Canucks get 4-3 win over Vegas Canucks go five points atop Pacific

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In Vancouver, the Canucks pushed themselves five points clear atop the Pacific Division with a 4-3 win over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights on Monday evening.

The Canucks trailed, 3-2, in the middle frame after Noah Hanifin hit off the power play at 9:33 of the second period for Vegas.

The Canucks replied with a pair of goals to take a 4-+3 lead.

Brock Boeser scored with a writer from way out above the circles to tie the game, 3-3, at 13:10.

“That’s hard to score in this league, 40 goals,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “He was a little banged up before the game and played, and that’s what I’m proud about. I think that inspired the team a little bit. It wasn’t anything bad, but to see him go out there and score that big goal, I think a lot of guys were happy for him.”

Connor Garland put the Canucks up, 4-3, at 18:31 when he banged home a rebound of a shot by J.T. Miller fro the left side of the cage.

It was Garland’s second goal of the game.

“It gives us a lot of belief,” Garland said. “We think we’re a good team, and it’s nice to beat good teams. We understand we’ve had a bit of a stretch here, but it’s hard to win at this time of year, and it was good to have a game like that. That’s a playoff-type game.”

Arturs Silovs made 20 saves in the win.

Vancouver moved to 48-22-8.

Jack Eichel hit for a double for Vegas.

“They’re a good team. There’s a reason that they are where they are in the standings,” Eichel said. “I thought there was stretches of the game where we controlled it, and there were moments where they obviously had momentum. It’s frustrating. We had a lead and we don’t get any points here, and points are important right now.”

Eichel scored his double in the opening stanza.

His first came at 1:51, hitting off the power play after taking a shot form the high slot.

“It was a test for us, I guess,” Miller said. “The way things have been going lately, for them to come out, get a couple on a couple of shots, we easily could have just sat back and said, ‘You know what, we’ll try again next time.’ But it was a very serious and professional mindset on the bench, and it’s nice to have the power play be timely for us to get us back in the game. We haven’t had that in a while.”

Eichel collected his double at 8:06, scoring from below the left circle.

The Golden Knights dropped to 42-27-8 off their second straight loss.

The Golden Knights trail the Los Angeles Kings by a point for third in the Pacific Division.

“At the end of the day, they got rewarded for getting into interior ice around the front of our net, obviously did a good job screening the goalie and finding rebounds around there,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “So, for us it’s controlling those rebounds or boxing out, clearing those rebounds. We needed to do one goal better because I don’t think it was a one-sided game for either team.”

Garland collected his first goal at 11:50 of the first, he hit off the power play with a shot off a rebound.

“I don’t take any for granted,” Garland said. “I worked pretty hard to get here, so I enjoy every day of it and hopefully there’s a lot more.”

Quinn knotted the game, 2-2, with another power play goal for the Canucks at 14:26, scoring through a screen for the tie.

Logan Thompson made 26 saves in the loss.