Unexpected cast leads gritty Canucks performance in skid-snapping win

VANCOUVER — After the smouldering but inextinguishable brush fire that is the Quinn Hughes situation was fanned again Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada, illuminating the uncertainty of his future with the Vancouver Canucks, two other defencemen showed why the team sees them as essential to whatever comes next.

Friends and countrymen Tom Willander and Elias Pettersson (Junior), who are breaking into the National Hockey League together after first playing as defence partners for Sweden’s national junior team two years ago, scored goals a little more than two minutes apart as the Canucks stunned the Minnesota Wild 4-2 at Rogers Arena.

It wasn’t just that the last-place Canucks ended a four-game losing streak against one of the NHL’s hottest teams and its untouchable goalie that was so surprising, but that Vancouver won after top centre Elias Pettersson (the original EP) was an unexpected last-minute scratch due to an upper-body injury.

When Pettersson joined experienced Canucks centres Filip Chytil and Teddy Blueger on the injured list, Vancouver’s first-line pivot became Toronto Maple Leafs castoff David Kampf, who is pointless in nine games for the team and is known primarily for his penalty-killing and faceoff work as a fourth-line checker. The other Canucks centres on Saturday were recent minor-league graduates Aatu Raty and Max Sasson, and NHL winger Drew O’Connor.

And still, Vancouver won with one of its grittier performances this season.

Did we tell you that the Canucks goalie who outplayed the Wild’s Jesper Wallstedt was emergency minor-league callup Nikita Tolopilo?

As for the Hughes drama, Elliotte Friedman’s television report that the Canucks and New Jersey Devils had a phone call about the superstar defenceman is just another page in the subplot that will be part of the Canucks’ story until the team captain signs a contract extension next summer or asks out of Vancouver.

“If there was a call, it wasn’t like me, Jim and Fitzy hopped on the call,” Hughes told reporters post-game, referring to Canucks president Jim Rutherford and Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald. “You know, I wasn’t a part of that. But obviously I’m aware of that and how things like that could happen, for sure.”

The result on the ice was far more of a plot twist than the latest report involving Hughes.

Over the course of four shots spanning less than six minutes in the second period, three Canucks prospects who had combined for one goal this season (Willander, young Pettersson and Raty) pumped three pucks past Wallstedt, who had allowed as many as three goals only once while winning his last seven starts.

The “Wall of St. Paul” looked more like a speed bump.

Willander scored his first NHL goal to tie it 1-1 at 9:29, taking Linus Karlsson’s patient pass and picking the top corner on Wallstedt with a wrist shot from above the circles.

Just over two minutes later, at 11:46, Pettersson (Junior), a frequent blue-line partner for Willander, scored his first of the season with a seeing-eye shot from the point that tumbled in after Raty won an offensive-zone faceoff.

And then Raty, the second-year centre with one goal in 25 games, rifled home an unscreened wrist shot on a two-on-one sprung by Evander Kane as the Canucks shockingly went ahead 3-1 at 15:12.

These goals against the NHL’s hottest netminder came on Vancouver’s sixth, eighth and ninth shots of the game. They also came after the NHL Situation Room took away what looked like a perfectly good goal from Raty for a “distinct kicking motion.” For a Canucks team that has watched opponents score more goals with their feet this season than Lionel Messi, it looked like an extremely harsh decision after Kiefer Sherwood’s centring pass hit Raty’s skate.

But given what the Canucks have been going through, the video-review decision felt, well, typical. The three Vancouver goals that soon followed certainly were not.

It’s not like the Wild were overrunning the Canucks with 16 shots through two periods, but the visitors could have led by more than just 1-0 — and would have were it not for Tolopilo, who started ahead of Kevin Lankinen on the second night of back-to-back games.

High-danger scoring chances were 6-1 for Minnesota through two periods.

“Obviously, our best player on any given night,” veteran defenceman Marcus Pettersson (no relation) said of missing the older Elias. “I think we came together as a group. We knew it was going to be a battle. Guys stepped up and made some great plays, but the battle — the compete level — is what’s sticking out for me tonight. 

“I think for a while now, we played some pretty good hockey but didn’t get the results. So we kind of talked about what that missing piece is to get the results. And that was a little bit more attitude, more compete, and I think we showed that tonight.”

By the end, Raty had tripled his season’s goal total by making it 4-1 at 5:09 of the third period on a gift from Wallstedt, who hesitated and then mishandled the puck behind his net, losing it to the Canuck.

“I think Woody yelled to the goalie, ‘Leave it!’”, Raty said of Sherwood. “I’m pretty sure, so I think he messed their breakout there a little bit. And then obviously, just a bad bounce … just so unlucky on their goalie. (But) I think we were due.”

With 74 games of NHL experience, Raty, 23, was the Canucks’ second-line centre. He went 14-2 on faceoffs and finished with three points.

“Yeah, I don’t know why they’re not asking me about going, like 22-3, on my last 25 draws,” Raty said of the post-game media attention. “Those are the things I worry about. But it’s always good to get goals.  

“We had a really good meeting this morning, and went over some things, mindset-wise, about what we want to be and what we were going to do today. And I think that showed out there today. I think everyone was pretty fired up to play.”

Young defencemen Willander, 20, and Pettersson, 21, started playing together at training camp in September and have been pushing each other at the NHL level.

“I think we just, we want each other’s best all the time,” Pettersson explained. “Almost every practice, we’re doing something together. After the practice, we’re working on our game. So, yeah, it was fun to see those (shots) go in today.”

The Canucks play the Detroit Red Wings on Monday before closing their four-game homestand Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres, when there is a chance injured Vancouver starter Thatcher Demko could play for the first time since Nov. 11.

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