Canucks 5, Islanders 2: The playoff chase is back on

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If you’re looking for a Cinderella story from your Vancouver Canucks, it could yet be so.

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Missing their top two centres, their captain hobbled, the goalie who has bailed them out time and again this season now out too, you’d understand if the Canucks simply looked under-gunned, even if the heart was there.

Well, these Canucks showed their heart is still beating and they, somehow, have enough guns.

For one night anyway: they beat the New York Islanders 5-2 Wednesday because of heart and hustle as much as anything else.

Kiefer Sherwood opening the scoring, setting up another and getting the empty-netter sums up well what the Canucks needed and got on the night.

The big goalie

My goodness has Thatcher Demko quickly rediscovered his groove.

This is why he’s been in Vezina chatter in the past. The Canucks did give up golden chances to the Islanders but Demko shut the door over and over.

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“We don’t like the 2-on-1’s, I’ll tell you that. But the way Demmer is, he made a hell of a save on the one (that was) post-to-post,” head coach Rick Tocchet said about his goalie’s effort, referring to a save in the first period that would set the night for Demko’s performance. “Could be a different game (without the save).”

With Kevin Lankinen on the shelf — WHAT — how will this weekend play out for the story in goal?

Demko is playing great, but do you just keep riding with him? Overwork has become an issue for him.

If Lankinen is OK to go, then surely you play him Friday and then go back to Demko against Winnipeg?

Tocchet said after the game that Lankinen was fine and ready to play, that he could have backed up, but they decided to just give him more rest time.

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You can only hope to contain him

Derek Forbort has proven to be a quiet, unassuming but important character in the Canucks’ dressing room. He’s a positive, forward-looking voice in the room.

His game is deeply unspectacular but you just can’t argue with the results. He suppresses shots against and while he’s not a crafty or especially skilled puck mover, the offensive results with him on the ice really are excellent.

And now he’s scoring goals. He scored the winning goal against the Islanders, stepping up nicely to shoot a gap inside Jake Debrusk. And of course he had the lovely saucer-pass assist in New Jersey too.

“Footy said he’s a sneaky offensive player. So good for him, yeah, he’s been great for us,” Tocchet said with a smile.

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The other big blueliner

It was something of an off night for Quinn Hughes: the Canucks were out-shot when the captain was on the night.

Thank goodness for Tyler Myers: when the Chaos Giraffe was on the ice, the Canucks had 15 more shot attempts on goal than the Islanders did. That’s dominance.

Gotta win these

The Canucks have no choice but to keep winning. This win got them to 80 points on the season.

They’re still three points back of the Blues, though they have a game in hand.

And the Flames are behind Vancouver now, but Calgary holds two games in hand.

For the longest time it looked like just 91 points would get you the last spot in the Western Conference playoff chase, but that’s just four wins off the Blues’ current situation and while they aren’t going to win forever — they’ve won seven games in a row — it’s hard to fathom them losing five of their final nine games.

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It’s probably going to take 94 points at least to overhaul the Blues.

If only

The Canucks are now 2-1-1 on this crucial road trip.

On a trip where we said they needed to get things done, to pile up wins, this is now a decent looking record.

Of course, there’s that Rangers loss on Saturday. Is it possible the Canucks’ best game on the trip will actually stand up as the only loss?

Friday in Columbus is obviously a must-win — and so is Sunday in Winnipeg.

A bad, bad power play

As one hockey person joked to me when I noted the Islanders are an astoundingly bad 12.1 per cent on the power play: “because you can’t just defend on the PP!”

Ain’t that the truth.

If you want to understand just how much the Isles struggle on the man advantage, just look at how poor they looked on the late-game 6 on 4.

When you have two extra skaters, you should be all over the defenders.

And yet the Islanders struggled to do much of anything.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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