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I Watched This Game: Canucks' Lekkerimäki shines in lopsided loss

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Oct 9 2026, 5:09 am
I Watched This Game: Canucks' Lekkerimäki shines in lopsided loss
James Guillory/Imagn Images

Last season, the Vancouver Canucks finished last place in the NHL; the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup.

On Thursday night in Raleigh, you could tell.

The Hurricanes wasted no time establishing their bona fides. Not even ten minutes into the first period, they were up 3-0, and Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra had to call a timeout to settle down his squad.

But Manny said there’d be days like this.

“We acknowledge we’re going to have some rough nights,” said Malhotra. “But on our part and the way we’re going to coach it, it’s not going to be for lack of effort…We’re not a team that’s just going to go away.

“We can’t have guys that are just going to go away in these situations. It shows what type of character we have when we show the ability to push back and continue to play our game despite the score.”

The Canucks got off to a relatively strong start this season, surprising the Edmonton Oilers offensively in their first two games, soundly beating the Calgary Flames, and giving the Vegas Golden Knights a run for their money.

It was enough to make you think that maybe, just maybe, this Canucks team is a lot better than anyone thinks.

Call this 7-2 loss to the Hurricanes a bit of a reality check. This is what a rebuilding team is going to look like sometimes.

And the Hurricanes look like where the Canucks want to wind up. This is the bar against which the Canucks will measure themselves as they try to become a Stanley Cup contender in the coming years. This is the type of dominance to which the Canucks need to aspire.

“Stanley Cup champions, they play a really tight game,” said Jake DeBrusk. “That’s what’s expected if you want to win in this league. They win their battles, they make their plays — things we’re striving to be.”

All that a team like the Canucks can ask for in a game like this is for a young player to step up and show that they could be part of that future.

That’s what Jonathan Lekkerimäki did when I watched this game.

  • Let’s be clear: there is absolutely no shame in losing 7-2 to this Hurricanes team, especially where the Canucks are right now. The Canucks haven’t even begun climbing Mount Rebuild; they’re still setting up base camp.
  • “They showed exactly why they’re the reigning champs,” said Malhotra. “They punish you at every turn. If you leave the door open a little, you make a mistake here, you take a penalty at the wrong time: they capitalize on all those mistakes.”
  • The trio of Jake DeBrusk, Elias Pettersson, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki was easily the Canucks’ best line against the Hurricanes. They combined for 13 shot attempts, scored the only two Canucks goals, and were the one line that was able to mount any sort of sustained pressure in the offensive zone.
  • Just over a minute into the game, the Hurricanes took the lead. The Canucks collapsed down low to protect the slot, but left plenty of space up top for Sean Walker to get a shot through traffic. The puck deflected and hit the post, leaving Kevin Lankinen searching for the puck like Ethan Suplee looking for a schooner; K’Andre Miller found it and fired it in before Lankinen could slide across.
  • A few minutes later, a penalty-killing Victor Mancini went chasing a hit like Tom Hanks in That Thing You Do, leaving Andrei Svechnikov open at the side of the net. He pulled the puck out front and backhanded it past Lankinen to make it 2-0.
  • Svechnikov struck again on another power play shortly after. Aatu Räty lost a rare faceoff, then couldn’t take away the passing lane to Jackson Blake. Meanwhile, Filip Hronek completely lost track of Svechnikov at the backdoor for a tap-in goal.

  • I’m honestly not sure what Hronek was thinking on that goal. He came out to take away a potential one-timer for Svechnikov but came out way, way too far, making it easy for Svechnikov to skate in behind him. On a blue line packed with youngsters, Hronek is supposed to be the reliable veteran.
  • A few minutes into the second period, it was 4-0. After the Canucks couldn’t clear — a common ailment in this game — Mark Jankowski went short-side from a tight angle when Lankinen made like a military deserter and abandoned his post.
  • After missing two games with an illness, DeBrusk got down with the sickness. Pettersson gained the offensive zone and started distributing the puck like a Jehovah’s Witness distributing literature. He fed Lekkerimäki in the slot, who evaded Jalen Chatfield to spin and get a shot off. That created a rebound for DeBrusk, who kicked the puck up to his stick and roofed it.

