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I Watched This Game: Leevi Meriläinen is the Canucks' best penalty killer

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Oct 21 2026, 7:02 am
I Watched This Game: Leevi Meriläinen is the Canucks' best penalty killer
Simon Fearn/Imagn Images

The Vancouver Canucks’ penalty kill has been utterly atrocious to start the season.

On Tuesday night against the Carolina Hurricanes, the penalty kill was the lone bright spot. The kill went five-for-five to stymie a Carolina power play that was ranked seventh in the NHL at 25.6 per cent heading into the game.

Goaltender Leevi Meriläinen deserves the bulk of the credit; just ask Luke Schenn.

“I mean, we got a bunch of great saves on the PK, first of all,” said Schenn. “Leevi was huge for us on the kill. Your goalie has to be your best penalty killer, and he certainly was tonight. Hats off to him.”

In fairness to the penalty killers in front of Meriläinen, they looked better than in many previous games, as they shut down some of the cross-seam passes that had been plaguing them in earlier games.

But there’s no denying that the penalty killers looked a little bit better because of how Meriläinen came up with big saves.

In fact, Meriläinen killed off one penalty entirely by himself: he stopped a Sebastian Aho penalty shot to keep the score tied in the second period, giving the Canucks a chance to win.

From Meriläinen’s perspective, then, the penalty kill really went 6-for-6.

That’s how I saw it when I watched this game.

  • It’s fitting that a goaltender was the story of the game on John Garrett Night at Rogers Arena. The Canucks paid tribute to their former goaltender and longtime colour commentator throughout Tuesday’s game with videos on the scoreboard, and it was truly wonderful to see John’s family at the game in their Garrett jerseys from every era — and ketchup T-shirts.
  • The best part of the night was finding out from John Shorthouse that he had each member of the Garrett extended family in attendance, right down to the grandkids, take a turn sitting in Garrett’s seat next to him during the game. How special is that?
  • Shout out to the Hurricanes broadcast, which also shared their own tribute to Cheech, which I thought was a nice touch. Garrett played three seasons with the Hartford Whalers, the Hurricanes’ predecessor.
  • The Hurricanes were very obviously the better team in this game, outshooting the Canucks 44-to-17. But thanks to Meriläinen and some timely scoring, they stayed in this game right up until the third period, where the Hurricanes seemed to flip a switch — or several toggles and possibly some levers.
  • “I guess the team that won the Cup last year comes and kind of has more of an edge to their game in the third and more confidence,” said a clearly frustrated Max Sasson. “I think we did some decent things, but we can’t stop playing after they score the fourth [goal].”
  • The Hurricanes opened the scoring about five minutes into the game on a quick regroup in the neutral zone. As they counter-attacked, Jonathan Lekkerimäki chased the puck instead of picking up the trailer, Logan Stankoven, who sniped a quick shot past Meriläinen. In fairness to Lekkerimäki, one of Paul Cotter or Elias Pettersson (D) could have read that Lekkerimäki was chasing the puck-carrier and picked up Stankoven instead, but the primary responsibility falls on him.
  • The Canucks responded midway through the first period with some vintage playmaking by Elias Pettersson (F). Pettersson neatly knocked down an aerial puck, then got knocked down himself as he pulled the puck back between his legs. Linus Karlsson jumped on the loose puck and wired it like a money order to a scam artist.

  • Two minutes later, the Hurricanes regained the lead. Jackson Blake was open for a shot, but made the extra pass like Jamie Tartt, finding Nikolaj Ehlers wide open at the backdoor, where Tom Willander had left him like a pizza at Kevin McCallister’s house.
  • With literally a second to spare in the first period, Lekkerimäki tied things up like a shibari practitioner. It was a team effort on the power play: Pettersson fed Filip Hronek at the point, and he relayed the puck to Brock Boeser, who sent it towards Jake DeBrusk at the net front. DeBrusk brilliantly chipped the puck back door to Lekkerimäki for a wide-open net.

