How many kids got tickets to Saturday afternoon’s Vancouver Canucks game against the Seattle Kraken for Christmas? The afternoon games are always a popular pick for parents to take their kids, as they avoid the late nights of a normal home game. With this being the first game after Christmas, you have to think that some parents tucked some tickets under the tree for Christmas morning. They couldn’t have known that this game would be missing two of the team’s biggest stars in Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson.
With those two missing — especially Hughes — the entertainment value of the Canucks was lower than it might normally have been. Those kids might have missed out on seeing two of their favourite players but they still got the full Canucks experience, for both good and ill. They got to watch the Canucks work their tails off to make up for their missing stars.
They got to see Brock Boeser score two goals to put himself on pace for 35 goals this season. They got to see Conor Garland get a goal to continue his excellent season and Jake DeBrusk score another in his ongoing efforts to shake himself of his “streaky” reputation, giving the Canucks a 4-1 lead late into the third period. And they got to watch the Canucks completely collapse in the final five minutes of regulation to lose in historic fashion.
The Canucks are just the third team in NHL history to lose a regular season game after taking a three-goal lead into the final five minutes of regulation. The Kra.
