The Canucks were under siege to start this game, and Arturs Silovs needed to be sharp early on. Tampa Bay’s top line scored after what had to be their second or third prime east-west chance just under four minutes into the game. Noah Juulsen lost an edge in his own end, and then lost his man in the defensive zone off the turnover. Unfortunately, his man was Nikita Kucherov, who promptly made it 1-0 Lightning.
Tampa Bay was absolutely all over the Canucks for the first ten minutes of this game, and Silovs made some key stops (even ones from the point!) early to keep this game within reach.
Tampa Bay was absolutely all over the Canucks for the first ten minutes of this game, and Silovs made some key stops (even ones from the point!) early to keep this game within reach.
Back at even strength, the Canucks looked to assert themselves against a Tampa team that was simply all over them early on. As they have been through the first two games of the season, the Nils Höglander-Aatu Räty-Conor Garland trio was their best line early in this one. Räty was called for interference after going into a net front battle a little too hard, knocking the Lightning defender on his wallet.
This gave Tampa a late power play opportunity where once again, Silovs had to be sharp. Elias Pettersson had a nice takeaway and rush chance while shorthanded, the Canucks remained within one as the first period came to a close.
The Canucks looked like an entirely different team to kick off the second period, as Jake DeBrusk fed Elias Pettersson with two solid scoring chances that were turned aside by Andrei Vasilevskiy. The Canucks were all of a sudden knocking on the door, and at the very least, competing with Tampa.