I Watched This Game: Canucks at Sharks, Nov 28, 2025

The one where the officiating overshadowed two Canucks milestones.

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You never want the story of a game to be the officiating, but sometimes the officials don’t leave you any choice.

There were a whopping 19 minor penalties called in Friday afternoon’s game between the Vancouver Canucks and San Jose Sharks — eight for the Canucks and 11 for the Sharks — which suggests the referees were overly involved in a game that wasn’t particularly chippy. Just 35:16 of the game was played at 5-on-5.

“There was a lot going on with the calls on both sides,” said Canucks head coach Adam Foote. “So I don’t know what to tell you with that one.”

It wasn’t just the sheer amount of penalties, however, but the odd calls amongst the 19, not to mention the penalties they didn’t call, that made it impossible to ignore the officiating.

Things went off the rails midway through the second period. Quinn Hughes got a step on Sharks forward Collin Graf and darted through the slot to create a scoring chance. As Hughes was preparing to shoot, Graf grabbed hold of Hughes jersey, pulling himself in closer to the Canucks captain so he could poke the puck off his stick. Hughes still got a shot away, but it was blocked.

Clearly frustrated about missing out on a better scoring chance, Hughes yelled, “Fucking hold! Fuck!” At least, that’s what I could make out on the Sportsnet broadcast.

That earned Hughes an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“I’ve heard worse that didn’t get called,” said Foote. “But I also don’t know what led up to it…I’m not going to get into too much of what happened on that side of it.”

Canucks colour commentator Ray Ferraro wasn’t impressed.

“This is a really sensitive referee that got yelled at,” said Ferraro. “This would never be called by a veteran official. You’re allowed to yell at the official. It happens all the time, otherwise I would have led the league in penalty minutes every year.”

Here’s the thing: the referee in question is a veteran official. Garrett Rank, who made the call, has been a referee for 12 NHL seasons and has officiated 673 regular-season games and 34 playoff games.

Rank may not have the 20+ seasons of officials like Gord Dwyer or Steve Kozari, but he’s been around for a while. There’s really no excuse for him to go all Todd Flanders — “Ow, my freakin’ ears” — on Hughes.

The penalty call was a game-changer. Macklin Celebrini drew a tripping penalty on Marcus Pettersson to give the Sharks a long 5-on-3. William Eklund tied the game on the two-man advantage, then, just as the second penalty ended, Adam Gaudette tucked in what turned out to be the game-winning goal.

All because a referee got his feelings hurt.

Or maybe he was trying to protect his fellow referee, Riley Brace, who was closer to the play. Brace has officiated a mere 19 NHL games across three seasons. Maybe Rank wasn’t personally offended; he was offended on behalf of his younger counterpart. Maybe.

In any case, the argument always goes that you have to deal with whatever penalties are called — no excuses. Perhaps the story of the game isn’t the officiating but that the Sharks went 2-for-6 on the power play, and their third goal came just seconds after a power play ended.

The Canucks went 0-for-8.

“They scored power play goals; we didn’t,” said Brock Boeser. “That’s what it comes down to.”

Like a forgotten superhero sitcom, the Canucks’ power play was powerless when I watched this game.

• Yes, the Canucks went 0-for-8 on the power play, but that’s a little bit deceiving. Some of those power plays were quite short, including a two-second power play at the very end of the game. Still, failing to capitalize on the man advantage cost them the game. Maybe they would have had better luck if they had been given a two-man advantage like the Sharks were.

• Giving up three goals on just 24 shots doesn’t look great on the boxscore for Nikita Tolopilo, but the goaltender was a lot better than his .875 save percentage would indicate. He was especially sharp early in the first period, when the Sharks had their legs, like Street Sharks, and the Canucks didn’t.

• Brock Boeser opened the scoring off a heckuva cycle by himself and his linemates, David Kämpf and Conor Garland, with an assist by Tom Willander. They were twirling around the offensive zone like a Spirograph until Garland found Boeser circling into the high slot, and Boeser wired the puck past Yaroslav Askarov’s blocker.

• It was a milestone goal for Boeser, as he passed Todd Bertuzzi to move into tenth all-time in franchise scoring for the Canucks with 450 points. He’s now 20 points behind Tony Tanti for ninth.

• The Sharks responded five minutes later on the power play. Alex Wennberg tried to set up Will Smith at the back door, but Filip Hronek blocked the pass. Unfortunately, the puck came right back to Wennberg for a second attempt, setting up Smith for the one-timer past Tolopilo, who was caught bouncing back and forth like a game of Pong as he tried to track the puck.

• Elias Pettersson restored the lead with a bit of brilliance in the second period. Chasing down a puck in the offensive zone, Pettersson batted it out of midair, spun off Tyler Toffoli with a full 360 to complete the pass to himself, then patiently outwaited Askarov while being knocked to the ice by Celebrini before putting the puck off Askarov’s skate and in while reclining like one of Jack Dawson’s French girls.

• That’s a candidate for goal of the year, for sure. From the hand-eye coordination to bat that puck to himself, to the presence of mind to get the puck on net while falling, that’s sensational.

