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I Watched This Game: Canucks' Linus Karlsson is an underrated beast

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Nov 8 2026, 10:18 am
I Watched This Game: Canucks' Linus Karlsson is an underrated beast
Perry Nelson/Imagn Images

You have to give the Vancouver Canucks credit.

This season, the Canucks have repeatedly struggled in the first two periods, only to push back hard in the third period to make a game of it late.

So, it was kind of refreshing for the Canucks to play a solid first two periods against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night, only to give the game away in the third.

“I thought we did a lot of good things,” said Canucks centre Max Sasson. “I thought our breakouts looked a lot cleaner, I thought we were using the middle of the ice a lot better…I thought it looked really good for two periods tonight.”

It’s the Canucks 15th loss in their last 16 games, but in a rebuilding season, the results are not the point. Instead, it’s all about looking for signs of hope for the future: players making a statement about who they can be and what role they might play down the road when the Canucks turn a corner and are competitive again.

On Saturday, Linus Karlsson made such a statement.

As young players go, Karlsson is on the older side at 26, but he’s in only his second full season in the NHL. He’s been quietly flying under the radar this season, but he’s on a solid 18-goal, 45-point pace.

In a way, he flew under the radar again on Saturday, as he didn’t tally a single point.

But Karlsson was still the Canucks’ best player.

Karlsson was instrumental in the Canucks’ first goal, had a team-high seven shot attempts, and thoroughly tilted the ice with his linemates at 5-on-5.

Really, he could have had a hat trick. He was robbed on a second-period breakaway, then had two grade-A chances on the power play in the third period that Devon Levi somehow turned aside. It was the kind of game you point back to when a player breaks out a game or two later.

It wasn’t just what he did, but how he did it. Karlsson has never been the fastest player, nor the most skilled. What he has in spades is intelligence, determination, and a knack for knowing how to use his body to win battles.

Those abilities, when applied correctly, can take over a shift. That’s exactly what he did on the Canucks’ first goal, combining physicality, intelligence, and vision to create a goal out of seemingly nowhere.

You have to wonder if Karlsson could have taken over more shifts if he had been given more of them.

Karlsson’s ice time was just 12:26, with only Brendan Gallagher and Liam Öhgren playing less than he did among Canucks forwards. Why didn’t he get more ice time?

Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t have tilted the ice quite so much if he played more minutes, as that would have meant more time matched up against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

Still, it was encouraging to see such a strong performance from Karlsson when I watched this game.

offside i watched this game

Bains gets a big opportunity

  • Arshdeep Bains earned his spot in the NHL this season. He has been an excellent AHL player in Abbotsford under Manny Malhotra over the past couple of seasons, and had a strong training camp that made it easy to keep him on the roster as the team’s 13th forward. The question is, without the two-way, energy-line profile of a bottom-six forward and without the production of a skilled, top-six forward, where does he fit in an NHL lineup?
  • After over a week out of the lineup, Bains got an opportunity to play on the top line with Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser. Some might question that decision, but when a team has just one win in their last bajillion games, there’s little harm in throwing something at the wall and seeing if it will stick. Regrettably, it did not stick, and you have to wonder if time is running out for Bains to prove himself.
  • It didn’t help that Bains lost his check on the Oilers’ opening goal midway through the first. To his credit, Bains backchecked hard to prevent a 3-on-2, but then he got caught puck-watching and let his man, Mattias Ekholm, skate right behind him through the slot to open ice on the other side. Connor McDavid found him with the puck, and Ekholm, unlike Bains, made no mistake.

  • Bains further hurt his and the Canucks’ cause in the third period with a holding penalty 200 feet from his own net. On that power play, the Oilers scored an insurance goal that turned into the game-winning goal. You just can’t afford to do that as a player on the bubble.
  • I’m not trying to pick on Bains, but the minus-1 from the goal against and the two minutes from his penalty were literally his only numbers in the box score aside from his ice time. He finished the game with no shot attempts, no hits, no blocked shots — nothing. Bains was given an opportunity; he did not seize it.

