Canucks become first team in NHL history to overcome 3-goal deficit in final minute of game

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The Vancouver Canucks looked elimination in the face on Tuesday evening and defiantly declared, “Not today!”

We’re still processing what we just witnessed. Vancouver was cruising toward near-certain mathematical elimination on Tuesday night and trailing the Dallas Stars 3-0 to open the third period.

Right off the hop to open the final frame, Vancouver got a goal from Jake DeBrusk off the rush. Then Victor Mancini floated a wrist shot past Casey DeSmith on the power play. The Canucks are virtually assured of seeing their season end at some point this week, but they came out in the third period like a team that wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

The Stars, however, answered Vancouver’s third-period push with a 4-2 insurance goal late in the third. Then, when the Canucks pulled their goaltender, the Stars promptly scored on an empty net to restore their three goal lead.

And that should’ve been that. History tells us that no team has ever come back from a 3-goal deficit in the final minute of regulation.

On this night, however, history taught us nothing. On this night the Canucks pulled off one of the most preposterous, improbable comebacks in NHL history. It probably doesn’t mean anything in the big picture, but it was still a remarkable hockey moment.

First, Aatu Räty scored with 60 seconds remaining, as Stars captain Jamie Benn responded with frustration and broke his stick over the crossbar. Then Pius Suter scored with nearly half a minute remaining. Then, during a last-second scramble, Suter scored again to incredibly even up the score.

Finally, in overtime, Kiefer Sherwood picked up a loose puck off a scramble and wired the winner past Casey DeSmith. The goal made Vancouver the first team in the history of NHL competition to ever score three goals in the final minute of regulation and come back to win the game.

What even?

If Vancouver had been defeated in regulation on Tuesday, that would’ve been it for their season. They would’ve been officially eliminated from playoff contention. That is still coming, most likely, but on this day, the Canucks would find a way. On this day, their tragic number would remain stuck at two.

On this day, the Canucks would live to fight for another one.

The supercut of all the goals the Canucks scored at the end of the game, winning 6-5 after being down 5-2 with around a minute left. Insane. pic.twitter.com/rvwzdBgXj2

— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) April 9, 2025

Lessons from Dallas’ rise and playoff outlook

The Stars have serious defensive issues. That was apparent even in the first period on Tuesday night, as the Canucks — a team that’s struggled enormously all season to generate looks and scoring chances — peppered their old teammate DeSmith with all manner of quality chances.

As the game devolved into something rare and magical, Dallas’ inability to get out of their zone cleanly and wrest some manner of control of the proceedings was wildly apparent.

The Stars are currently the odds-on Stanley Cup favourite, but they’re likely to face an imposing, reconstructed Colorado Avalanche side in the first round. And while Miro Heiskanen is expected to return at some point in round one, the truth is, the right side of Dallas’ defense is an issue. And this team’s lockdown defensive identity has sprung a leak over the past several weeks.

It’s not that Jim Nill and the Stars sat idly by and didn’t try to find answers on the right side. They dealt a first-round pick for Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci ahead of the NHL trade deadline after all.

In truth, however, the Stars decided to prioritize landing an elite player in Mikko Rantanen. They pushed their chips in to add a long-term piece with superstar upside, as opposed to focusing on hockey fit in the short term.

There’s something instructive about that, I suspect. A lesson to be gleaned from how Nill and company prioritized at the NHL trade deadline.

To focus, with a credible Stanley Cup shot, on making a window extending move for a bona fide elite player, speaks volumes about what Stars management believed mattered most. They wanted to raise the ceiling of their group, even if there remain some apparent flaws in Dallas’ current roster construction, flaws that the Canucks’ comeback exposed to some extent — as the Minnesota Wild and the Pittsburgh Penguins did as well, over the weekend.

And yet, as incredible as it was to watch Dallas get picked apart by Canucks attackers throughout the evening and in the final minute in particular, when you watch this Stars group operate with the man advantage, you can begin to understand the magnitude of Rantanen’s impact.

For a team that’s been knocking on the door as a plucky underdog over the past few years, acquiring Rantanen has given this team a gamebreaker at a totally different level than what previously existed in Texas. That was readily apparent as Dallas completely flattened a Canucks penalty kill that’s emerged as an elite group over the second half of this season.

Even if the right side of this Stars defense prevents the Stars from winning a championship this season, and it very well could, the Rantanen addition has given them a much higher offensive gear and a more straightforward path to building a championship-level team in the years to come.

Canucks go down fighting

As much as this Canucks core has struggled to remain consistent, has seemed to struggle to deal with and build upon successes and has largely disappointed from a team-success perspective throughout the Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes era; you’ve got to give them credit, they’re very difficult to kill.

We saw it during the Bruce Boudreau bump campaign. We saw it throughout last season and into the playoffs. And even as this season has spun away from the Canucks, in fits and spurts, we’ve seen it over the past few months.

There is now no greater example of this Canucks team’s ability to seize victory from the jaws of defeat than the incredible rally they pulled off in Dallas on Tuesday night.

The Räty audition

As the injuries have mounted and the stakes have lowered, the Canucks’ games have begun to take on that standard end-of-season for a non-playoff team feel.

The focus becomes less about the day-to-day results and more about the club holding auditions for a variety of young players as the season winds down.

Between Victor Mancini, Elias Pettersson, Max Sasson, Linus Karlsson and Aatu Räty; there are a variety of players for whom these games are also a showcase. An opportunity to make a statement to Canucks management that you belong in the league.

Among the players in this tier, Räty’s contributions have stood out in a major way down the stretch. On Tuesday night, even though he had an off night in the faceoff circle, Räty spent a lot of time chasing around Dallas’ best players at five-on-five and more than held his own in those minutes — especially when the defensive territorial slant of his deployment is factored in. He looked excellent in the bumper spot with the second unit on a third period Canucks power-play opportunity. He scored the goal that started the final-minute rally, and it was his fifth goal across the past seven games.

Räty has made his case, and it’s a compelling one. You don’t have to squint or be generous in your assessment to see clearly that this guy is ready to be a full-time NHL player, and at a premium position.

(Photo: Jerome Miron / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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