Canucks 2, Wild 0: DeSmith stands tall and Vancouver finds a way

The veteran backup stood tall early in the game, as the Wild swarmed the Vancouver end, playing what seemed like keepaway for a baker’s dozen of minutes.

DeSmith did exactly what was needed from him, holding down the fort while his teammates struggled to find their way.

And then they did.

The Wild came into the night red-hot, having won their first four games since a coaching change last week, John Hynes taking over for Dean Evason.

And they played like a team with new belief in themselves through those opening stages of the game.

When the rest of his team found their game, then took a late first period lead, their own confidence revived, nearing the level they had plenty of early in the year but had struggled to find lately.

With a trio of big opponents to come over the final three games of this early-December homestand, it was a good time to find their confidence.

“We said in between periods, this was a spot where we need to be comfortable, sitting on a low-scoring one goal (lead), at home against a good team. They’re obviously a really quality opponent. And they were going to come out hard (in the second), which they did and I thought we weathered the storm,” DeSmith said post-game.

Game of two halves

The first two periods were practical mirror images: Minnesota badly outshot the Canucks in the first, while the Canucks reversed the situation on the Wild in the second.

In the first, the Canucks took 13:18 to get their first shot on goal and the Wild ended up getting 23 shot-attempts at five on five, against just nine for Vancouver.

“I was just freezing my toes off,” Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson said. “I just tried to do some skating drills in the crease to get going.”

The Canucks finished the period strong and got Höglander’s goal to put them on the front foot after facing that torrent of early pressure.

The third was a calm, competent effort by the Canucks.

Tocchet wasn’t too happy with how his team started — maybe it was because of the day off on Wednesday he’d given them, he quipped — but he was happy how they righted the ship and overall kept Minnesota to the outside on the night.

“We didn’t really have the puck the first 10 minutes and then they started going through guys and our neutral (zone defence) was better. For some reason we were backing up,” Tocchet said.

“Yeah, they had the puck a lot but I thought we were OK outside of the fact early on we were sleeping a little bit. But I thought the second or third, you know, we played our game.”

And even as they were weathering the Minnesota storm, Miller noted the quality of Minnesota’s chances was rather poor and that in itself gave the Canucks some confidence

“If they’re getting five or six or seven grade-A chances — and it feels like it’s 3-0 but it’s not — that makes a big difference. I think we’re proud of the way we defended it.”

Steady and strong

Casey DeSmith, who hadn’t started in two weeks, said he likes getting shots in early.

DeSmith claimed he didn’t know he’d never lost to the Wild. He was 4-0-0 with the Penguins and had posed a 93.1 save percentage over those four wins.

” I didn’t know that. I don’t think it’s anything in particular,” he said of his success facing the Wild. “Just try and show up every game and sometimes it goes my way. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

DeSmith’s shutout was the first by a Canucks backup since Anders Nilsson had a shutout against, yes, the Wild, Oct. 24, 2017.

Garland’s relentless energy

The pass that Conor Garland made to Teddy Blueger will show up on the highlight reel, but it was an all-around industrious night for the pesky winger.

He only has two goals on the season and certainly, at his salary, you need more goals.

But the goals are going to come. Over the course of his career, he’s averaged a goal about every four games. That’s a 20-goal scorer.

He’s too good a player to not start burying some chances.

“Winning’s more fun,” he said.

Shoot where the big man ain’t

Nils Höglander maybe didn’t mean for things to play out the way they did, but it was a smart play to wait for his new enormous teammate to take away the eyes of Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson.

Nikita Zadorov glided on a smart angle across the plane of vision linking the Swedish shooter and the Swedish goalie and Höglander’s shot clearly got lost to Gustavsson’s eyes as he barely flinched as the puck sailed past his glove and into the Minnesota net.

“Ha I guess so,” Höglander smiled about the timing of Zadorov’s drive to the net.

“A great read and a great screen,” Gustavsson said. “Höglander was just waiting there and he saw an opportunity.”

The sequence was a reminder that one mistake can cost you and the Canucks’ attack happened after Minnesota failed to get the puck in deep in the Canucks’ end and then Wild star Kirill Kaprizov got caught flat-footed and couldn’t back-check to prevent Höglander and his mates from racing away on an odd-man rush.

How is that possible?

Not once, but twice J.T. Miller was robbed on a late second period power play by Gustavsson.

The first Miller didn’t get his shot up high enough, instead burying his bang-bang opportunity into the goalie’s leg pad.

The second was on the doorstep and despite the shorter distance looked like it might be the higher degree of difficulty.

What looked like was going to be Miller’s 15th goal of the season instead clattered off the post, rather than into the net.

“That (second) one was easier,” he said. “All I had to do was chip it. The other one, I had to shoot it. It was a hard pass. That (second) one, I just missed it.”

“I was joking to Petey it was a bad pass, though.”

J.T. Miller or Rambo

During one of the breaks, the Canucks’ game entertainment crew ran a “retro rewind” feature with a young fan, asking him to name various things from the 1980s. He started off well, proudly declaring that Gizmo from Gremlins, was, indeed Gremlins.

But his success rate started to waver and by the time he got to the image of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, he was a little at a loss.

Instead, he declared the image was of Miller.

“That’s funny, that’s awesome!”

What a difference a year makes

The last time Minnesota visited Vancouver, last March 2, the Wild skated away with a 2-1 win.

Vancouver’s lone goal was scored by Brock Boeser, but just his 12th of the season, a reminder of how much of a struggle last season was.

He has 18 goals already this season, and nearly had a 19th, putting a backhand shot off the post on a breakaway in the third period.

“Oh I know,” he said with a smile post-game. “I think it just rolled a little off my stick. But I still got good wood on it. I was happy with the shot.”