Last Night in Canadian Hockey – Nov. 24: Jets, Flames &

Last night, fans of Canadian hockey got a tidy little snapshot of where some Canadian teams sit or are moving. Two games produced two very different stories, and two fanbases left shaking their heads for entirely opposite reasons. The Jets and Canucks are on their way down, while the Flames are surprisingly on their way up.

In Winnipeg, the Jets ran straight into a Minnesota Wild team that’s tightening bolts and stacking wins. In Vancouver, the Canucks found themselves drifting through another one of those uneven, half-in-half-out games that have become far too familiar.

It’s still early enough in the season for both teams to turn the wheel and right the ship. However, these kinds of early-season checkpoints hit differently. They tell you what teams are pushing, who’s wobbling, and who might be building something. The Jets learned what it feels like when every mistake ends up in the back of your net. The Canucks learned what happens when a rested team loses the battle to a tired one. Both lessons sting, but both are fixable—if the fixes start soon.

Game One: Wild 3, Jets 0 — Winnipeg Gets Goalied by Wallstedt

Every now and then, a goaltender has one of those nights where the game seems to shrink around him. That was Jesper Wallstedt. The Jets had the legs early—Jonathan Toews said the start was exactly what they wanted—but once the Wild settled into that suffocating defensive shell, Winnipeg looked like they were trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Eric Comrie kept them in it longer than the score might suggest, but the short-handed goal against in the second seemed to gut the bench. The middle frame has been Winnipeg’s soft spot lately, and it bit them again.

Losing Neal Pionk early didn’t help matters. Nino Niederreiter’s turnover that led to the opening goal felt like a crack in a dam that the Jets were already having trouble patching. And when Kirill Kaprizov scored in the third, the Jets were doomed.

Full Jets game review: Wild 3, Jets 0 — Winnipeg Runs Into a Wall in Their Own Barn

Game Two: Flames 5, Canucks 2 — Tired Calgary Beats Rested Vancouver

Calgary walked into Vancouver after a back-to-back and a time-zone hop, and—funny enough—looked like the fresher team. The Flames didn’t blow the doors off; they just played the steadier, heavier, more patient brand of hockey that veteran groups lean on when they’re tired. Morgan Frost and Connor Zary scored less than a minute apart, Dustin Wolf settled right in after giving up the opener, and Blake Coleman spent the night dragging his team into the fight. Rasmus Andersson tossed in three assists like he was passing out mints after dinner.

Vancouver, meanwhile, got the early goal from Filip Hronek and then sagged. They gave up the middle ice, they lost second pucks, and the forecheck that helped them jump out to a lead faded almost instantly. Kevin Lankinen never looked set behind them, and by the time Quinn Hughes tried to force the issue, Calgary already had the game by the collar. One win in seven now—this is a team searching for rhythm and finding potholes instead.

Full Flames/Canucks game review: Flames 5, Canucks 2 — Calgary Dug In and Vancouver Slipped Out of Sync

Final Thought About Canada’s Teams

Nights like these might not decide a season for any of the Canadian-based teams. But they sure reveal who’s sturdy and who’s still trying to find their footing.