Can the Canucks contain Tyler Toffoli tonight?

The Canucks had trouble getting over their exes early in the season. 

In the Canucks first game against Jacob Markstrom, Chris Tanev, Josh Leivo, and their new team, the Calgary Flames, Markstrom pitched a shutout, stopping all 32 shots he faced. The Flames won the teams’ first three meetings until the Canucks finally solved Markstrom and took points in the next three — two wins and an overtime loss.

They’ve had a tougher time getting past their breakup with Tyler Toffoli.

The Canucks won their first game against Toffoli and his new team, the Montreal Canadiens, but it took a shootout to do it. Since then, the Canadiens have rattled off four-straight wins against the Canucks, out-scoring them 23-to-10 in the process.

Most painfully, Toffoli has done the bulk of the scoring. He had a hattrick in their first meeting and 8 goals in total across their five games this season. He’s recorded at least a point in every game against the Canucks. When up against the Canucks, Toffoli seems like an unstoppable juggernaut.

If Toffoli is an unstoppable force, it feels like the Canucks need to be an immovable object to have any hope of winning.

Toffoli on three-game goal-scoring streak

There are, however, a couple of caveats to Toffoli’s dominance over the Canucks this season. One is that it came when the Canucks were at their nadir defensively.

The Canucks last played the Canadiens on February 2. Since then, they’ve been able to get more practice time and have tightened up their defensive systems significantly. That hopefully would mean fewer soft spots in their coverage for Toffoli to take advantage of, as he frequently did in his games against the Canucks.

The other caveat is that as much as Toffoli feasted on the Canucks, he’s been quiet against other teams, perhaps suggesting that he was merely getting lucky against the Canucks rather than being a truly dominant goal-scoring winger.

At least, he was quiet against other teams until recently. 

Toffoli has a goal in each of his last three games and six goals in his last nine games, none of them against the Canucks. The claim that he’s only scoring against the Canucks is no longer true.

Toffoli is currently second in the NHL in goals behind Auston Matthews and second on the Canadiens in points, as he’s quickly become the focal point of their offence since signing him to a four-year deal worth $4.25 million per year.

Keeping Toffoli quiet will therefore be key for the Canucks as they face off against the Canadiens twice this week.