I Watched This Game: Canucks vs Wild, Dec 6, 2025

The one where Aatu Räty was the next man up for Elias Pettersson.

When it rains, it pours. It wouldn’t be Vancouver if it didn’t.

The Vancouver Canucks were already missing Thatcher Demko, Filip Chytil, Nils Höglander, Teddy Blueger, and Derek Forbort due to injury as they headed into Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Wild.

So sure, why not Elias Pettersson too?

It turned out that the Canucks’ star forward was dealing with an upper-body injury of some sort and was a game-time decision.

“We found out this morning that he had something upper body,” said head coach Adam Foote. “We thought he’d be okay. He got checked out. Then, when he went out tonight for warm-up, it wasn’t a go for him, so we had to adjust.

“He’ll have further medical — we’ll look at some more things tomorrow, get an MRI, and we’ll see where he’s at.”

That’s potentially not great news from a long-term perspective, but it was also fairly consequential in the short-term: the last-place Canucks had to play a game against one of the top teams in the Western Conference without their best forward.

More than that, the Canucks were playing on the second half of back-to-backs against a rested Wild team. They had a rookie goaltender, Nikita Tolopilo, in net. They had lost four straight games and seven of their last eight, and scored just one goal in each of their last three games.

And the Canucks had David Kämpf as their first-line centre.

This had all the makings of a disaster.

So, of course, the Canucks won.

“You have to be a professional, and it’s next man up,” said Canucks captain Quinn Hughes. “Obviously, you don’t want anyone to go down, especially him, but what are you going to do?”

In this case, the next man up was Aatu Räty, who played the best game of his career.

“It was so close to the game that you can’t really think about it,” said Räty. “It’s just new lines, say something with your new linemates, just go over something, and then just go to the game.”

The 23-year-old centre scored three goals (though one was disallowed), assisted on another goal, and went 14-and-2 on faceoffs. At 5-on-5, the Canucks out-attempted the Wild 16-to-7 when he was on the ice, outshot them 8-to-3, and outscored them 3-to-0.

Räty was a beast, and his line with Kiefer Sherwood and Evander Kane looked like one that should stick together.

“He got more of an opportunity, for sure,” said head coach Adam Foote. “But I think even if he had less opportunity with Pettersson playing, I think you would have seen Ratty, maybe not get the two goals, but play with more urgency, more zip. He really stepped it up as far as he played chippy — he played more in your face.”

Yes, Räty — like Poochie — was totally in my face when I watched this game.

• Seriously, losing the game where you outshoot your opponent 33-to-18 and then winning the game where you’re outshot 30-to-20 feels so perfectly Canucks. Hockey is weird, man.

• It looked like this game was going to go exactly as everyone feared when the Wild scored on the first shot of the game. Just after a Canucks power play, the Wild took advantage of the Canucks’ forwards getting caught deep in the Wild zone and countered with a 2-on-1 rush. Marcus Pettersson made the interesting choice to take away neither the shooting nor the passing lane, allowing Mats Zuccarello to set up Matt Boldy for the easy finish.

• “We made a mistake on that power play,” said Foote. “With 15-17 seconds left, one forward has got to come off, get a D out there. That’s not how we want to think or start a game.”

• It never feels good to give up a goal on the first shot of the game, even if there was little that Tolopilo could do. But then Tolopilo locked in like Chandler Bing in an ATM vestibule, but with less gum and fewer supermodels — he stopped 28 of the next 29 shots he faced to earn his second win of the season.

• Tolopilo’s biggest stop was on a Kirill Kaprizov breakaway, as he robbed the Wild star after Elias Pettersson (D) and Tyler Myers got their wires crossed and left him wide open. Tolopilo didn’t bite on any of Kaprizov’s fakes, and shut the door with his right pad as Kaprizov tried to surprise him with a quick shot along the ice.

• “Guys love to go five-hole,” said Tolopilo. “They think it’s a big goalie, it’s hard to go down. So that’s the kind of option I have in my mind always when guys go on breakaways.”

• This is Nikita Tolopilo’s second win in two starts since the birth of his daughter this week — one with the Abbotsford Canucks and now one with the Vancouver Canucks. “Now I have more to play for,” he said. “It’s great, I feel so thankful.”

• “I’m so proud of my wife, she did a great job,” said Tolopilo. “She let me get some rest before the game so I can sleep at the hotel, so she takes care of our daughter. I really appreciate it, because I know how hard it is to be alone right now for her.”

