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I Watched This Game: Ex-Canucks dress as the Toronto Maple Leafs for Halloween

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Nov 1 2026, 6:20 am
I Watched This Game: Ex-Canucks dress as the Toronto Maple Leafs for Halloween
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

There are so many former members of the Vancouver Canucks on the Toronto Maple Leafs that it’s scary.

On Halloween, some of those Leafs gave the Canucks a fright.

Zack MacEwen, who played 62 games for the Canucks, scored the game-winning goal.

Teddy Blueger, who appeared in 198 games for the Canucks across three seasons, had a goal and an assist.

Dakota Joshua, who played in 212 games with the Canucks, was just barely held off the scoresheet, as he had a game-high five shots on goal and a game-high seven hits.

In total, there were three ex-Canucks in the Leafs’ lineup, as the three forwards were joined by defencemen Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Troy Stecher.

Tanev, a veteran of 537 games with the Canucks, was coming off an injury and playing in his first game in three weeks.

“I was a bit nervous today coming back from three weeks off and coming to play against a team where I played here for a while,” said Tanev to Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy after the game. “We know they’ve been struggling, but they work really hard and are desperate for a win, so they played a great game today.”

While “great” might be stretching it, the Canucks battled hard. Their first period was legitimately very good. Their third period was strong. Unfortunately, hockey games have three periods.

I saw all three of them when I watched this game.

offside i watched this game

“We need guys that are going to be competitive and give us an opportunity to win”

  • The first period was the Canucks’ best of the game, which is why it’s a shame they were tied 1-1 heading into the intermission. You’ve got to make hay while the sun shines, and you’ve got to score goals while you’re controlling puck possession, because neither one will last long.
  • It didn’t help that the Leafs scored on their first shot on goal. Jamie Oleksiak made the crucial mistake of trying to deke around William Nylander before he had the puck, so he whiffed harder than a dizzy Coby Cotton. The whiff gave Nylander a breakaway, which was tantamount to giving him a goal.

  • It was an unfair first shot to face for Leevi Meriläinen, who was making his fourth straight start for the Canucks. He didn’t deserve that, Jamie. Go buy him a steak dinner.
  • “Leevi’s been awesome ever since he got here,” said Max Sasson. “Great guy in the locker room; great goalie out there. Keeps us in it every single night. We’ve got to do better by him and put some goals in the other way and try to limit their great chances.”
  • Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra didn’t pull his punches when he was asked about Meriläinen getting a string of starts, and it’s hard to avoid seeing a little shot at Kevin Lankinen.
  • “Every game he’s played this year, he’s given us an opportunity to win,” said Malhotra. “He’s made some incredible stops, but I always talk about just making the stops we expect him to make, the routine ones. He’s pretty dialed in, in that regard…The run of games, it’s because of the fact that he gives us an opportunity to win every night. That’s the messaging for the group: we need guys that are going to be competitive and give us an opportunity to win.”
  • He made have been on the ice for that goal against, Tom Willander had a really strong game. He was moving the puck well, attacking downhill in the offensive zone, and playing some excellent rush defence. As a result, his underlying possession numbers were great: he led his team in corsi percentage at 5-on-5, with the Canucks out-attempting the Leafs 23-to-12 when he was on the ice.

“Me and Fil have been looking for that for a few games”

  • The Canucks responded on the power play with a breakaway of their own. Filip Hronek faked like he was going to make the usual drop pass that everyone uses on the power play, then snapped a stretch pass to Brock Boeser as he swung behind the Leafs’ defence. Like the editing in an Edgar Wright film, it was perfectly timed.
  • “Me and Fil have been looking for that for a few games,” said Boeser. “He made a great pass there.”
  • Boeser made no mistake on the finish. He faked a snap shot with a leg kick, deked hard to the backhand, then pulled the puck back to his forehand. Like putting a U2 song in a playlist, Boeser added elevation to the mix, lifting the puck over Anthony Stolarz’s outstretched pad.

  • The goal came on one of three penalties drawn by Elias “OG” Pettersson, who was held off the scoresheet to end his six-game scoring streak, but still contributed in other ways. Along with the drawn penalties, Pettersson blocked five shots, threw three hits, and played a solid defensive game while hard-matched against the Auston Matthews line.
  • Still, Pettersson was unhappy with his game, noting to Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston, “I was not too good with the puck today. I made too many errors, terrible in the faceoffs. Yeah, not too happy with my performance today.”
  • That feels like Pettersson is being too hard on himself, but then again, he went 7-for-25 on faceoffs — 28 per cent — so maybe he’s onto something.
  • “When you look at his effort on the ice, and you look at his willingness to block shots and recover pucks, he’s playing with some more jam in his game, which is what we want to see,” said Malhotra of Pettersson. “The offence will come. He’ll produce, no doubt, as he continues to play like that.”
  • As for the other Elias Pettersson, my favourite moment from the defenceman was when he got punched by Gavin McKenna in a scrum, leading to his helmet going askew. Linesman Kiel Murchison kindly put his helmet back on his head like a parent adjusting their kid’s costume as they go out the door for trick-or-treating.

