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I Watched This Game: Canucks' disastrous penalty kill hands Devils win

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Oct 11 2026, 1:49 am
I Watched This Game: Canucks' disastrous penalty kill hands Devils win
Thomas Salus/Imagn Images

The Vancouver Canucks already had the worst penalty kill in the NHL heading into Saturday’s game against the New Jersey Devils, running at an ugly 57.9 per cent.

It did not improve.

Through the first two periods of Saturday’s game, the Devils had three power plays. They scored on all three.

Combined with the three power-play goals the Carolina Hurricanes scored on their three opportunities in the Canucks’ last game, the Canucks had officially given up goals on six straight penalty kills.

“5-on-5, I thought it wasn’t that bad,” said Brock Boeser. “We played all right. It was just the special teams. That’s a couple of games in a row where our PK, we’ve got to bear down and get those kills, and stay out of the box — myself included.”

It seemed like the Canucks would never kill a penalty ever again until Boeser rode into town on a white horse to save the day.

11 seconds into the Canucks’ final power play of the night, Boeser took a hooking penalty to end the man advantage, sending the game to 4-on-4. When that ended, the Devils had a brief 11-second power play.

The Canucks managed to keep the Devils from scoring for a whole 11 seconds, successfully killing off the penalty.

Heroic.

Now the penalty kill has fallen to 52.2 per cent, which is appallingly bad.

“We can’t continue to give up goals on the PK at this rate,” said head coach Manny Malhotra. “Take all the special teams goals out of this game, and it’s a one-nothing hockey game.”

Notably, without the special teams goals, the Canucks still would have lost one-nothing when I watched this game.

  • Skate issues ended up as the B-plot of this game. It started with Elias Pettersson, who seemed to have a skate issue about four minutes into the game and headed down the tunnel to get it sorted out. That meant when Linus Karlsson drew a hooking penalty a moment later, Pettersson wasn’t available for the power play, so Karlsson took his spot.
  • Like Keanu Reeves, Karlsson worked as a replacement. After Jake DeBrusk had a chance on the zone entry, he retrieved the rebound and fed Brock Boeser at the right boards. Boeser spotted Karlsson open in the bumper and slipped him the puck like he was bribing a bouncer, and Karlsson wired it in to open the scoring.

  • The lead didn’t even last three minutes. After a Jonathan LekkerimĂ€ki high-sticking minor, the Devils’ power play was as crisp as a British potato chip. Arseny Gritsyuk waited for Filip Hronek to move his stick out of the passing lane into the bumper, then fed Nico Hischier for the finish.
  • Skate issues popped up again late in the first. Leevi MerilĂ€inen stopped a Luke Hughes chance with his toe, and saw his skate blade go spiralling into the corner like me on a bad mental health day.

  • Those types of blades can typically be popped right back into the holder on the bottom of the skate unless the holder itself is damaged. That appeared to be the case: MerilĂ€inen had to temporarily leave the game, meaning he either needed to switch to his backup skates or the equipment crew had to repair or swap out the holder.
  • This was a rough game for Zeev Buium, who was repeatedly a second too slow when moving the puck in transition, leading to multiple turnovers. The Canucks were outshot 15-to-6 when Buium was on the ice at 5-on-5. He does not look like a defenceman who should be leading the Canucks in ice time right now; unfortunately, neither does anyone else on the Canucks’ blue line.
  • It didn’t help Buium that his defence partner has been one of the worst players on the Canucks to start the season. Hronek is supposed to be the steady veteran leading a young blue line, but he’s made some very loud mistakes.
  • One of those mistakes came shortly after Kevin Lankinen came into the game for the blade-deprived MerilĂ€inen. Hronek mishandled a rolling puck in his own zone, coughing it up to the excellently-named Amadeus Lombardi. Lankinen stopped Lombardi’s shot — the first he faced in the game — but Hronek whiffed on clearing the rebound away, and Jesper Boqvist poked it in to make it 2-1.

  • Just to rub some salt into the wound, Boqvist’s goal wound up being the game-winner. That means, despite playing in just over five minutes and only allowing one goal in a 4-1 game, Lankinen gets credited (or debited, if you will) with the loss.
  • On the Devils’ third goal, the Canucks’ penalty kill was so focused on taking away the bumper that they allowed Jack Hughes a wide-open passing lane to Hischier at the top of the crease. MerilĂ€inen kept Hischier’s first shot out, but in the chaos that ensued, Hronek accidentally prevented MerilĂ€inen from getting to the right post, and Jesper Bratt shot the puck through Hronek’s five-hole.

  • As pointed out by The Athletic’s Thomas Drance in the postgame scrum with Malhotra, the goals from Hischier and Bratt, as well as some previous goals, have exposed some holes in the middle of the ice on the Canucks’ penalty kill.
  • “That’s a very good observation,” said Malhotra in response. “Those are things that we talk about and things that are not getting executed the way we want them to be done. It’s a major problem. Teams are obviously watching the footage and trying to exploit those areas. It’s just something that we have to clean up.”
  • MerilĂ€inen’s skate blade came out again late in the second period on a save on Gritsyuk. It was the same blade, too. At least this time, it was quickly popped back into the holder and he was able to stay in the game.

  • The Devils made it 4-1 in the final minute of the second period with yet another power play goal. This time, Jack Hughes sent a backdoor feed through Elias “Junior” Pettersson to Hischier for the goal. It was a goal of attrition, as the penalty killing unit of Pettersson, Tom Willander, Brendan Gallagher, and Arshdeep Bains was stuck on the ice for over a minute.
  • On the ensuing faceoff, Evan Rodrigues reacted to a push from Marco Rossi with a spear to Rossi’s neck. Like what the mama saw, that’s against the law, and should have been an automatic five-minute major and a game misconduct under Rule 62 — Spearing.

  • Shockingly, the officials only gave Rodrigues a double minor for high-sticking for what is one of the most blatant spears I’ve ever seen. The spearing penalty technically does allow for a double minor…if a player attempts to spear an opponent and doesn’t make contact.
  • Frankly, Rodrigues should get a suspension. There’s no place for that in hockey. It should also be a black mark on the records of referees Stephen Hiff and Francois St-Laurent — calling that a high stick is bush-league officiating.
  • “I was given an explanation, yeah,” said Malhotra about why it wasn’t called spearing. He declined to provide the explanation he had been given, but said he did not agree with it.
  • If there was any positive to be drawn from this game, it was the continued solid play of the top line. Jake DeBrusk had a game-high seven shots on goal, most of them from right on top of the blue paint, as he forced Jake Allen to make some stupendous saves.
  • Pettersson set up a couple of DeBrusk chances and had six shot attempts of his own, three of them on net. While it would be preferable for him to hit the net a little more often, his willingness to fire the puck is encouraging.
  • There was one other positive: MerilĂ€inen, who made 31 saves on 34 shots, and it feels appropriate that he didn’t get tagged with the loss for his efforts. The Canucks might have something in the young Finnish netminder.
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