The Vancouver Canucks are still alive.
With a win over the New York Islanders on Wednesday night, the Canucks reeled in the St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild ever so slightly, bringing them three points back of the Blues and five points back of the Wild. With ten games remaining in their 2024-25 season, the Canucks playoff hopes have not yet sunk like the McBarge.
It took some unlikely heroes to get important win over the Islanders.
The Canucks got fantastic goaltending from Thatcher Demko but that’s not all that unlikely, even if it’s been an extremely difficult season for Demko with his litany of injuries. What the Canucks needed was players to step up offensively with Elias Pettersson, Filip Chytil, and Nils Höglander all out for injuries.
Aatu Räty, who has spent most of the season in the AHL, scored his third goal of the season — just the fifth of his career. Bottom-six centre Teddy Blueger, filling in on the second line, came through with one of the smoothest releases of the season, sending a puck off the post and in.
Perhaps Kiefer Sherwood isn’t as unlikely a hero as he once was, but it’s good to remember that he wasn’t much of a goalscorer prior to this season. His two-goal effort — 16th and 17th of the season — matched his goal total from the last two seasons combined.
Then there’s the game-winning goal, scored by the unlikeliest hero of all: Derek Forbort.
Following up on his sublime assist on Jonathan Lekkerimäki’s goal against the New Jersey Devils, Forbort jumped up in the rush like a young Quinn Hughes and fired home his second goal of the season in the final minute of the second period. Let’s keep in mind, Forbort’s previous goal this season was the first he had scored in over two years.
This was the 542nd game of Forbort’s career. It was just his 19th goal.
What was great about the goal is that it wasn’t a fluke, like a lucky point shot finding its way through traffic or bouncing in off a leg. Instead, it was a legitimately great read to jump up in the rush and a perfectly-placed snap shot that Forbort got away with sneaky speed.
That goal and his saucer pass setup to Lekkerimäki makes you wonder if Forbort should maybe jump up in the play a little bit more often instead of just being the steady, stay-at-home guy.
“[Adam Foote] said he’s a sneaky offensive player,” said head coach Rick Tocchet.
Forbort, for his part, downplayed the goal.
“I’m just trying to play my game,” he said. “We’re missing some big horses up front that can score for us, so the D corps is trying to make a little more happen out there.”
Forbort may not be the usual big horse for the Canucks but he was the big horse they needed when I watched this game.
- The Canucks got off to a bit of a slow start in this game, getting outshot 10-to-5 in the opening 20 minutes, but Thatcher Demko had his John Wick “Yeah, I’m thinking I’m back” vibes going early. He stopped all ten shots he faced, including some ten-bell saves, to keep the Canucks in the game until they finally woke up and took over in the second half.
- Bo Horvat had the Islanders’ best chances in the first period but Demko said, “No Horvat” twice with two brilliant saves on the former Canucks captain. The first robbery looked an awful lot like the incredible save he made in the splits in overtime against the Devils. Once again, Demko slid across in a full split to get his right toe on Horvat’s shot.
- Let’s remember that this man was just out six weeks with a groin injury and this was his first save of the game. I’m in pain just from watching this save.
- “He made a hell of a save on the one, post-to-post,” said Tocchet. “Could be a different game if they score. Demmer says, ‘That’s my job to stop those,’ which is true, but we’ve got to limit those chances, especially early in the game.”
- Demko did it again later in the period, sliding to his right to stop Horvat on a 2-on-1. This time, Horvat made sure to elevate the puck, only for Demko to get his blocker on the shot to turn it aside. Maybe those saves rattled Horvat’s confidence because they were his only two shots on goal of the game.
- Aatu Räty wasn’t as dominant in the faceoff circle against the Islanders as he was against the New Jersey Devils, though he certainly made up for it elsewhere in his boxcar stats. Of course, for Räty, being not quite as dominant means he went 5-for-10, a solid 50% while facing a couple of top faceoff men in Horvat and Casey Cizikas. The left-handed Räty’s unusual technique of flipping over his stick to take faceoffs right-handed with the curve on his backhand won him at least one of those draws.
- Räty also helped the Canucks open the scoring. Early in the second period, Räty crashed in on the forecheck to win the puck and ring it around the boards to Jake DeBrusk, who sent it to Filip Hronek at the point. An awful read by Maxim Tsyplakov left the most dangerous player on the ice, Quinn Hughes, wide open. Hughes took the pass from Hronek and skated right up the middle before firing a shot that was really a pass to Kiefer Sherwood, who tipped it top shelf where he’ll be putting his Fred J. Hume Award.
