The Canucks took on the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers on Thursday night, winning their first game of the regular season 3–2 in overtime. Teddy Blueger, Quinn Hughes, and J.T. Miller were the goal scorers for the Canucks, while Jesper Boqvist and Anton Lundell registered tallies for Florida. Kevin Lankinen made an impressive 26 saves on 28 shots against for his first win with his new team.
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Coming off a winless start to the regular season, Vancouver shook up their lines by sliding birthday boy Jake DeBrusk to Blueger’s line and setting Elias Pettersson up with spark plugs Nils Höglander and Conor Garland. The only line exempt from being blended up — made up of Miller, Brock Boeser, and Arshdeep Bains — proved why they were kept together by starting the game with a spring in their steps. Vincent Desharnais and the newly called-up Erik Brännström took the places of Derek Forbort (personal leave) and Noah Juulsen.
Thursday night’s game marked the fourth game in a row that the Panthers played without Matthew Tkachuk and captain Aleksander Barkov. Tkachuk has remained out of the lineup due to illness, while Barkov sustained an injury in a matchup against the Ottawa Senators last Thursday. The Panthers dressed 11 forwards for this game and, part way through, lost Jonah Gadjovich and Sam Reinhart (though the latter returned).
Vancouver continued its trend of scoring first, something they’ve done three out of four of their games this season, though their first-period lead was short-lived. After a lengthy review, a wraparound shot by Blueger was ruled a good goal, negating what would have been a penalty on former Canuck Nate Schmidt. Only 11 seconds later, Florida tied it up with a shot by Jesper Boqvist that bounced off Lankinen and into the net.
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Wraparound chances were a popular subject in this game, as a period after Blueger’s reviewed goal, Evan Rodrigues attempted his own that also ended up under review. However, footage showed that the puck didn’t completely cross the goal line, negating any chance of a result like Blueger’s. Later on in the same…