with a rocket off an Alex Killorn turnover for what proved to be the game winner.

Iain MacIntyre has the story of how Horvat passed on some lessons he learned from Henrik Sedin in his second season to help Boeser get through his early-season slump:

“He told me how he struggled in his second year,… Boeser said. “I still look up to Bo and the leadership he has. It’s nice that the guys are so positive and have your back. We’ve got a mature group of kids here. You look at Elias, too. He’s mature for a 19-year-old.…

Amalie Arena is Oz for Boeser. From the Frozen Four to the NHL All-Star Game to last night, he sits in the same stall in the dressing room—and delivers the same impressive results. Too bad the Canucks only play there once a year.

Next stop: Sunrise, where they'll take on the Luongo-less Florida Panthers on Saturday.

Here are Friday's practice lines. This is supposed to be the test to see whether Antoine Roussel is ready for game action:

Is this too tempting for the hockey gods to pass up?

We do have Thatcher Demko in Utica, still working to recover from the concussion he suffered in preseason with the Canucks—apparently off a shot from Brendan Leipsic during practice.

Friday night, the NHL is completely dark, with no games scheduled—a rare occurrence.

If you need a hockey fix, check out the Comets, who kick off a three-in-three weekend at home against Charlotte (4 p.m. PT) before travelling to Toronto for back-to-back games against Sam Gagner, Jordan Subban, Griffen Molino, Adam Cracknell and the rest of the Marlies on Saturday and Sunday (both 1 p.m. PT starts).

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