BURSTVANCOUVER — Thatcher Demko fell on his back. The Vancouver Canucks nearly fell on their faces.
It wasn’t so much that the team lost 4-3 in overtime Tuesday to the St. Louis Blues. The Canucks rallied impressively from two goals down at Rogers Arena and earned a point on Jake DeBrusk’s tying goal with 1:52 remaining in the third period.
But on a night when their star goalie, a key leader, returned after missing eight months with a knee injury, the Canucks struggled to harvest any extra emotion or energy from Demko’s return and looked disjointed for much of the game while chasing the Blues.
And instead of turning up their defensive focus to ease the transition back for their goalie, the Canucks forced Demko to deal with five full or partial breakaways, including a two-on-zero early in the third period when he made the save-of-the-night against Oskar Sundqvist.
We’re not including in this breakaway total the free pass to the net the Canucks gave Dylan Holloway in OT when the Offer-Sheet Twin won it for the Blues at 1:40 by lifting the puck over Demko from close range.
“Obviously, you don’t want to give a guy four or five breakaways or odd-man rushes,” Canucks winger Conor Garland said. “So it’s not very good. But he’s a battler, hangs in there, makes big saves. Like I said, that’s why he’s the greatest.
“Hopefully we can play better in front of him whenever he gets in there next.”
After navigating a pathway back to playing from a torn popliteus muscle in his left knee, an injury Demko believes is unprecedented in the National Hockey League, the 29-year-old from San Diego admitted Tuesday was a “weird” day.
“It kind of felt like a whirlwind of a day,” he told reporters. “I think part of it is just trying to remember your routines. I’ve talked about managing expectations and not putting too much weight on that first game back. But obviously, as the moment builds, you’re excited to play and you want to perform. Definitely a little bit of a weird day.”
How did he feel about his game?
“Yeah, I mean, felt rusty for sure,” he said. “Obviously, it’s frustrating losing. I thought I could have played a couple of goals differently. I’m sure that there’s stuff that I can pull to keep building. But obviously it’s frustrating right now.
“There’s a couple of things I thought that I can clean up that shouldn’t take too much time. Just different reads and different ideas, positionally, things like that. I’m frustrated losing the game. I want to make a couple of those saves.”
The Blues scored four goals on 25 shots, but Demko did appear to be tracking pucks better as the game went on. He said his knee felt fine, which is a victory. But he appeared to bang his head on the opening shift when he tripped against his post and fell heavily backwards after playing the puck behind the net.
“I thought he was good tonight,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “It’s good to see him in net; he looks big. I love seeing him back in. He’s worked really hard, so I thought he did a great job for us tonight.”
Now 1-1-1 on its six-game homestand, the Canucks play the Florida Panthers on Thursday. Tocchet has said he plans to keep Kevin Lankinen involved after the backup goalie filled in superbly for Demko during the first two months of the regular season.
Lankinen may not have fared much better than Demko on Tuesday.
Five times in the first 42 minutes, St. Louis forwards got behind Vancouver defenders with the puck.
Brayden Schenn hit the post on a forehand move in the first period. Demko slid across his crease to stuff Jordan Kyrou on another breakaway in the second, then got some help from defenceman Noah Juulsen to foil Holloway a couple of minutes later.
But amid these chances, Robert Thomas buried a top-corner shot past Demko’s right shoulder on a shorthanded breakaway to break a 1-1 tie at 17:30 of the first period, a few seconds after Garland swatted at a bouncing puck only to see it skip past him.
Kyrou made it 3-1 on a Blues power play at 16:18 of the second period, giving Demko no chance with a high-finish from Thomas’ seam pass through Canuck penalty-killers.
It was a contentious power play, from a tripping call made by back referee Peter MacDougall from some distance after Blues defenceman Colton Parayko collapsed into the boards while Brock Boeser was hounding him in the St. Louis zone.
But karma being what it is — and after referee Cody Beach made a makeup call against Schenn — Parayko scored an own-goal to bring the Canucks within one, down 3-2, at 18:32. A flurry of intense pressure that saw Blues goalie Joel Hofer lose his paddle making a terrific rebound save against DeBrusk ended with Parayko accidentally scoring into his own net as he tried to intercept Elias Pettersson’s goalmouth pass towards Garland.
The Canucks forced overtime while skating six against five when DeBrusk smartly finished Pettersson’s low-to-high pass into the slot.
But one way or another, the night was going to be about Demko.
He made strong saves early on against Matthew Kessel and Zack Bolduc, but was deep in his net when Bolduc scored under him with a quick shot from the high slot at 9:15 of the first period — 73 seconds after Dakota Joshua gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead on a two-on-one when Garland bypassed stationary Blues defenceman Ryan Suter.
As much as Demko has practised the last month, there is no replicating NHL game pace.
“Fast,” he said when asked how the game looked to him. “I thought I felt better, you know, as the game kind of went along. But yeah, I mean, it’s just the speed of things and, you know, traffic in front of you is tough. Those are all just in-game reads that I think will get sharper over time.”
The Canucks could have another impactful player back on Thursday.
Top centre J.T. Miller, who began a leave of absence for mental health reasons on Nov. 19, participated in Tuesday’s morning skate and is expected to fully practise on Wednesday.