Karlsson goes beast mode

  • The Canucks started stacking some shifts in the offensive zone late in the first period leading up to their first goal. That’s something they’ve struggled to do this season — building and holding momentum — and a big reason why is how cleanly they were breaking the puck out of their own end and gaining the offensive zone with possession.
  • “I liked our breakouts a lot tonight,” said Sasson. “I think we can build on that. That was probably the best we broke out the puck all year. If we can continue that and spend less time in our D-zone, hopefully the results will come.”
  • The Canucks got the tying goal with just nine seconds left in the first period. Karlsson took control of the puck in the neutral zone, and rocked Ryan Nugent-Hopkins with a solid reverse hit. After the RH on RNH, Karlsson curled into the offensive zone and drew three Oilers to himself before whipping the puck cross-ice to Guillaume Brisebois. Like he had built bunk beds, Karlsson created so much room for activities.

  • Karlsson’s teammates made the most of that extra space. Brisebois set up Jamie Oleksiak for a point shot, Drew O’Connor went to the net to provide a screen, and an unmarked Max Sasson tipped in the tying goal.
  • Remarkably, the assist was Brisebois’ first NHL point in over three years — 1,335 days, to be exact. Brisebois deserves a lot of credit for his perseverance through injuries and toiling in the minors.

Pettersson can still do his dekes

  • Elias Pettersson leads the Canucks in scoring with 19 points in 19 games, but he still doesn’t have a goal at 5-on-5 this season — in fact, he doesn’t have one since January 13 of this year, which is less than ideal.
  • Petey came awfully close midway through the second period, however, when he deked through the majority of the Oilers’ skaters to get to the net, but couldn’t quite jam home the backhand. His drive to the net carried Devon Levi all the way out of his crease, but Jonathan Lekkerimäki’s attempt on the open net was blocked.

  • I’m reminded of the time when Kyle Wellwood also deked his way through most of the Oilers and similarly got stymied at the goal line. Comparing Pettersson to Wellwood might seem like a horrible insult, but longtime readers of Pass it to Bulis will understand that it’s high praise.

Oilers take over in third period

  • The Oilers struck quickly in the final frame, taking a 2-1 lead in the opening minute. Former Canuck Jason Dickinson got three chances, first tipping a Ty Emberson point shot, then putting his own rebound on net, then finally swatting a second rebound into the open net with Leevi Meriläinen down and out.

  • Poor Zeev Buium was in a spin cycle. That’s a play where Buium has to focus on boxing out Dickinson and tying up his stick. Instead, he went looking for the puck and never found it.
  • “It comes down to those momentary lapses in detail and small missed assignments or a missed puck battle,” said Malhotra. “Those are the things that add up and eventually — obviously against a team as high-powered as Edmonton — when you give them those little looks, they’re going to make good on them.”
  • Then, on the power play, the Canucks’ penalty killers got exhausted. One could argue that McDavid interfered with Pettersson as the Canucks’ rushed up the ice for a shorthanded chance, but it was borderline. But the foray up the ice seemed to tucker out Pettersson, who could only dive out to try to prevent a cross-seam pass from McDavid to Draisaitl for a one-timer. It didn’t work.

Empty-net desperation

  • Kudos to the Canucks for continuing to battle while down by two. They pushed hard in the third period and gave themselves a chance for a comeback. In other words, it was mostly the same as 90 per cent of the Canucks’ games this season. At some point, it would be nice to see the Canucks not have to rely on a desperate comeback to win a game.
  • The Canucks got a goal with Meriläinen pulled for the extra attacker to make it 3-2. A couple of battle wins and puck retrievals kept the play alive, then Filip Hronek sent a perfectly placed slap-pass onto the tape of Brock Boeser, who provided the tip like Beckett Sennecke to send the puck off the post and in.

  • That was as close as the Canucks would come, though there was a little controversy towards the end. With just over a minute left, the Canucks got called for icing on a puck that Pettersson clearly deflected near the Oilers’ blue line. That forced a defensive zone faceoff, which also meant Meriläinen had to go back into the net. It was a call so bad that even notorious Oilers homer Jack Michaels said it was a bad call.
  • The Canucks were able to move the puck up ice and get Meriläinen out of the net for the extra attacker, but they were never able to get set up in the offensive zone. The Oilers forced the puck out and McDavid padded his point totals with an assist on Draisaitl’s empty net goal.
  • The one saving grace is that the Canucks at least didn’t allow McDavid to put up six points, which would have given him 50 points in 18 games, tying Wayne Gretzky for the fastest to 50 points. The Canucks have had enough milestones against them in their history.
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