Gauthier hat trick downs Canucks: Vancouver 4-5 Anaheim

Highlights

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Three goals on six shots. Cutter Gauthier's hat trick was the sharpest number in a night full of them: nine goals, 19 penalties, 84 minutes of suspensions, and a perfect 3-of-3 power play for the visitors. Rogers Arena got a fight card with a hockey score attached, and Anaheim left 4-5 winners.

Mikael Granlund opened the scoring at minute 5, Beckett Sennecke supplying the assist. Liam Ohgren levelled at 7, 1-1, and the first period's last word belonged to Gauthier at 18: 1-2. Leo Carlsson made it 1-3 at 23 off Pavel Mintyukov, Linus Karlsson answered at 29 for 2-3, and Gauthier struck again at 39, this time fed by Granlund. The Ducks carried 2-4 into the third.

The game was thick with trouble: five penalties in the first period and seven in each of the next two. Jacob Quillan traded five-minute majors with Roger McQueen at 5 and with Travis Mitchell at 27, Jamie Oleksiak and Jeff Malott added matching majors at 33, and at 45 Paul Cotter's evening closed with five and ten minutes. By then Gauthier had completed the hat trick at 45, 2-5, and Jake DeBrusk scored twice in five minutes, at 46 and 50, to make it 4-5. The comeback ran out of clock.

Gauthier's three goals came off three different setups: Sennecke, Granlund and Tristan Luneau. Sennecke, with only two shots on the night, finished with four assists and created both first-period goals; Granlund posted a goal and two helpers, Jackson LaCombe two more from the blue line. For Vancouver, DeBrusk's brace and Elias Pettersson's two assists gave the comeback its authors, if not its ending.

The Ducks needed three power-play chances and converted all three; Vancouver went 2-of-4. Same building, near-same shot counts, and the margin was precision, not volume. The Canucks shot more. The Ducks scored smarter.