Before the playoffs began, Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet asked some of his players to pick a word to describe their team.
They chose resilience.
On Sunday, the team showed why, clawing its way back from a two-goal deficit late in the third period, then scoring early in overtime to beat the Nashville Predators 4-3 in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series.
“[Resilience] is our word,” Tocchet said. “It’s been like that all year. Certain spots we’ve been put in, somehow we get out of them. They might not look pretty. Like tonight wasn’t pretty. And we got out of it somehow.”
The Canucks are now up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series and will have a chance to advance Tuesday when they host the Predators in Game 5.
Brock Boeser was Vancouver’s engine Sunday, scoring his first hat-trick of the playoffs.
The rightwinger opened the scoring 2:55 into regulation, then dug Vancouver out of a two-goal deficit with a pair of goals in the final three minutes of the third period.
“I think the message is you can never give up until the final horn,” Boeser said.
“We didn’t give up there and we continued to battle back and we felt that momentum shift when we tied it up and we were feeling really good going into overtime.”
Elias Lindholm sealed the victory, scoring 1:02 into overtime. Canucks forward J.T. Miller contributed three assists on the night.
Mark Jankowski replied to Boeser’s first goal with a first-period tally for Nashville before Gustav Nyquist gave the Predators the lead in the second and Filip Forsberg added a goal early in the third.
Juuse Saros made 16 saves for Nashville and Arturs Silovs — in his first-ever NHL playoff appearance — stopped 27 of 30 shots for Vancouver.
“He made some big saves for us tonight, and he’s a huge part of our win,” Boeser told the Associated Press.
However Silovs said he wasn’t nervous going in.
“I was fine, actually,” he said. “I was just doing my things, relying on the things I worked on. And that’s it.”
The 23-year-old Latvian is the third goalie to play for the Canucks during the series after all-star netminder Thatcher Demko and back-up Casey DeSmith went down with injuries. Demko played Game 1 and is considered week-to-week.
DeSmith took over for Games 2 and 3, but Tocchet says he is dealing with an injury and the goaltending situation for Game 5 will be re-evaluated on Monday.
“We’ll see how it goes,” the coach said. “I’m proud, especially of the goaltenders. There’s a next-man-up mentality.”
The Canucks pulled Silovs in favour of an extra attacker with 3:21 left on the game clock.
The advantage paid off when Boeser put a shot in past Saros 17:13 into the period for his second goal of the game, cutting Vancouver’s deficit to 3-2.
With Silovs out of the net yet again, Boeser put a puck off the post, collected his own rebound and tucked it in past Saros to complete his hat trick with just eight seconds left in the game.
Lindholm sealed the victory with a quick snipe past Saros 1:02 into the extra frame, marking his second goal of the playoffs.
“I was wide open right in front,” Lindholm said. “So, I mean, obviously we scored a goal and got kind of relief and a lot of emotions and lost my voice a little bit. But it’s a good feeling.”
Both sides went 0-for-2 on the power play Sunday. The Canucks have killed off 14 straight penalties.
It was the first time the Predators lost a playoff game leading by two or more goals in the third period in franchise history.
And the Predators know what’s at stake as they head back to Vancouver, said Forsberg.
“We’re facing elimination, we’ve got to go there and win a game, keep ourselves alive,” he said. “Obviously, tonight didn’t go the way we wanted it, but at the same time, all those hits and all the investing [we did], they’re taking that with them, too.”
Head coach Andrew Brunette said the team “just kind of broke down and lost a little composure there in the end” but noted they are a strong road team as well.
“It hurts, but it’s supposed to hurt and it’s going to be hard, but it’s supposed to be hard. So I think that’s got to be the mentality. It’s going to be even harder the next game, and we’ll embrace it and … we’ll move straight ahead,” he said.