- “[Hughes] is insane,” said Sherwood to the Canucks’ Olivia McDonald. “You just try to give him a stick and he’ll find it. He even had another one in the third where I’m not expecting anything and it’s on my tape. Players like that, you just try to either give time and space or get open and they do all the rest.”
- Hughes made a great play but Räty deserves more credit. It’s not just that he crunched Ryan Pulock and spun off him to steal the puck; he also took a hit from his former Abbotsford Canucks teammate Marc Gatcomb, with Gatcomb bouncing off him and falling to the ice. Räty tripped over Gatcomb too, but got to his feet faster and drove to the net, forcing Pulock to tie him up instead of tying up Sherwood in the slot. Räty didn’t get a point but he was essential to that goal.
- The Canucks had a golden opportunity to extend the lead on a power play a few minutes later but instead gave up a shorthanded goal. Hughes tried a cheeky pass to Jonathan Lekkerimäki at the Islanders’ blue line but turned the puck over. Jean-Gabriel Pageau took off with Cizikas for a 2-on-1 and Cizikas took the Pageau pass and beat Demko with a move to the forehand.
- The Islanders took the lead a few minutes later at 4-on-4. Conor Garland lost track of Tony DeAngelo after swapping checks with Brock Boeser, allowing DeAngelo to swoop in for a loose puck in the slot after a Pierre Engvall shot was blocked. Incredibly, DeAngelo managed to avoid shooting the puck into his own net and instead roofed it over Demko to make it 2-1.
- Räty evened things up after another great forecheck. Early in the play, Räty pinned DeAngelo to the boards like a conspiracy theorist, leaving the puck for Dakota Joshua to collect. Later in the sequence, Sherwood retrieved the puck and set up a Marcus Pettersson one-timer, while Räty slipped free of DeAngelo’s incredible loose defensive grip to get open at the side of the net for a nifty tip past Ilya Sorokin.
- “The win’s huge, but I haven’t scored that many in this league,” said Räty, who celebrated the goal with the biggest leg kick since Ralph Macchio. “I was thinking about it before the game if it’s fine if I celebrate. That moment, it felt right. Obviously, I loved playing for the Islanders, but it was nice to play against them.”
- Late in the second period, Derek Forbort spotted an opening up the middle of the ice as the Canucks’ top line was moving through the neutral zone. Forbort was just planning to drive the middle lane to create space for Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser, but with Jean-Gabriel Pageau failing to stay with him and Adam Pelech failing to pick him up, Forbort was suddenly in the clear like Crystal Pepsi. DeBrusk slipped the puck through to the big defenceman, and he snapped a quick shot through the seven-hole: just above the left pad and under the armpit of Sorokin’s glove side.
- The last-minute goal gave the Canucks the lead and a boost going into the second intermission and, one minute into the third period, Teddy Blueger extended that lead. Simon Holmstrom broke up a potential 2-on-1 for the Canucks but Garland retrieved the puck and sent a pass down to Blueger, who executed an incredible catch-and-release shot across his body.
- Seriously, that is not an easy play to make and Blueger not only made it look easy but also sent the puck off the post and in, giving Sorokin no chance to make the save. No wonder he gave it the down-on-one-knee-fist-pump celebration. That might legitimately be the best shot of his career.
- That was the end of Sorokin’s night, as Islanders head coach Patrick Roy pulled Sorokin and put in Marcus Hogberg. As a goaltender, getting pulled by Patrick Freaking Roy has to sting just a little bit more, right? It’s like if Michael Phelps told you that you’re not allowed in the deep end of the pool because you’re not a strong enough swimmer.
- The Islanders pushed to tie the game but Demko stood tall and also butterflyed tall and sometimes layed down tall, because you have to do all sorts of weird things to stop pucks in the NHL.
- “We’ve been saying all along: our goalies have been our backbone all year, whether it’s Lanky, whether it’s Demmer — even Arty’s had some good efforts,” said Sherwood to McDonald. “They give us a chance every night. Demmer made some insane saves there. It’s electric. We feed off of it. We really want to dig in after all of the stuff that he’s been through this year.”
- Roy, as is his wont, pulled Hogberg early to get the extra attacker on the ice, taking advantage of a late power play to go 6-on-4 with four minutes left. It was a tactically sound decision even if it didn’t pay off for the Islanders.
- After the penalty ended and it was 6-on-5, Tyler Myers blocked a centring pass and the puck came to Drew O’Connor. The winger showed great poise, recognizing that no one was pressuring him. Instead of flinging the puck up the ice, he slipped a pass to Pius Suter for a clean zone exit. Suter protected the puck through the neutral zone and fed Sherwood for the open lane to the net to make it 5-2.
- The odds are long for the Canucks — the evens are even longer — but they still have a chance to make the playoffs. They still have a chance. They. Still. Have. A. Chance.