  • The legend goes that Joe Sakic used to shoot 500 pucks per day during the offseason. I’m starting to think Zeev Buium should pick up 500 rimmed pucks off the boards on his backhand per day next summer. He whiffed on a pass from Meriläinen for a turnover that led to Nicolas Deslauriers having the entire lifespan of a fruit fly alone with the puck. He waited for Meriläinen to creep off his post, then snuck the puck short side.
  • After the Canucks killed a Sasson penalty, he came out of the penalty box like he was shot out of a cannon. Brendan Gallagher got Sasson the puck, and he came burning down the right wing, while Arshdeep Bains drove the centre lane and was tripped, sliding into Kochetkov to take him out of the play. Sasson played catch with the trailing Zeev Buium, then fired the puck into the open net to tie the game 3-3.

  • “It was a good play by Gally,” said Sasson. “We talked about how they were going to be aggressive, and we could use their aggressiveness against them. Gally makes a nice play on the wall, Zeev makes an even better play, and Bainsy driving the net — that’s awesome, because it was like everyone was involved.”
  • I had to feel for Drew O’Connor, who took the ever-rare penalty for the faceoff violation of using your hand to play the puck. You have to wonder if the last time O’Connor played centre was when he was a little kid, when using your hand to win a faceoff might have still been legal. It’s hard to blame him too much for just going with his instincts to win the draw when he’s not normally a centre.
  • Perhaps inspired by such a rare penalty by O’Connor, Pettersson (F) took an even rarer penalty on the subsequent kill: he went down to block a shot, but when Sebastian Aho instead stepped around him, he tossed his stick to try to block the shot. To quote Mike Leggo, you can’t do that.

  • I think my favourite part of this moment is the immediate regret and shame on Pettersson’s face. Fortunately, Meriläinen stepped up and stopped Aho on the subsequent penalty shot, saving Pettersson any further shame of that being the cause of the game-winning goal.
  • “That was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done on the ice,” said Pettersson. “Thanks to Leevi for saving that penalty shot.”
  • In each of the last four games, the Canucks entered the third period tied or in the lead. They’ve lost all four games and been outscored 8-to-0 in the third period in those four games.
  • “I think if you would have told me that our penalty kill was 5-for-5 and our power play scores a goal, you’d like to think the result would be different,” said Sasson. “We keep getting into these third periods tied and keep coming up on the wrong side. We’ve got to figure that out.”
  • Deslauriers had gone 555 days without a goal in the NHL before scoring in the second period. He went just 21 minutes and 41 seconds of game time between goals in this game, scoring the game-winning goal when he was left all alone in front of the net by Luke Schenn.
  • Hronek looked atrocious on the Hurricanes’ fifth goal. He and Pettersson talked about their strategy on an offensive zone faceoff prior to the draw. Pettersson won the faceoff cleanly right back to Hronek — and he completely whiffed on the puck. It was very bad and also not good. Ehlers accelerated onto the loose puck and beat Meriläinen on the breakaway.
  • Finally, Stankoven added an empty-net goal, which provided one more reason to cheer for the Stankoven family reunion that appeared to have traveled to Vancouver from Kamloops for the game. So, that was nice for them.
  • The 6-3 loss extends the Canucks’ losing streak to eight games. As much as this was the plan from a management standpoint — they really need another blue-chip prospect from the draft — it’s not a lot of fun for the players, who, to their credit, are still putting in a solid effort.
  • “Extremely,” said Sasson when asked if losing was getting old. “We’re all professionals; we all want to win. It’s getting really old. For our group and our mental space, we need to start getting some wins. That starts with playing the right way, and when you get yourself into tight games, we’ve got to figure out a way to come out on the right side.”
  • “It sucks,” said Pettersson (F). “It’s tough to find positives after another loss…We’re just trying to scramble to get a win. It sucks losing. I don’t have any good words for it.”
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