It was an entertaining contest between the Canucks and Blues at Rogers Arena, as Vancouver stuck with one of the better teams in the conference for the entirety of the evening.

Were the Canucks robbed by the referees, as many fans seemed to indicate with even louder “Ref, you suck” chants than usual? Not really.

Late in the second period, the Canucks appeared to have scored on a rebound from Thomas Vanek. However, the officials quickly waved off the goal as the play came on a delayed penalty in which it was deemed that the Blues gained possession when one of their players grabbed the puck with his hand. The crowd thought the Canucks were being unjustly called for a hand pass, which wasn’t the case.

Another questionable event, although largely unnoticed by fans at the time, was the fact that there were about nine St. Louis players on the ice during the Blues’ first goal.

After the game, Canucks coach Travis Green mostly disregarded both, insisting that these aren’t things the team can control.

Three that impressed

1. The Blues defence

There’s many reasons that the Blues are one of the best teams in the Western Conference, but chief among them is a defence among the league’s best. Even without smooth-skating Jay Bouwmeester, the Blues blue line was hard to crack and contributed two goals from Colton Parayko and Joel Edmundson.

2. Loui Eriksson

The Swede set up goals on both the power play and penalty kill, with primary assists on each. Eriksson has looked much better since he returned from injury. Will he ever score? Hard to say, but he’s certainly trending in that direction.

3. Brayden Schenn

After holding one of the league’s hottest scorers for the entirety of regulation, the Canucks couldn’t clamp down on Schenn in overtime. The forward, who now has 15 points on seven games, broke into the Canucks zone and wired one past Anders Nilsson to send fans home disappointed but encouraged by their team’s play.

Three that didn’t

1. Alex Edler

It’s hard to hate on one of the team’s most loyal soldiers over the years, but Alex Edler led the team in ice time against St. Louis, getting more than four minutes more than any other Canuck. Based on his performance tonight (and the last couple games, frankly), it’s very hard to justify that decision by the coach.

The vet routinely got turned around by Blues forwards, including an absolute dangle by Vladimir Tarasenko that left Edler wondering where he was. It wasn’t just that, as Edler got hemmed into his zone a few times and was giving the puck away for free.

2. The referees

Yeah, it was justifiable, but one had a hard time walking away from this feeling like the Canucks weren’t robbed.

3. Alex Biega

Not a great night for “Bulldog”. Yes, he registered an assist, but that was more or less a clear that Eriksson took all the way. Numerous turnovers from number 55 did not bode well for his future with Troy Stecher and Chris Tanev nearing return.

Did you notice?

Scottie Upshall—who was on a professional tryout contract with the Canucks before signing with St.Louis—was his usual fiery self, hitting everything that moved and assisting on Parayko’s goal.

Quotable

“I liked the way we played tonight. Obviously you get up 3-1 and you’d like to get a win, but give them credit.”

– Travis Green

“Cut to the middle, and chucked a changeup on net and definitely take goals like that…wasn’t an unbelievable shot by any means, it was a lucky shot.”

– Brayden Schenn on his game winner