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I Watched This Game: Canucks sort of outscored the Ducks on Tuesday night

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Nov 4 2026, 8:44 am
I Watched This Game: Canucks sort of outscored the Ducks on Tuesday night
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

Whether or not the Vancouver Canucks won on Tuesday night depends on your point of view.

The whole point of hockey is to put the puck in the other team’s net more than they put the puck in yours.

That’s the rule. That’s the goal now. Well, actually, it’s been literally the goal for the entire history of hockey — at least, once they invented nets.

With that in mind, the Canucks totally beat the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night. You just have to ignore the official box score.

The Canucks put the puck in the Ducks’ net six times; the Ducks only put the puck in the Canucks’ net five times. Ipso facto, the Canucks won 6-5, QED — once again, do not look at the box score.

Unfortunately, two of the Canucks’ six goals were immediately waved off because of penalties.

Late in the first period, Liam Öhgren stole the puck from Jackson LaCombe and slid it five-hole on Ducks goaltender Laurent Brossoit with a surprisingly quick shot. But the referees ruled that he stole the puck via skulduggery and sent him to the penalty box with a hooking minor.

Öhgren, at least, thought it was a good goal.

“Yeah, I mean, it went in,” he said. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked at it closely, but from what I’ve seen, I don’t agree with the call. I felt like I got the stick pretty good.”

His head coach agreed.

“Obviously, I’m going to see it differently than what the call was,” said Manny Malhotra. “I thought it was stick, but I’m not the one making the call.”

Then, in the third period, as the Canucks were pushing for a comeback, Paul Cotter found himself in alone on Brossoit. He deked to the backhand with a beautiful move and tucked the puck in for a fantastic goal.

Only, a moment before he did so, the gloves hit the ice for a fight between Max Sasson and Noah Warren. The whistle went, and the goal was erased by the penalties.

Of course, penalties were the problem all night.

The Ducks went 3-for-3 on the power play, scoring on every opportunity the Canucks gave them.

“Special teams was the difference tonight,” said Jake DeBrusk. “We’re taking penalties in the offensive zone — hooking, holding, just bad penalties — and it’s costing us. It’s cost us the whole year. That’s on everyone in the room.”

On top of that, the Ducks scored a shorthanded goal. The Canucks at least had a power play goal of their own, but that still only meant they came out even with the man advantage.

If you really contort yourself into a pretzel, then, and imagine this game with no penalties at all, the Canucks won 5-1.

The Canucks absolutely dominated the Ducks in a 5-4 loss when I watched this game.

offside i watched this game

Jacob Quillan is a name to remember

  • Acquired in the trade for Aatu Räty, Jacob Quillan is making sure Canucks fans know his name, and not only because it’s rare to see a surname that begins with “Q.”
  • Quillan had an outsized impact on Tuesday’s game, given he only had 10:31 in ice time. In his limited minutes, Quillan had two fights — the first Canuck since Tom Sestito to have two in a single game — which were also the first two fights of his NHL career. He only had one fight in the AHL before Tuesday night.
  • “I don’t call myself a fighter, but whatever the moment calls for and however I can help the team win,” said Quillan. “You know, show the team I’m there for them. I want to play on this team very badly, so whatever I have to do to stay here, I’m willing to do.”
Jacob Quillan Canucks fight

Bob Frid/Imagn Images

  • Beyond the fights, Quillan controlled puck possession when he was on the ice, with the Canucks outshooting the Ducks 5-to-2 in his minutes at 5-on-5. That, more than the fighting, will keep him in the NHL.
  • “He’s endearing himself to the group, for sure,” said Malhotra. “Just in terms of the way he competes and brings the tenacity that we expect out of him. The fights aside, just his ability to create turnovers on the forecheck. But not just the energy aspect of it; he executes on breakouts, he makes plays in small areas, so there’s definitely a skill aspect to it as well.”

  • Unfortunately, Quillan also contributed a penalty, taking an undisciplined tripping minor early in the game, and the Ducks took full advantage. You have to feel for Kevin Lankinen, who was making his first start in two weeks after early struggles, and the first shot he faced was a wide-open one-timer from the slot on the power play, as Mikael Granlund hammered it home.
  • I thought it was interesting that Malhotra put Quillan right back on the ice for the faceoff after the goal — a vote of confidence in him after his early penalty. Quillan paid back that vote with a massive hit on Pavel Mintyukov that led to Roger McQueen challenging him to a fight. McQueen got an extra minor penalty to put the Canucks on the power play.

  • “You take the penalty, they score, you’re kind of feeling like sh*t, like, ‘I effed up,'” said Quillan. “Glad he put me out there and gave me an opportunity to redeem myself.”
  • On the subsequent power play, the second unit came through with a tying goal. Marco Rossi won a faceoff, and the Canucks worked the puck to the front of the net. Rossi smartly swatted a bouncing puck across to Liam Öhgren, who went skate-to-stick like hipster restaurants go farm-to-table, and charged an obscene amount for a salad scored into the open net.

  • That’s a nice moment for Rossi, who has seen his minutes fluctuate wildly this season and hasn’t produced much offence. Just ignore that he got absolutely decimated by the Ducks at 5-on-5 by the underlying numbers.

Yes, the Öhgren hooking minor was the right call

  • It won’t be a popular take, but it’s the right one.
  • I loved Öhgren’s hustle as he chased down a puck lofted out of the defensive zone by Jonathan Lekkerimäki. But when he went to lift Jackson LaCombe’s stick to steal the puck, he absolutely got the stick into LaCombe’s hands. In fact, he hit primarily hand.

