The Vancouver Canucks ended their season with a 6-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Thursday night.
Matt Savoie scored a first-period hat trick, Connor McDavid had four assists, and the Oilers clinched second place in the Pacific Division with a game that was originally decided before the opening period ended.
Ty Mueller scored the only goal for Vancouver, the first of his NHL career.
According to NHL.com, Edmonton's victory also secured home advantage for the first-round playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks.
ESPN reported that McDavid finished the regular season with 138 points to win the NHL scoring race, while Savoie's three-goal first period was the first hat trick of his NHL career.
On the Vancouver side, the loss snapped a three-game winning streak and capped another difficult year.
Edmonton had too much pace, too much skill and too much space to work with. Mueller's goal gave Vancouver a nice moment, and Kevin Lankinen struggled all night, but the big size of the game never really changed after the initial rush.
game flow
At 1:58 of the first period, Josh Samanski opened the scoring after Colton Dach's centering pass was deflected off the skates. Savoie doubled the lead at 6:48 with a wrist shot from the left circle, then Vancouver finally responded at 12:10 when Muller took a pass from Curtis Douglas, hesitated, and scored his first NHL goal. Lankinen also recorded a secondary assist in the game.
For a moment, it looked like the Canucks had something to build on. He didn't. Savoie hit a power play at 14:35, then completed the hat trick at 19:02 when McDavid and Evan Bouchard moved the puck cleanly through the zone.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added a power-play goal at 16:46 of the second game when Jack Hyman, returning from a five-game absence, found the side of the net.
Colton Dach fired a wrist shot over Lankinen's glove to make it 6-1 in the third, and from there it was close to the final horn.
Connor Ingram needed just 11 saves for the win, which tells you how little sustained pressure Vancouver provided. Edmonton got six goals on 35 shots. Lankinen stopped 29 shots, which showed how bad the score could have been.
This wasn't a bad bounce or a hot scorer. It was a loose, messy night against a team that knew what was on the line.
Mueller had at least a small hope of getting his first goal. But for Canucks fans, the bigger feeling was probably general, relief that the year is over and hope that the next version of this team looks more settled than the one that ended here.
Edmonton is headed into the playoffs with momentum. Vancouver is entering the offseason with a lot to answer for.
