Every time Quinn Hughes steps over the boards, he should be accompanied by Dropout’s Sam Reich saying, “Get ready for a game-changer!”
Without his usual defence partner, Filip Hronek, Hughes had to play even more than usual against the Buffalo Sabres on Friday afternoon. He played a total of 28:31, his second-highest ice time of the season, and yet somehow still had the energy in overtime to come up with something special.
Hughes had the puck on a string right from puck drop in the final frame. The Canucks maintained possession for the first three minutes of overtime largely because of his puck control. When the Sabres finally took possession of the puck, they created one scoring chance — admittedly, an exceptionally good one — and then the Canucks retook control for the rest of the game.
Overtime lasted a second short of four minutes. Hughes was on the ice for over half that time, playing 2:05 in the extra frame. By my stopwatch, Hughes had the puck on his stick for 57 seconds in overtime — just short of half of his ice time.
You need to understand, that’s unheard of.
According to one source, even a superstar player in the NHL averages around 45 seconds per game with the puck on their stick , which emphasizes the importance of how you play without the puck. Sure, Hughes is set apart from other superstars because of how much he has the puck on his stick, leading the league by a wide margin according to a statistic from earlier in the season. But even still, that means carrying the puck for around 13-14% of his ice time, not 45-46%.
“He had his own puck out there,” marveled Tocchet. “I mean, nothing amazes me with that kid but in overtime, that was pretty special.”
To top it all off, Hughes’s final touch of the puck in overtime set up the game-winning goal for Conor Garland.
It was his second assist of the game, giving him 310 for his career. That ties Alex Edler’s franchise record for the most assists all-time by a Canucks defenceman. Of course, Edler set that record in 925 career games with the Canucks. Hughes has played 387 games.
In 538 fewer games, Hughes tied a franchise record.
He’s a cheat code come to life. He’s Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl. He’s OddJob in GoldenEye. He’s Ivan Ooze in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition.
He’s a game-changer.
It was a game most changed when I watched this game.
- Without Filip Hronek, who suffered a shoulder injury in the final minute of the Canucks’ last game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Rick Tocchet and Adam Foote put Tyler Myers on the top pairing with Hughes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it led to an excellent game for Myers, who had 22:45 in ice time, was a key component of the Canucks’ perfect penalty kill, and was on the ice for two Canucks goals and none against.
- Erik Brännström had a tougher time. Reunited with Vincent Desharnais, Brännström struggled. Shot attempts were 18-to-6 for the Sabres with Brännström on the ice at 5-on-5, shots on goal were 6-to-0, and goals were 2-to-0. He took the game’s first penalty too when Jack Quinn danced around him, forcing him to hook Quinn to prevent a scoring chance.
- Teddy Blueger doesn’t often lose his cool, so it was surprising to see him remonstrate linesman Julien Fournier when he was unhappy about being tossed from the faceoff circle. Honestly, most fans have probably screamed internally — or externally — at linesmen to “Just drop the puck!” so most people were probably on Blueger’s side.
- The Sabres opened the scoring at the end of a solid period for the Canucks, taking advantage of a bit of bad luck for Jake DeBrusk. Trying to check Bowen Byram on the backcheck, DeBrusk stumbled and fell to the ice. As Byram continued to the net, the sliding DeBrusk was seemingly still taking away the passing lane, but Zach Benson elevated a saucer pass over his legs that Byram tipped out of the air past Kevin Lankinen.
- One of the unique aspects of Conor Garland’s game is how he weaponizes being the smallest guy on the ice. Sure, there are downsides to his lack of size, but who else is close enough to the ice that they can crouch down to lay their entire stick on the ice to take a bank pass off the boards? Also, who other than Garland thinks to do that?
- With Brock Boeser returning to the lineup, it was seemingly inevitable that he would be put on a line with the team’s top remaining centre, Elias Pettersson. Sure enough, Kiefer Sherwood was bumped to the third line in the second period so the team’s top sniper could play with their best playmaker. So long, top-six forward Sherwood; maybe we’ll see you again soon.
- Pettersson nearly tied the game early in the second. He knocked the puck off Dylan Cozens’ stick on the forecheck, then took a pass from Jake DeBrusk to move in all alone. He thought he had Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen dead to rights with a Datsyukian deke but the goaltender hung his left Ukko — or was it his right Pekka? — to get a piece of the puck and deflect it off the post.
- Höglander was essentially benched midway through the second period. After three shifts in the second period, he had just one more in the third, finishing with a career-low 6:28 in ice time. Oddly enough, his previous career low also came in Buffalo, as he played 6:45 in a game against the Sabres on November 15, 2022. Höglander was a minus-3 in that game; he was benched before he could become a minus in this game.
