The Canucks held a four-goal lead, 5-1, in the second period over the Washington Capitals, on home ice Friday night.
They sat back to admire their work and watch the Caps rally to force extra time and win in a shootout, 6-5.
“That’s not good enough,” Bo Horvat said. “Going in with a four-goal lead, 21 minutes left, we’ve got to be able to hold those. We’ve got to be a lot better than that in the third. … At times, I think guys — including myself — were trying to make plays out of nothing and not getting the pucks in deep and simplifying our game. And I think that’s what turned on us.”
That might be the understatement of the season. “Not good enough” after giving up four straight goals and then asking your goalie to make the stops in the skills competition is dreadful.
“I feel like these types of moments, they build the team spirit and build the team together, and that’s huge for us,” Evgeny Kuznetsov said.. “We stick with each other, we stick to the game plan even though the game never went well, we give up some bad goals, but we stick with our plan, and we get the results.”
Kuznetsov had two goals including a strike with less than a second left on the clock in the middle frame.
Michal Kempny also struck twice in the win.
“It didn’t go as we expected, but I love that we didn’t give up,” he said. “Huge comeback win for us.”
Ilya Samsonov made 29 saves to get the win.
Tim Schaller scored twice for Vancouver.
“I still think I have a lot more to give,” he said. “But it’s nice to see hard work paying off, and I’m going to keep working hard and hopefully good things keep happening.”
Elias Pettersson, Jake Virtanen and Brock Boeser also scored for Vancouver.
Lars Eller had a single marker for the Caps in regulation.
“A little more life, a little more hope in the locker room at the end and built that up going into the third period,” Eller said of Kuznetsov’s second goal. “Get one late, get one early, and now it’s a game.”
Nicklas Backstrom was credited with the deciding goal in the skills competition.
“That goal at the end of the second was huge,” Eller said. “Just a little bit of life, and then we said we needed to get another one early, and we did that, and then after that it was just a big push. We have been on the wrong side of a couple of those games, and it was nice to be on the other side. It was big for the character of the team going forward.”
[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Canucks highlights]
Jacob Markstrom made 24 saves in the loss.
“Give their team credit, they’ve been through these games many times,” Canucks head coach Travis Green said. “They’re a big, strong team. You could see it in certain areas of the game where I thought we lost a few puck battles and certain situations. Again, they’re built to win Stanley Cups, and we can learn a lot from this game.”
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