Canucks’ win was everything they deserved — and nothing Team Tank wanted

Just when it looked like the Vancouver Canucks had found a way Thursday to unite their broad and often bickering fan base with an admirable performance that would make everyone happy, they ruined the perfect loss by scoring three times in the final 16 minutes to beat the St. Louis Blues 3-2 in overtime.

The victory was everything they deserved and nothing Team Tank wanted in Canuck Nation, as the Canucks rallied impressively (or disappointingly) against a Blues team lurking just six points above them in the standings and enviously eyeing Vancouver’s better draft position.

Elias Pettersson wound up with the puck in his own zone on the final shift of overtime, hit warp speed while backing up St. Louis defenceman Justin Faulk, then ripped a wrist shot from the left-wing dot past goalie Jordan Binnington’s glove to win it with 15 seconds remaining in the extra period.

And for the second straight game, Andrei Kuzmenko tied it in the final minute of regulation time, banging in his own rebound from Pettersson’s shot-pass with the Canuck net empty and only 28.6 seconds left on the clock.

“Mr. Clutch,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet called him.

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The Blues had earlier hit the post on the open net and, just before Kuzmenko’s tying goal, had a two-on-one but turned over the puck when Vancouver defenceman Quinn Hughes closed quickly on Brayden Schenn in the neutral zone.

St. Louis simply looked more determined to lose.

“After this year, the way things have gone, we kind of expect anything,” Canuck J.T. Miller said after starting the comeback at 9:08 of the third period with an unstoppable one-timer teed up by Pettersson on a shorthanded two-on-one. “We took it to them for pretty much most of the game. When I talk about maturity, it’s staying in the moment of the game and being willing to play a boring game sometimes and not take risks or change our game to get the results. It would have been easy to do that tonight.

“Honestly, we’re not that far off as a team. This is just a process and we want to start doing the right things on a more regular basis. (But) for the most part, other than a couple of sour games, we’ve been playing pretty good.”

Miller’s goal made up for the one taken away from him in the first period on a coach’s challenge when the National Hockey League war room spotted Canuck Conor Garland’s left skate in the crease as Bennington pushed out in a direction opposite to where the puck had gone to Miller from Tyler Myers for an open-net tap-in.

And Pettersson’s virtuoso third period came after he failed on an all-of-nothing defensive lunge while playing a St. Louis two-on-one into a shorthanded breakaway goal for Alexey Toropchenko that opened the scoring in the first period.

“I made a stupid play on their first goal,” Pettersson said. “I shouldn’t dive in like that.”

Miller said of his disallowed goal: “It is a thing that when I get one called off, I end up scoring (another goal) that game. I’ve done it three or four times now, once a year. So, I had a good feeling about it today.”

Except for the score, the Canucks should have had a great feeling all game.

They dominated the Blues most of the night, outshooting them 41-22 and out-chancing them 10-1 on high-danger opportunities, but were stymied by Binnington for 49 minutes.

Naturalstattrick.com pegged the Canucks’ expected-goals share at five-on-five at 83.9 per cent. Sixty per cent is a landslide; 83.9 per cent is a challenge to the integrity of the competition.

And yet the Canucks trailed 2-0 when minor-league goalie callup Arturs Silovs was beaten from distance by Tyler Tucker at 6:45 of the second period, which is when the Blues also went up 2-0 on challenges after review officials ruled the puck had not been earlier touched by a St. Louis high stick.

“I honestly didn’t like the second goal,” Tocchet said. “I didn’t think we defended that hard. I went in and told the guys that we’ve got to defend harder, even though (the Blues) didn’t get a lot of shots. And they responded. That’s what I like. I was pretty hard on the guys in the sense that we’ve got to sometimes dig (in), and they went and played a great third. It’s a character win. A lot of guys showed up tonight. We didn’t have any passengers which, when you become a good team, that’s what you need.

“Resilience is, you know, it’s character. It’s believing in things, it’s not giving up. I know we’re in the standings where we’re at. But the guys, they want to give an effort every night. These type of wins …  it does build character and builds something. It builds a foundation.”

Tocchet also challenged Pettersson after his shorthanded gaffe. And look what happened after that.

“I went after him and he did a helluva job on the PK (in the third period), and then he scores … in overtime,” Tocchet said. “So good for him. He’s a great player.”

The coach said the Canucks “deserved” to win. Dammit, he was right.