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Canucks lose Game 4 heartbreaker to Oilers after last-minute goal

Trevor Beggs
Trevor Beggs
|
May 15 2024, 4:25 am
Canucks lose Game 4 heartbreaker to Oilers after last-minute goal
Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports


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Talk about a heartbreaking way to lose a game.

The Vancouver Canucks were seconds away from forcing overtime after Dakota Joshua deflected home a Brock Boeser shot with less than two minutes to play.

However, Evan Bouchard abruptly ended the Canucks comeback.

Bouchard, who scored the overtime winner in Game 2, snapped a shot past Arturs Silovs with 39 seconds remaining in the game, giving the Oilers a dramatic 3-2 victory in Game 4.

This one is going at least six games, with Game 5 taking place at Rogers Arena on Thursday night.

Canucks give Pickard first playoff win

Oilers netminder Calvin Pickard had played 460 combined AHL and NHL regular season games prior to tonight.

However, he’d only started in five career AHL playoff games (including two last year), and he’d never started an NHL playoff game, until tonight.

Knowing that, the Canucks must be frustrated that they didn’t generate more shots on Pickard, a problem that’s plagued them this entire postseason.

Vancouver had just 13 shots on Pickard through two periods, and only 21 on net overall. The Canucks actually ended this game setting a record for the fewest shots (203) through 10 games in NHL playoff history.

So far through four games, the Oilers are outshooting the Canucks by more than 40 shots, holding a 124-82 advantage.

The Canucks are no stranger to unheralded goalies stepping up, as they became the first team in 20 years to have three goalies win a postseason game in one playoff run. However, Pickard wasn’t amazing tonight, because he didn’t have to be.

At the other end of the ice, the Canucks wasted a brilliant performance from Silovs.

The rookie netminder robbed the Oilers on a number of occasions and looked assertive coming way out of his net to break up a potential breakaway chance in the third period.

Tocchet: Canucks have too many passengers

One of the Canucks’ supposed strengths over the Oilers is that they have more depth.

That supposed strength wasn’t evident tonight, and Tocchet alluded to as much post-game.

“We’ve had a resilient group all year, but… we need five or six guys to get going here,” the Canucks head coach told reporters.

“I mean, it’s the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And some guys, I don’t know if they know it’s the playoffs. We can’t play with 12 guys. We’ve gotta figure it out quick.”

One of those guys is Elias Pettersson. It doesn’t help that his linemates are among the group of doghouse candidates, but the Canucks’ supposed star now has just one goal and four points in 10 playoff games.

“He needs to get going,” Tocchet said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

Sam Lafferty was the Canucks’ low man in ice time tonight, playing just 7:23 despite beginning the game on Pettersson’s line. Nils ƅman, Linus Karlsson, and Ilya Mikheyev all barely saw the ice in the third period as well.

In the playoffs, players aside from the stars need to step up. While that hasn’t happened often for the Oilers outside of their No. 1 line and top defence pairing, two of their “secondary stars” did step up tonight.

Burnaby product Ryan Nugent-Hopkins buried his first goal of the series it in the final minute of the second period, after Abbotsford’s Noah Juulsen stepped out of position to hit Mattias Ekholm, leading to an odd-man rush.

The Nuge now has points in every game so far this series.

Vancouver native Evander Kane also stepped up for the Oilers tonight. While his goal-scoring touch has fizzled, he was a physical menace.

Kane and Nikita Zadorov went at each other throughout the game. However, it was Kane’s physical dominance over Filip Hronek in the offensive zone that helped lead to Bouchard’s game-winner.

Conor Garland did his best to be the Canucks’ impactful secondary star, whizzing around the ice throughout the game while scoring the Canucks’ first goal in their brief comeback attempt.

However, if Tocchet decides to bring in guys from the press box, he’d be looking at guys like Vasily Podkolzin, Nils Hƶglander, and Arshdeep Bains.

At this point, he needs to consider a bold change, because the Canucks are in tough to win this series without Pettersson’s line, no matter who’s in net for the Oilers.

Trevor BeggsTrevor Beggs

Covering the Canucks for Daily Hive since 2019. Also co-host of the Locked On Canucks Podcast alongside Kyle Bhawan.

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