Canucks Live: The Kuzmenko show begins

© Provided by The Province Canucks winger Andrei Kuzmenko pictured during a Sept. 25, 2022 NHL pre-season game against the Calgary Flames at Rogers Arena.

It’s game three of the Vancouver Canucks’ pre-season. Tonight they’re up against the Seattle Kraken at Rogers Arena.

First period

Andrei Kuzmenko can shoot. That was known.

But it’s still a thing to see live.

The new Canuck winger put his team up 1-0 with a powerful wrist shot off the top of the right faceoff circle, beating Joey Daccord inside the left post.

• He didn’t have to do nearly the same for his second goal, but he knew where to be to receive a pass at the side of the net.

The real question in the sequence that led up to his goal was which was the best pass? The nifty little one from Quinn Hughes, the one from J.T. Miller or the final one from Elias Pettersson?

Kuzmenko nearly had a hat trick in the first, whiffing on a chance in the slot that had half the net open to him

Tanner Pearson had Vancouver’s third of the opening frame, their second on the power play, as the Canucks’ play on the man advantage showed no rust from last season.

The penalty-filled period — there was a fight between John Hayden and Kyle Burroughs, plus a couple other fracas involving Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Cameron Hughes, plus Conor Garland vs. Michal Kempny — took nearly an hour to complete.

Second period

Dakota Joshua can hit.

He hammered Kempny with a heavy hit 2.5 minutes into the second. It was heavy and legal.

Kempny was shaken and took time to get off the ice.

Joshua was challenged to fight by Hayden on their next shift, which was much of a tilt, but the fans roared anyway.

• Tanner Pearson has missed a pair of scoring chances this period.

• NHL refs remain uninterested in exciting hockey. Elias Pettersson was sprung on a breakaway by Jack Rathbone — a gorgeous pass by the way — but was hooked back, with the ref looking at it…and no call.

Pettersson looked up, surprised the ref was just standing there.

• Will Lockwood hasn’t looked comfortable all period. He’s clearly hurt his hip. But he’s battling on.

And indeed, he nearly scored with just a second or two left in the period, firing off a shot from the right faceoff dot, but just missed outside the right Seattle post.