• Just like Boeser, Pettersson earned a milestone with his goal. It moved him one point past Pavel Bure for seventh in franchise scoring with 479 points as a Canuck, and tied him for 11th all-time in Canucks goalscoring with Alex Burrows at 193 goals. The odds are against him catching Thomas Gradin’s 550 points this season to move into sixth in points, but he should be able to catch Gradin’s 197 goals to get into the top ten in goals.

• The scorekeepers very generously gave Evander Kane and Filip Hronek assists on that individual effort. Hronek shot the puck around the boards, while Kane deflected Timothy Liljegren’s clearance attempt, but they’ll go in the books like they threaded the needle with blind backhand saucer passes. The assist was the 300th of Kane’s career.

• After Pettersson’s incredible go-ahead goal, the Canucks had chance after chance but, like a dog owner with a broken flexi-leash, they couldn’t extend the lead. Boeser had two grade-A chances from the slot in rapid succession but couldn’t beat Askarov, while Kane rang the puck off the post on the power play.

• “It’s very frustrating when you lose by one,” said Boeser. “I got some good looks there, even in the second period, back-to-back looks. Those are ones that I wish I could put in the net. Those are opportunities where I’m going to go practice my shot from there, because I need to score there.”

• Before the Sharks scored on their 5-on-3 power play, Petterson nearly had another remarkable goal while shorthanded. It was another unexpected pass to himself, as perhaps Pettersson has decided that’s a better use of his playmaking ability than setting up his linemates.

• Pettersson got the puck out to the neutral zone but was quickly set upon by three Sharks, so he just hoisted the puck into the air. Then he figured out where the puck was going to land, gambled that the refs wouldn’t call yet another penalty on a 5-on-3, and knocked over Celebrini to be first to the puck and get a quality scoring chance.

• Unfortunately, the Sharks then tied the game on the two-man advantage. Tyler Myers got pulled out of position by Celebrini rotating to the top of the zone, leaving William Eklund with an open shooting lane from below the right faceoff circle. He wired a one-timer past Tolopilo from the tough angle like a discount Leon Draisaitl.

• The Sharks took the lead on a strange goal by a former Canuck. Just after the Sharks’ power play ended, Adam Gaudette jammed a backhand from a tight angle, but Tolopilo snagged it with his glove. Unfortunately, Tolopilo’s glove then went into the net, and the officials got a call from the NHL’s situation room letting them know to review the play, giving the Sharks the 3-2 lead.

• The Canucks have reportedly had a talk with Quinn Hughes about his body language, which seems a little unfair, as he’s always looked a little like a depressed Dickensian orphan. He can’t do anything about that.

• Hughes can, however, do something about the lack of effort he gave on a second-period power play. A Pettersson pass deflected out to the point, where Hughes had a chance to get to it to keep the play alive, but Hughes visibly gave up, perhaps annoyed at Pettersson’s pass selection. Pettersson should have passed it to himself again.

• Here’s the thing: this is the fifth time in the last seven games that Hughes has played 28+ minutes. He leads the NHL with 27:10 in ice time per game, 39 seconds more per game than the next most used player, Zach Werenski. The poor guy has to be exhausted, and it’s hard to blame him too much for taking a quick breather on the ice now and then.

• It was a bad look, I won’t deny that. But it honestly just looks like he’s trying to conserve energy out there, not just in that moment but other times throughout the game. Playing that many minutes just isn’t sustainable, and Adam Foote needs to make adjustments.

• Given the chintzy penalties that were called in this game, it was surprising to see Celebrini get nothing for his attempted headshot on Max Sasson. Even if Celebrini didn’t make contact when he launched his elbow towards Sasson’s dome, he still hung his knee out and tripped him. As Ferraro said, if Celebrini’s elbow had connected, that would have been a five-minute major.

• There was a flurry of penalty calls to end the game, and the sensitive refereeing struck again, as Macklin Celebrini got an unsportsmanlike penalty for complaining about the cross-checking penalty he received for one of his three cross-checks on Filip Hronek. So, I guess both teams get to have something to complain about.

• The right-catching Askarov seemed to befuddle the Canucks at times, as several quality chances found their way right into Askarov’s glove, where they might have zipped just over the blocker on a more typical left-catching goaltender. Unfortunately, that included the Canucks’ best chance in the final minutes of the game, as Pettersson fired a shot through traffic from the right faceoff circle, but Askarov somehow snagged it.

• The game couldn’t end without one more baffling decision by the officials. In the dying seconds, a battle on the boards turned into a full-blown brouhaha. Barclay Goodrow and Ty Dellandrea took the opportunity to both crosscheck Elias Pettersson (F) from behind, and he was fortunate to avoid going headfirst into the boards. Somehow, out of the scrum that ensued, Pettersson was the only Canuck who got a penalty.

• Pettersson clearly said, according to my amateur lip-reading skills, “What did I do?” The answer is nothing. He got knocked down, and by the time he got up, every Shark within reach was already tangling with another Canuck, including Dellandrea, who Boeser immediately wrassled to the ice after he hit Pettersson. I guess Pettersson got a roughing penalty for violently attacking Dellandrea’s stick with his spine.

• What a weird and frustrating loss. The Canucks arguably deserved better after outshooting the Sharks 34-to-24, but the power play can’t go oh-for in a game with so much time spent on special teams.