- Höglander got burned by Bowen Byram in his final shift of the second period, as he got neither the puck nor the man as he rushed the defenceman at the point. That’s a classic case of fishing for the puck instead of playing through the man, something Rick Tocchet has repeatedly emphasized. You have to wonder if a healthy scratch is on its way.
- The Canucks finally tied the game late in the second period. DeBrusk pressured on the forecheck, then Boeser swooped in to steal the puck from Ryan McLeod. He set up a fresh-off-the-bench Pius Suter for a one-timer that Luukkonen stopped, but DeBrusk boxed out Byram like he was cranking 90s and poked in the rebound.
- Things nearly went horribly awry for the canucks four minutes into the third period. On a delayed penalty, DeBrusk sent a bank pass to the point that missed Brännström and nearly went the length of the ice into the empty net for a Loui Eriksson-esque own goal. Luckily, the puck slid just wide, or this could have been a very different game.
- “The third period was good and bad,” said DeBrusk with a rueful chuckle. “I almost scored on my own net, so that was, personally for me, the biggest issue.”
- Instead of being down a goal in embarrassing fashion, the Canucks took the lead on the ensuing power play. Hughes set up Boeser in the left faceoff circle and he fired a hard pass to Garland at the backdoor for the tip-in goal. Luukkonen had to respect Boeser’s shot, giving him less chance to make the save than a cat-themed jewelery collection in Gotham City has of not being stolen.
- Boeser’s pass was nice but Garland had the best assist of the night with a shot block. Tage Thompson loaded up a one-timer but Garland slid in front with the two-pad stack, sending the puck ricocheting out to the neutral zone, sending Suter in alone on a breakaway. Suter the Shooter made no mistake, firing the puck off the post and in.
- “Gars put himself on the line there,” said Suter. “It was a nice block. Then, obviously, I have a little bit more pressure to score.”
- “No,” said Garland when asked if he thought his shot block would be an assist. “I played with [Thompson] at World Championships. I was actually feeding him one-timers on our power play, so I know how hard he hits it, so I was a little nervous dropping there. I was fortunate it caught me in the right spot and bounced to Sutes and a great finish — he’s been playing great for us.”
- Dakota Joshua started to look like he was getting his timing back after missing the first 14 games of the season with a couple of great plays in the offensive zone. Unfortunately, his defensive timing is still a work in progress, as he got burned twice in the third period leading to the Sabres’ second and third goals. That was the end of his night, as he was benched for the remaining five minutes of regulation and overtime.
- On the Sabres’ second goal, Joshua went down to one knee to block a shot that never came. Instead, Dylan Cozens stepped around him and had a free path to the net down the right side to beat Lankinen inside the far post with a ton of traffic in front of the net.
- Then Joshua got completely lost in the defensive zone, leaving Owen Power free behind him for a scoring chance that he rung off the post. A moment later, Benson sent a shot past Joshua that took a double deflection at the net: first off Cozens, then off Alex Tuch’s visor and into the net. It was a lucky bounce but one that could’ve been avoided.
- Then Quinn Hughes took over in overtime, though the Canucks’ puck possession was aided by using Lankinen as an outlet when the skaters were under pressure. Lankinen has great puck control, so the Canucks passed it back to him in the defensive zone several times to retain possession, much like they do in soccer. Fortunately, Lankinen didn’t pull a Josue Duverger.
- Lankinen’s biggest contribution in overtime wasn’t in puck possession, however, as he came up with an absurd save on Tage Thompson. DeBrusk, Brännström, and Pettersson all ended up below the goal line, leaving Thompson all alone in front of Lankinen. Thompson deked to the backhand, but Lankinen lunged across with his right pad and blocker to stone the Sabres’ leading goalscorer.
- “That save on Thompson, I got a front-row view — I was behind the net for some reason,” said DeBrusk. “He saved me there — and us.”
- Like a moustache saves flavour, Lankinen saved the game. Moments later, Hughes worked his magic to find Garland at the backdoor. The pass deflected up and hit Garland’s stick. Crouched down low to the ice like he was playing mini-sticks, Garland realized his skate was in the way of him backhanding the puck in, so he kicked his leg out like a Cossack dancer and tucked the puck underneath it for the game-winning goal.
- I can honestly say, I have never seen a goal scored like that in hockey. Just look at the bizarre shape Garland has contorted himself into as he shoots the puck. Once again, there’s the advantage of being so low to the ice: you’re closer to the puck. Forget building a team of 6’7” behemoths; get me more wily 5’7” weasels.
- To sum up: that’s a two-point night for Brock Boeser and Quinn Hughes, who both had two assists. Jake DeBrusk now has five goals in his last four games. Pius Suter momentarily took the Canucks’ goalscoring lead with his eighth of the season before Conor Garland, with his second goal of the night, pulled even. That’s right, as we all expected heading into the season, the Canucks’ leading goalscorers are Suter and Garland at the end of November.
