Canucks gain a measure of revenge, defeat Maple Leafs, 3-2, in shootout
It took a shootout, but the Vancouver Canucks paid back the Toronto Maple Leafs — at least a little bit — for their last meeting with a 3-2 victory
If you closed your eyes late at night and wished for the perfect game Saturday, you were left wanting.
It was impossible for this Canucks-Leafs rematch to live up to the hype, and inconceivable the Canucks and their fans would taste the retribution they so richly deserved.
What the game lacked in blood, and revenge, it made up for in drama.
That was ensured when, with about a minute left, Troy Stecher desperately scooped a puck off the goal-line in a play that saved the winning goal and helped send the game into overtime.
Stecher nearly won it there, too, but his shot was barely saved. In the third period and overtime, the Canucks were outshot 18-5. It made their 3-2 win in the shootout both improbable and sweet.
The Canucks were rightfully outraged when last these teams met, when the NHL chose not to suspend Nazem Kadri and, many believe, made the decision within minutes of the game ending.
So it was up to Vancouver to avenge a hit on Daniel Sedin, another on Jannik Hansen and whatever you want to call it when Matt Martin mauled Troy Stecher.
That’s quite a list, and ticking off the boxes was never going to happen. But Erik Gudbranson did fight Martin in his biggest moment yet as a Canuck.
He backed it up after he made sure that the media heard him announce his intention to “kill” Martin in Toronto.
It was cracker of a fight, and the crowd, evenly split, went predictably wild.
Unfortunately, if you believe in such things, the fight happened just after the Canucks went up 2-0.
Who knows if it impacted anything, but by the third, the Leafs were skating circles around Vancouver and tied the game.
It probably would have happened anyway. The Leafs’ speed gives the Canucks fits, and it’s as bad a matchup as there is among the mediocre teams in the league.
It took more than 13 minutes for the Canucks to get their first shot in the third, as the Leafs danced around the offensive zone, forcing Ryan Miller to make a string of great saves.
In a season in which he’s been entirely average, and sometimes less than that, Miller was really good Saturday.
If he wasn’t, the Leafs would have walked out of Vancouver having won a laugher.
Because, just like the game in Toronto, the Leafs proved they not only have rebuilding right, they have the better team right now.
For many Canucks fans, however, winning probably meant less than exacting some sort of revenge for the cheap shots Vancouver players absorbed.
It wasn’t exactly in the cards.
Daniel did take a run at Morgan Rielly, who broke Hansen’s ribs last month.
The intent was more impressive than the execution, but that was theme Saturday.
And Nikita Tryamkin did crumple Kadri.
But none of that will have a lasting memory.