The Canucks (21-30-4), 6th Pacific Division, played the second game of a three-game homestand against the New York Rangers (32-14-8), 3rd Metropolitan Division, at Rogers Arena on Wednesday night.

Vancouver was looking for their second win of February, up against four losses, including a loss to the Rangers.

New York came to Vancouver going for their sixth straight win, and second against Vancouver on their winning streak, the first coming on February 8th in New York, a 4-3 defeat of the Canucks.

The Rangers won their 6th consecutive game in a row and Vancouver dropped their fifth loss of the month.

Canucks had goals from Curtis Lazar, J.T. Miller, Connor Garland, and Andrei Kuzmenko. Elias Pettersson had 2 assists, with single assists to Anthony Beauvillier, Quinn Hughes, Dakota Joshua, Nils Aman, Andrei Kuzmenko, Sheldon Dries.

Canucks goalie Arturs Silovs stopped 22 of 27 shots for a .815 SV%.

The Canucks opened the scoring in the first period on a wrist shot by Curtis Lazar at 4:52, assisted by Dakota Joshua and Quinn Hughes. It was only the 23rd time this season the Canucks opened the scoring.

The 1-0 lead was short lived as the Rangers Mika Zibanejad evened the score at 1-1 only 59 seconds later, assisted by Adam Fox at 5:51.

New York would take a 2-1 lead, 72 seconds later, on a snapshot by Artemi Panarin, assisted by Jimmy Vesey at 7:03.

Vancouver responded by tieing the game at 2-2 when J.T. Miller scored on the power play with a snapshot at 12:45, assists to Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes.

With less than five minutes left in the opening period, the Rangers regained the lead at 3-2 on a goal by Artemi Panarin, assisted by Braden Schneider and Niko Mikkola at 15:36.

The Canucks entered the 2nd period behind 3-2, with only 8 wins and 15 losses when trailing after the initial period this season in 23 games.

With the ice still drying, the Rangers wasted little time adding to their lead, just 50 seconds into the middle frame, Chris Kreider from Mika Zibanejad and Vladimir Tarasenko, to make the score 4-2 New York.

The Canucks needed to play with desperation to make their fortune change, and turn things around.

The Canucks were awarded a power play nearing the halfway point of the period, with Niko Mikkola off for holding Connor Garland.

With the man advantage having expired, Andrei Kuzmenko would make a great play in front of the Ranger net with Connor Garland finishing it off, pulling the Canucks within a goal at 4-3. Garland from Kuzmenko and Sheldon Dries at 9:26.

Just over four minutes later, the Rangers restored their two-goal lead at 5-3, with K’Andre Miller scoring from Filip Chytil and Jacob Trouba at 13:28.

After 40 minutes the Rangers led by two goals and outshot Vancouver 23-18. Canucks were dominating the face-off circle with a 67.6 win percentage.

With the third period nearing halfway through, Andrei Kuzmenko brought Vancouver within a goal at 5-4, on a beautiful wrist shot, assisted by Elias Pettersson and Anthony Beauvillier at 8:51.

Vancouver pulled goaltender Arturs Silovs with under three minutes left in the game and a faceoff in the Ranger’s end.

Mika Zibanejad would score into the empty net to seal the game for New York assisted by Artemi Panarin at 18:26.

The Rangers won 6-4, and were outshot 29-28 by Vancouver in the game.

Vancouver welcomes the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, February 18th, 2023.