Vancouver gets healthy against Senators

In Vancouver, the Canucks came out of the first 20 minutes of play tied with the Ottawa Senators, 1-1.

In response, Vancouver struck for three goals in the second period and added another in the third for a 5-1 win on Wednesday.

Thatcher Demko stopped 42 of 43 shots he faced for the win.

“The way things are going, one game at a time isn’t going to be good enough,” Demko said. “We’ve got to start stringing some together.”

After four of five games, the Canucks swept the two-game set from the Senators.

Demko allowed only one goal in Vancouver’s 7-1 win over Ottawa on Monday; he made 35 saves in that game.

Tyler Motte scored at 2:06 of the opening frame for a 1-0 lead to Vancouver.

Josh Norris evened it up at 1-1 in the ninth minute of the period.

“I hate losing, everyone in the room hates losing,” the Senators’ Brady Tkachuk said. “So we’ve just got to bear down a little bit extra. We’re going to get out of this eventually. We’ve just got to stick together, which we have been, and stay positive, but the focus [Thursday] is on a win.”

JT Miller opened the second period with his first two goals of the season to put distance between the Canucks and the Sens.

“[Demko] keeps us in it, gives us life,” Miller said. “It’s [stinks] when we don’t play the way we’re supposed to start a game and they’re coming off a game where we know that they’re going to bring their best. We had to raise our compete level to match that.”

Elias Pettersson added the third goal of the middle frame at 17:16 for a 4-1 lead.

“I heard a squeaking noise behind me,” Pettersson said. “I was going to shoot it and I heard [Hughes] scream ‘Petey, Petey’ so I dropped it and he made a good play to [Miller].”

Motte scored his second of the game at 11:46 of the third to ice the win.

“It’s nice to see some goals go in, but at the end of the day it’s all about the team winning,” Motte said.

Marcus Hogberg made 30 saves in the loss.

“For some reason, we just find one period to fall apart and mess everything up,” Norris said. “We’re young but that’s not an excuse. Just a lot of mistakes that are very preventable.”