Canucks 6, Leafs 4: Lotto Line comes via within the clutch

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In a giant sport, you want the very best out of your finest gamers.

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By two intervals on Saturday afternoon, that couldn’t be mentioned of the Vancouver Canucks’ famed Lotto Line.

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After which the third interval got here. They usually took over the sport.

After two intervals the place they struggled to deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, the Canucks’ prime line dug deep and bore down and located two massive third-period targets.

And the Canucks gained 6-4 in the long run due to their clutch play. And since their all-world goaltender was huge on the evening.

Each targets, the primary by J.T. Miller and the second by Elias Pettersson, had been backdoor performs, had been energy play markers with loads of work within the lead-up to create area exterior and to open up cross-slot passing lanes.

Demko was sensible, particularly within the third interval as Toronto poured on the stress.

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The Canucks have talked loads these days about studying to win 1-0 video games, to stay with their sport when it’s 0-0.

In a method, they needed to rediscover win video games the place the stress is in all places and there are targets aplenty.

Blowing the roof off after which the roof got here crashing down

It’s onerous to think about a primary interval at Rogers Enviornment this season with extra power than Saturday’s sport.

With a great deal of Leafs followers in attendance you knew the Canucks’ sport leisure crew would lean into issues as onerous as they may and so they did an admirable job of their setup of the sport.

After which Canucks skated the Leafs off the ice within the first.

It regarded like Toronto would simply haven’t any response because the Canucks pushed relentlessly shift after shift.

The Canucks’ depth forwards led the best way, selecting up a trio of hard-working targets, two from Nils Höglander and one other from Conor Garland.

However the second interval was a unique story. The Leafs put collectively nearly their finest interval of the season, utterly flipping the sport on its head.

The place the Leafs had no solutions within the first, the Canucks had none for a lot of the second.

After the Leafs pulled the sport again degree, Quinn Hughes was noticed on the bench in absolute fury.

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Bear in mind when …

Garland and Höglander had been commerce chips?

Even together with his blown project on the Leafs’ second aim by Jake McCabe, Garland was huge on this contest.

His line continues to drive a lot of the Canucks’ play and so typically it’s due to Garland.

And Höglander is as much as 14 targets whereas by no means enjoying on the facility play.

He’s turn out to be the staff’s most ferocious and efficient forechecker too.

What are you seeing?

Demko struggled to trace William Nylander’s first aim, a floating wrist shot from the aspect boards that obtained previous Tyler Myers first.

Did Demko lose sight of the black puck because it sailed previous Myers’ black jersey?

The second Nylander aim was slightly tougher to fathom: it was a shot off the wing.

And then you definitely noticed the replay: Nylander’s shot ticked off Carson Soucy’s stick.

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However what a efficiency

By the top of the sport, the 2 bizarre tallies had been nicely forgotten as a result of Demko had made 43 saves.

There’s a purpose why he’s within the Vezina Trophy dialog this season and it’s performances like this one.

He made a variety of huge saves within the third interval, particularly as the sport’s rating results set in.

Doing this versus the Leafs will solely cement his season within the eyes of many nationwide voters.

However severely, Martin Jones?

The Canucks obtained their 5 targets on simply 19 photographs.

A few of that was all the way down to brutal defending within the first, however in the long run the Leafs wanted some massive saves and so they obtained none.

NEXT GAME

Monday

Chicago Blackhawks vs. Vancouver Canucks

7 p.m., Rogers Enviornment, TV: SN Pacific, Radio: Sportsnet 650

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