  • There was a lot to like about the goal. It was a 5-on-5 goal, which was a rarity for DeBrusk last season. It also extended Pettersson’s point streak to five games to start the season. Most importantly, it showed how Lekkerimäki is finding space in the offensive zone to use his shot, even under defensive pressure from one of the best defensive teams in the league.
  • “It’s kind of hard to feel good during that type of game,” said DeBrusk. “But yeah, it’s nice to see it go in. Obviously, I’ve had tough starts my entire career but, again, I don’t feel very good right now.”
  • The Canucks then got a power play, giving them a chance to reduce the lead to two. Instead, the Hurricanes got a shorthanded 2-on-1 that Hronek defended…poorly. Instead of taking away the passing lane and leaving the shooter to the goaltender, Hronek tried to take the shooter and the passing lane and took neither. The puck got through to Logan Stankoven, who lifted the puck over the sliding Lankinen.
  • Stankoven then added another goal on the other side of special teams before the end of the period. Mancini moved just out of reach of the passing lane to Stankoven, and a pass from below the goal line got through. Stankoven went upstairs where Mother Gothel keeps Rapunzel.
  • Kevin Lankinen didn’t get a lot of help in this one, but in his two periods of work he gave up six goals on 18 shots for a save percentage of .667, which is pretty ugly. He’s now given up five or more goals in three of his four starts this season. He’s never going to save percentagely recover from this.
  • “I felt I left him in too long in his last game,” said Malhotra. “It’s not so much a message to him as to our group: if we give up that many quality, grade-A chances in front of our goalie, we can’t put the blame on him. I didn’t want him to have to deal with any more of that, so I gave him the third period off.”
  • Leevi Meriläinen came in and made a couple of big stops, including an outstanding save on Eric Robinson when Zeev Buium and Tom Willander both chased the puck below the goal line. It’s never a good sign when both defencemen are behind the net.

  • Meriläinen did allow one goal, and it gave Stankoven the hat trick. Say it with me now: “The Canucks couldn’t clear the puck.” Räty coughed up the puck at the Canucks’ blue line, then left too large a gap as he tracked Stankoven into the slot, leaving him plenty of room to pick his spot on Meriläinen.
  • Räty and Mancini got a chance to play ahead of veterans Brendan Gallagher and Luke Schenn, and each ended up at least partially responsible for two goals against. Not a good night for the youths.

  • Stankoven could have been a Canuck, of course. But the Canucks fell in love with Danila Klimovich when he scored six goals in five games at the World Under-18 Championship and chose the 6’2″ Belarusian six picks before the Hurricanes took the 5’8″ Stankoven 47th overall in 2021.
  • The game wasn’t quite over, as the Canucks’ top line had one more trick up their respective sleeves. Lekkerimäki protected the puck along the top of the zone, then handed it off to Buium, who banked the puck off the end boards towards the front of the net. Pettersson angled the puck brilliantly to the backdoor, where DeBrusk banged it in.

  • Pettersson’s pass was sublime, but Lekkerimäki deserves a lot of credit for his patience and poise with the puck despite a player draped all over his back. That’s not necessarily something he could have done in the past, and it was the most encouraging development from this game. If Lekkerimäki can continue to play in traffic like that, it bodes well for his potential.
  • Meanwhile, DeBrusk had a two-goal game, with both goals coming at 5-on-5. His first (and only) two-goal game last season came in April, and he had a grand total of three 5-on-5 goals all of last season.
  • “Whenever a guy scores, it feeds their game quite a bit,” said Malhotra. “For Jake to get those two on the board in his first game back is a really big plus for him. Hopefully, he can parlay that into some confidence in his game.”
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