  • You might disagree that this should be a penalty, but in the current NHL, it is a penalty. Yes, legitimate stick lifts get called hooks when they shouldn’t; this wasn’t one of them.
  • The Ducks’ power play made extremely short work of the Öhgren penalty. Eight seconds after the puck was dropped, it was in the net. Filip Hronek ceded a passing lane from below the goal line to the left faceoff circle, and Elias Pettersson (the forward) didn’t drop down deep enough to take away Cutter Gauthier’s shot from that area, and the puck was by Lankinen in an instant.
  • “I mean, we can’t give one of their best goalscorers chances like we did today,” said Pettersson. “We’re going to give up something, but what shots are we giving up? We’ve all got to be better there.”
  • The Ducks’ fourth goal later in the game was a near carbon copy. Beckett Sennecke had the puck down low, and Victor Mancini bafflingly skated out of position to check the player in the bumper, who was already being watched by defenceman Elias “Dunk” Pettersson. That left Gauthier open once again at the left faceoff circle, and he fired a one-timer into the top corner.
  • “They’re pretty much two identical goals,” said the elder Pettersson. “We can’t let them make flat passes for a one-timer there.”
  • “The frustrating part is when the things we’re seeing are the things that were discussed and the things they were made to be aware of,” said Malhotra of the penalty kill.

“Everybody wants to contribute more; everybody wants to do better”

  • Linus Karlsson stepped up with some strong shifts, drawing a penalty early in the second period. Unfortunately, the power play backfired. Filip Hronek gambled at the blue line on a loose puck instead of backing into the neutral zone as a safety valve, and the Ducks’ evil twin of Linus Karlsson – Leo Carlsson — burst the other way for a shorthanded 2-on-1. He ripped a wristshot past Lankinen on the short side.
  • Karlsson responded. Off a chaotic faceoff in the Ducks’ zone, Drew O’Connor took a hack at a bouncing puck, and chopped it right to Karlsson as he went to the net. Karlsson had more patience than a general practitioner in B.C. and outwaited Brossoit to make it 3-2.

  • After Gauthier scored the 4-2 goal on the power play, he completed the hat trick on an even-strength rush. The Ducks attacked with speed and Guillaume Brisebois, pressed into action by a Tom Willander injury, back in far too deep. That left Gauthier a massive gap in the middle of the ice, and he sniped a shot past Lankinen.
  • The Canucks gave up some grade-A chances to the Ducks, but at some point they need Lankinen to come up with a save. He gave up five goals on just 22 shots. That’s not sustainable at the NHL level.
  • “Everybody wants to contribute more; everybody wants to do better,” Malhotra said when asked about Lankinen, taking time to carefully measure his response. “He’s competing for us. He’s competing. He’s not getting the results he wants. He’s not getting those timely saves, perhaps. But he’s continuing to put the work in daily, he’s going over video with Marco [Torenius], he’s doing the extra on the ice — so it’s not for lack of effort on his part. He’s doing the things he needs to to improve his game.”

“We need the goals, we need their scoring”

  • The Canucks pushed back hard in the third period, taking to heart the words of Captain Taggart: “Never give up, never surrender.” They’ve had plenty of reasons to give up and surrender; they haven’t done it.
  • “It’s been a story before from previous games,” said Pettersson. “We give a good push in the third — some games we tied it, some games were close — but it’s got to be a full sixty. When teams gain momentum, it’s got to be structure: don’t give them any good chances or try to minimize them. When we forecheck like we did in the third and we’re hunting the puck, we create chances.”
  • I loved the set play that led to Cotter’s (immediately disallowed) goal. Cotter took the faceoff instead of Max Sasson. While Cotter went 3-for-3 and Sasson went 0-for-4 — reason enough for Cotter to take the faceoff — it also freed up Sasson to immediately bolt down the ice when Cotter won the draw. Hronek intentionally iced the puck and Sasson won the race, only to collide with Brossoit as he came out to play the puck. Sasson set up Cotter in front, but had to contend with Travis Mitchell immediately dropping the gloves to fight him.

  • I have to think that if Sasson had kept his gloves on, the goal should have counted, as it would have been a delayed penalty on the Ducks. The Canucks did end up with a power play out of it, but that was small consolation.
  • The top line led the comeback efforts, clawing back a couple of goals. Brock Boeser made a nifty play on the boards to prevent a zone exit, neatly knocking down a bouncing puck. He moved it to Pettersson, who set up Jake DeBrusk as he went to the net, and he smoothly swooped the puck around Brossoit with a move that looked  almost accidental, particularly with the look on DeBrusk’s face after the puck went in.

  • A few minutes later, DeBrusk struck again. Boeser was first to the puck on a dump-in, swung the puck to Pettersson, and he found Jamie Oleksiak strutting down Main Street like he was a Drum Major in a parade. Oleksiak’s shot took a deflection off a Duck stick, then hit DeBrusk in front of the net to beat Brossoit.

  • Beyond the two goals, the top line tilted the ice. Shots on goal were 12-to-4 with Pettersson on the ice at 5-on-5, and the trio produced two goals. Despite the end result, this was a very strong game for the first line.
  • “The production aspect of it, it’s big. You need your top line to produce,” said Malhotra. “In terms of the ‘lead by example’ that we’re looking for, it’s more the pressure they were able to apply in the O-zone and getting ourselves out of the zone and spending time on the other half. Obviously, we need the goals, we need their scoring, but leading by example in other departments is my expectation out of them.”
  • The Canucks could use a win, especially on home ice, but there are worse ways to lose. The effort was there, the pushback was there, and the home crowd appreciated the goals and fights alike — they even got a villain or two when the officials waved off two goals. At the very least, Canucks games have not been boring.
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