Just moments after Team Canada was eliminated from the World Juniors, Chandler Stephenson opened the scoring in this game on just their second shot of the game.
It could’ve been 2-0 in a hurry, as the Canucks gave up an odd-man rush that Guillaume Brisebois did well to break up. Brisebois made his season debut tonight in place of Erik Brännström. Brisebois slotting in is a fine move, but putting him in for Brännström over Noah Juulsen or Vincent Desharnais seemed like a bad decision when moving the puck is one of the biggest problems facing this team. Anyways.
Demko had to make a big save in close just seconds later, and shortly after that, Carson Soucy failed to knock down a soft flip into the neutral zone, giving Oliver Bjorkstrand a breakaway opportunity that Demko had to once again be sharp on.
The Kraken were all over the Canucks early, and it took about 10 minutes for the Canucks to settle into this game. One line that was good for the Canucks right from the start, however, was the fourth line trio of Höglander-Sasson-Heinen. So it was fitting that it was that line who scored the Canucks’ first goal of the game after Nils Höglander threw a puck towards the net that bounced around before finding its way to Sasson, who made no mistake in banging it home to even this game up. That’s the best sequence we’ve seen from Höglander in months.