Five years ago today, the Vancouver Canucks took a commanding 2–0 series lead against the St. Louis Blues in the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs. This came after the Canucks defeated the Minnesota Wild in four games of their qualifying series in order to officially advance to the playoffs.
Vancouver had a tough task ahead of them in their first official playoff run since 2015. They were tasked with defeating the defending Stanley Cup Champions, a Blues team who had previously clawed their way back from being dead-last in the standings mid-season to defeating the Boston Bruins in seven games to clinch their first championship in franchise history. For Vancouver, winning this series would prove to those around them that their successes from the regular season weren’t just based on luck.
Game 1 was a pleasant surprise for Canucks fans. Up until the third period, Vancouver and St. Louis kept their audience on the edge of their seats. Canucks captain Bo Horvat opened the series scoring with a power play tally less than five minutes into the game. Around 10 minutes after, David Perron tied things up while also on the man-advantage, settling the score at 1–1 by the end of the first. Elias Pettersson gave Vancouver the lead on the power play once again, though his goal was quickly neutralized by one from Jaden Schwartz.
Despite the 2–2 score heading into the third period, from then on, Vancouver took things over. A little more than five minutes into the final frame, Troy Stecher found the back of the net to score what would ultimately be the game-winning goal. Horvat got his second goal of the game three minutes after that. Finally, J.T. Miller scored Vancouver’s third power play goal of the game to help the Canucks to a final score of 5–2 in Game 1.
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Game 2 was a little more nerve-wracking. Horvat opened the scoring while shorthanded, tucking home his fifth goal of the playoffs seven minutes into the first period. Tanner Pearson added to Vancouver’s goal count on the man-advantage, scoring his third of the postseason and extending the Canucks’ lead to two. Ryan O’Reilly cut the Blues’ lead to one while on the power play, sending his team into the third period with only one more goal to score.
In the third period, Pettersson scored Vancouver’s third power play goal of the game, bringing the Canucks’ lead back up to two goals. With Game 2 on the line, Sammy Blais scored with 10 minutes left to cut his team’s deficit to one, while Schwartz scored the game-tying goal with only seven seconds left in the game to send both teams to overtime.
Only a couple of days before this game, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets played in five overtime periods before Brayden Point finally scored to end the game. Luckily for Vancouver and St. Louis, neither team had to wait as long for their game to conclude. It was Horvat who was on the receiving end of an up-ice pass from Quinn Hughes, tearing away from the Blues and scoring on Jordan Binnington to end the game at 4–3 for Vancouver. This was Horvat’s sixth goal of the postseason and second of the game.
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