Can the Vancouver Canucks string together two quality performances in a row? That was the pressing question -- if we ignore the constant trade rumours swirling around the club -- for a team that remarkably hadn't won consecutive games since December 1 and was coming off a solid 2-1 victory over the Washington Capitals on Saturday.
On Monday night, they finally broke their maddening streak of inconsistency.
The Canucks began the first period against the St. Louis Blues like they were shot out of a cannon. Vancouver was fast, aggressive and relentless, outshooting St. Louis 12-4 in the first period. All over the ice, they outworked the Blues to win 50/50 puck battles, maintained a compact, tight defensive structure against an opponent that can be dangerous off the rush and looked connected on the breakout. Quinn Hughes was excellent again and the rest of the team finally lifted their weight too, led by Conor Garland and Kevin Lankinen.
The Canucks have flashed this urgency, defensive commitment and relentless puck pursuit in spurts this season, so it's going to take a lot more than two games to convince anybody that they've turned a corner, but they finally resembled the excellence we saw last season.
Here are three takeaways from the club's 5-2 victory over the Blues.
Opposing teams can pre-scout and game-plan around superstars all they want. They can study a superstar's tendencies and devise a strategy to limit their opportunities.
But if you're a top five or 10 player in the NHL, like Quinn Hughes indisputably is, you'll still find a way to break games open because you aren't a one-trick pony. How can you possibly stop a player who can attack and generate offence in an endless number of ways?
Think about all the different ways Hughes can burn a team: He walks the blue line east-west better than just about any defenceman. He can attack the slot by himself to put himself in prime shooting locations as he did on his first goal against the Caps on Saturday night. He can dash down the left half-wall and hunt for either a short-side snipe or feather a backdoor pass across. He's equally comfortable twisting and turning with the puck on the right half-wall.
The combination of his elite skating, IQ, pinpoint accurate passing, poise and shot make him straight-up unguardable. Hughes' wicked sequence in the first period to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead was the latest example.
Vancouver's star defender jumped on a loose puck and banked the puck off the wall to spring himself on a two-on-one rush. Ryan Suter, the lone Blues player back, actually defended the rush well. The 20-season NHL veteran didn't sprawl down onto the ice to take the cross-seam passing lane away until Hughes was around the face-off dot area. Hughes patiently waited for the perfect moment and slid the puck under Suter's shins to get it across to Conor Garland.
I don't know what's more ridiculous: Hughes' creativity in coming up with the idea of sliding the puck under Suter rather than attempting a difficult saucer pass over the defender, or how well he threaded the needle with the perfect pass through such a narrow target.
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For most defencemen, that single play alone would represent a good day at the office. Hughes, however, wasn't done. He was sharp defensively through the night and notched his second assist of the game by sending a gorgeous stretch pass to J.T. Miller for a breakaway goal.
Goalie interference has become a touchy grey area in the NHL. There doesn't appear to be a consistent standard for how the rulebook is applied on a game-by-game basis, which leaves most of the hockey world guessing when there's a close play that the NHL's Situation Room.
Down 1-0, the Blues scored a goal that was immediately waved off because Dylan Holloway made contact with Kevin Lankinen. The Blues challenged the call because Hughes had pushed Holloway into Lankinen. They probably felt they had a convincing case because the rulebook states that a goal should still count if an attacking player makes incidental contact with a goalie, provided that the defending player pushed the player in and that the attacking player "made a reasonable effort" to avoid contact.
I can honestly see the case on both sides. Blues fans would argue Hughes clearly pushed Holloway into Lankinen. Canucks fans would argue that Holloway was in the blue paint before Hughes pushed him in. I thought the Blues' challenge would be successful and the goal would count, but regardless of your opinion on the play, this felt like a coin flip given how murky and inconsistent goalie interference rulings are.
The Canucks ended up on the right side of the coin flip. The goal didn't count, preserving their 1-0 lead, and Conor Garland scored on the power play from the Blues' ensuing delay-of-game penalty for the unsuccessful challenge.
The Canucks' blue line, outside of Hughes, has often looked like it's teetering on the edge of disaster this season. As great as Hughes was against St. Louis, the rest of the defence crew finally lifted its weight too.
Tyler Myers, returning from a three-game suspension, was excellent. The 34-year-old used his giant reach to aggressively break plays up defensively all night. He was smooth and agile escaping forecheck pressure on the breakout on several occasions. In the first period, he made a nice outlet pass to spring Brock Boeser for a rush chance. When the Canucks were under duress in the third period, he wheeled the puck around the net and got it to safety on a couple of different occasions. That included an empty-net goal at the end to seal the deal. He was rangy, disruptive and very sharp with the puck.
Vancouver's second pair with Filip Hronek and Derek Forbort played an effective, low-event game. Hronek's pair had a positive share of shot attempts and expected goals and didn't surrender a single high-danger chance against at five-on-five.
Carson Soucy and Elias Pettersson about broke even in most play-controlling metrics too. Pettersson looks a bit raw and had an unlucky bounce off him count for a goal against, but he's shown promising potential during his first two NHL games and most importantly, his pair didn't get caved in defensively for many long stretches.
Overall, the Canucks' back end did a solid job of standing up at the defensive blue line to break up the Blues' entries and was more composed than usual on the breakout, which allowed the club to play a faster, more direct game.
If Myers can continue excelling alongside Hughes, it'll give Hronek a chance to continue driving his own pair. And if Hronek can succeed on his own pair, it'll make a dent in improving the club's performance in non-Hughes minutes.