• It looked like Räty had scored the game-tying goal on a rush sparked by a great breakout pass by Filip Hronek. Kiefer Sherwood threw the puck backdoor to Räty, who redirected it in with his skate while coming to a stop. In my opinion, it was not a kicking motion, bringing to mind a classic PITB post from 2010. The officials disagreed, and the goal was disallowed.

• That’s the second disallowed goal in four games for Räty, who had one called back for offside against the Los Angeles Kings. Even still, Räty has a three-game point streak going, with five points in three games. But it should have been six points.

• “I feel like they’ve been pretty lenient with the goals that they’ve allowed, so I was pretty surprised,” said Räty. “With that one against L.A. too, I felt a little down, but good thing we were able to, as a team, score almost the next shift or a couple shifts after, and then get another one too, so that felt good.”

• The Canucks scored four unanswered goals — five, with the disallowed goal — and they all came from their young guns, with Räty the oldest at 23. Now, imagine more young players to get excited about, while experiencing about the same amount of playoff success, and you can understand why some Canucks fans want a rebuild.

• Tom Willander tied the game with his first career goal, and, like Clark Griswold’s exterior illumination, it was a beaut. Linus Karlsson took advantage of Zeev Buium’s broken stick by holding the puck tantalizingly close to the stickless Buium until he could move the puck to Willander in a prime spot. Willander’s catch-and-release was smooth as silk, as he sent the puck soaring into the top corner.

• “I just tried to shoot it as hard as possible,” said Willander. “I guess it hit a good spot.”

• “Karly had a heads-up play,” said Foote. “He saw that one of their players lost their stick, so he held up. He made time and space. It just shows you that Karly reads the game well.”

• The clear friendship between Elias Pettersson (D) and Willander was delightful to see. Pettersson was jubilant about Willander’s first career goal, slamming into his fellow Swede with so much enthusiasm that Jake DeBrusk behind him actually got a stick in the face. “Yeah, he crashed in hard,” said Willander with a laugh.

• A couple of minutes later, Pettersson got a goal of his own, which was the second of his career and first of the season. Räty won the faceoff — fork found in kitchen — Willander moved the puck to Pettersson, and Pettersson fired the puck through traffic. Jesper Wallstedt never picked up the shot as it threaded through two of his own players, and it beat him under the glove.

• A few minutes after that, Räty scored for real to make it 3-1. Evander Kane won a battle on the boards in the defensive zone to spring a 2-on-1 for Räty with Sherwood. When Jake Middleton took away the pass, Räty ripped a rocket of a snap shot past Wallstedt with one of the cleanest releases I’ve seen from a Canuck all season.

• “I instantly felt like, ‘Oh, that was probably offside or whatever,’” quipped Räty. “In this league, I feel like every time you score, you don’t want to celly too hard if it’s not a full-ice breakaway and you don’t touch the goalie.”

• Perhaps as payback for having a goal unfairly taken away, Räty was gifted a goal in the third period. Wallstedt went behind his neck to play the puck and mishandled it, leaving the puck sitting there for Räty to steal and wrap around the post like a ribbon. It should have been a hat-trick goal, but Räty will settle for the brace.

• “I think Woody yelled to the goalie, ‘Leave it,’ I’m pretty sure,” said Räty with a grin. “I’m pretty sure he messed their breakout there a little bit. And then, obviously, a bad bounce. The goalie stick’s so big, I don’t know how [the puck] can even bounce over that, but it’s just so unlucky on their goalie.”

• Sherwood was pretty vocal all game. I had to laugh at his earnest plea for a penalty shot after his hand was slashed on a shorthanded breakaway. I’m going to remember the disgusted look on his face as he yelled, “SHOT!” for a while.

• The Wild did get one back late in the third period while 6-on-4 thanks to a power play and pulling Wallstedt for the extra attacker. Joel Eriksson Ek set up shop in front of Tolopilo, preventing him from coming out to challenge the shooter, which gave Zuccarello room to pick a corner.

• I will say, it’s typically the job of the defenceman in that situation to take away the far post, leaving the goaltender less of the net to worry about. Tyler Myers was cheating towards Kaprizov in the bumper, trying to take that passing lane away, which left the shooting lane to the far post open.

• The final minutes could have been a lot more butt-clenching if not for Räty, who was getting it done at both ends of the ice. With two minutes remaining, Räty arguably saved a goal with a perfectly-timed stick check on Yakov Trenin in the slot.

• Should Räty perhaps have established inside position on Trenin in the first place instead of allow him to get to the slot unimpeded? Perhaps. But let’s not let that get in the way of a good narrative, please and thank you.