Happy New Year Canucks fans! Let’s talk about this game.
The Flames had the better looks early on in this one, but the Canucks had their looks too. All in all, it was a fairly even back-and-forth start to the opening period.
The Canucks’ best chance of the period came as a result of a quick zone exit that led to a rush opportunity for the Kiefer Sherwood line. Crazy what can happen when the defence get the puck out quickly, RIGHT?!
Matt Coronato made a phenomenal play to negate what would have become the Canucks’ best chance of the period when he laid out on the back check to break up a 2-on-1 between JT Miller and Jake DeBrusk.
The Flames opened the scoring with just over five minutes left in the period when Mackenzie Weegar noticed that Jakob Pelletier snuck in behind Noah Juulsen and sent the 23-year-old in on a breakaway. Kevin Lankinen made the first save, but his Juulsen and the other Canucks coming back couldn’t clear the puck out of danger, leaving it for Connor Zary to put home to make it 1-0 Flames.
It’s mental mistakes like that that just cannot happen.
The Flames started the second period with a noticeable amount of giddy up that was absent from the Canucks’ game. After multiple icing penalties, the Soucy-Juulsen pairing was out for three consecutive minutes. Somehow, someway, the Canucks escaped those three minutes unscathed.
Erik Brännström dropped the gloves with Ryan Lomberg after a spirited netfront battle, and almost immediately after that, 6’1 JT Miller did the same with 6’6 Kevin Bahl.
Gotta love some extracurricular activity on New Year’s Eve!
The temperature stayed high, as Noah Juulsen was called for tripping Mikael Backlund as a result of hanging his leg a bit, which drew a reaction from Mackenzie Weegar. Juulsen was given a roughing minor as well, putting the Flames on the power play.
Then Tyler Myers was called for cross-checking and sent to join his teammates in a standing-room-only Canucks penalty box.