By james art (Photo credit: David Banks-Imagn Images)
Danton Heinen scored twice in the first period and Kevin Lankinen made 31 saves to lead the visiting Vancouver Canucks to a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday.
JT Miller and Conor Garland also scored for the Canucks during a back-and-forth opening period that included six of the game’s nine goals.
Vancouver stayed in control en route to its third straight win to close out a four-game road trip. Lankinen, a recent acquisition while the team deals with Thatcher Demko’s recovery from a knee injury, was in net for each win.
Miller contributed a goal and two assists, Garland had a goal and an assist, and Quinn Hughes and Kiefer Sherwood each had two assists for Vancouver.
Heinen opened the scoring just 21 seconds into the game, beating Blackhawks goaltender Petr Mrazek after a series of tick-tock passes on a turnover by Chicago’s Wyatt Kaiser in his own zone.
Vancouver doubled its advantage with a Miller goal at 6:01 of the first period, capitalizing on the best ricochet of Hughes’ shot off the end boards.
Ryan Donato answered with Chicago’s first goal 3:24 later, finishing off a centering pass from Jason Dickinson. The Canucks restored a two-goal lead less than 90 seconds later after Heinen’s goal was disallowed after the Blackhawks challenged the play for offside.
Taylor Hall led Chicago to a goal again, but that momentum was also short-lived as Garland scored at 15:17. Seven Vancouver players were on the ice, but the officials missed the call.
Lankinen stymied his former club all night, but was particularly sharp in a scoreless second period. He turned away multiple chances for Chicago on the latter of two power plays in the period.
The Blackhawks fell to 1-2-0 in a four-game homestand that ends Friday. Chicago was 1-for-5 on the man advantage, capitalizing on a five-on-three opportunity when Tyler Bertuzzi scored at 14:04 of the third.
Vancouver’s Brock Boeser and Pius Suter scored 29 seconds apart midway through the period to put things away. Boeser’s goal came on the power play.
Mrazek stopped 24 shots for Chicago.
–Field level media