  • Of course, McKenna didn’t get a penalty for punching Pettersson. Why would he?
  • That scrum came in the midst of a lengthy 5-on-3 power play for the Leafs, which the Canucks did well to kill, with most of it done by Hronek and the Petterssons, which is not an indie rock band. It would be nice to see the penalty kill turn a corner after being genuinely godawful to start the year.

“They have too many good players over there”

  • Things went awry in the second period. The Leafs stacked shift after shift in the Canucks’ zone, with the Canucks unable to break the puck out and get it deep to make line changes with the long change in the middle frame.
  • “I thought first period, we played great, and second period, we just didn’t,” said Boeser. “Defensively, we weren’t as sharp as the first period, and they have too many good players over there. You could see them get their chances or looks and they tilted the ice. They had the momentum, and we were kind of just sitting back and couldn’t find our way out of it and gave up a couple that cost us.”
  • Part of it was bad luck. One of Pettersson’s five shot blocks broke his stick. He tried to compensate with a hit, but Darren Raddysh got around him and played catch with Auston Matthews, who finished things off with a quick shot through the five-hole.
  • The Leafs’ third goal was also a bit of bad luck. Zack MacEwen’s point shot knuckled on Meriläinen, and he couldn’t catch it cleanly. The puck popped out of his glove, hit Luke Schenn in the back, and rolled over the goal line. Back rolls plagued the Canucks like they plague Alyssa Edwards.

  • Here’s the thing: like someone creating a Tinder profile, the Leafs gave themselves the opportunity to get lucky. They outshot the Canucks 13-to-6 in the second period and had plenty of offensive pressure beyond just the shots.
  • “I think a large part of it is the execution through the neutral zone,” said Malhotra. “Especially in the second period when you get hemmed in your own end, it creates a ton of problems. Our inability to come out clean from breakouts through the neutral zone and get to their end was obviously a major factor. They spent far too much time in our own zone in the second.”

“We’re trying to be super simple”

  • The Canucks’ best line was arguably the fourth line of Paul Cotter, Max Sasson, and Brendan Gallagher. They were buzzing around the offensive zone, creating some quality chances and hemming the Leafs in for several shifts. There’s a reason why that trio kept getting shifts as the Canucks pushed for the comeback.
  • “We’re trying to be super simple,” said Sasson. “We know what we’re all good at. [Cotter] obviously is a great skater, strong body. Gally is a veteran presence, knows exactly what to do and when to do it. I think the chemistry has been good.”
  • In the third period, that line came up with the Canucks’ second goal to lower the lead to one. Cotter gained the zone with speed, swooped down low, and tried to centre for Sasson. When his pass was disrupted, Gallagher jumped on the loose puck for a quick shot, with Sasson darting to the net like a Ptereleotrinae to finish off the rebound.

  • Jacob Quillan made his Canucks debut and looked decent in limited minutes. He’s got some speed, for sure, and showed a willingness to go to the net. It’s tough to know if there’s anything there yet, but he showed some promise.
  • “He did a good job with the minutes he was given,” said Malhotra of Quillan. “He made some poised plays out there on breakouts, had a few good forechecks where he recovered pucks and got in on people and applied pressure. It’s tough to make a full analysis after one game, but he did a really good job of stepping in and being noticed.”
  • The Canucks pressed hard late in the game, but they struggled to get possession in the offensive zone to get Meriläinen to the bench as early as they might have liked. When they did, Marco Rossi’s dump-in was too easy for Stolarz to cut off, and the goaltender tried to score a goalie goal. The puck was nearly cut off, but got through to Nylander, who set up Blueger for the 4-2 dagger.
  • They’re getting better. It’s hard to see it, but the Canucks are improving. They legitimately outplayed the Leafs for long stretches. Their issue right now is that when the other team gains momentum, things start to snowball. They really struggle to break that momentum.
  • “There is progress there,” said Malhotra. “It’s frustrating as we talk about these games after loss after loss, but we do see improvement in different areas of our game. It’s just tough to see those when there’s no correlation to wins.”
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