For the second year in a row, Darryl Sutter’s team lowered their flag in a shootout. This time the Canucks have the upper hand 4-3 on Wednesday night in the Saddledome. See the highlights of the meeting in the video at the top of the article.

It was Bruce Boudreau’s Russian nugget, Andrei Kuzmenko, who scored the winning goal on penalties. Kuzmenko had also collected an assist early in the game. This assist brings his season record to 26 points (13-13) in 28 games.

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Kuzmenko is one of the few rays of sunshine in Vancouver. Despite going 7-3-0 in their last ten games, Canucks fans certainly expected a better performance from the blue-white-green team. In fact, the team is only 22nd on the Bettman Circuit, with 29 points in 29 games.

It’s just a fourth straight loss for the Flames. Even with a point, they can’t overtake the Colorado Avalanche as the last team in the Western Conference. These two teams have 32 points in the table, but the Denver club have three games on their hands against the Canadian formation. Note that the Flames have lost their last three games in overtime (Prol. vs. TOR, TAB vs. MTL, and TAB vs. VAN).

turns

The game started well for the Canucks. The latter set the tone with two goals in the first 108 seconds of the game: first, Bo Horvat deflected a shot from the spot to fool Jakob Markström’s guard before his teammate Connor Garland slowed the Sweden goalkeeper out with a shot from the near side, 34 seconds later.

However, the Flames worked hard and leveled the score before heading to the dressing room. It’s Mickael Backlund and Andrew Mangiapane who blacken the scorers’ chart with their sixth and seventh goals respectively this season.

Albertans went into the second period with just as much enthusiasm as they had before hearing the previous siren. The venerable Trevor Lewis gave his team an early lead by surprising Spencer Martin from behind the goal line. Note that Markstrom, who has been doing well in the meantime, gets a support for the sequence.

Unfortunately for Darryl Sutter, but luckily for the fans watching the game live on TVA Sports and TVA Sports Direct, Sheldon Dries hit with a surgically accurate shot to put everyone back in first place. After 40 minutes it was 3:3.

Then none of the players in uniform could break the tie in the final third and overtime.

Markstrom finished the game with 24 saves while his opponent had 35.

Christopher Tanev was shot in the head by Nick Suzuki on Monday and did not attend the meeting. The Canucks also had a notable absence as Brock Boeser was left out. However, it wasn’t the rumors of transactions he was involved in that gave him this status, but a virus.

See you Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. for the next NHL matchup on TVA Sports as the Stars try to stop Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals.