Canucks took care of the Sharks 5-2 on Wednesday in San Jose

G: Hughes (6), Myers (5), Virtanen (15), Sutter (6), Pearson (15)

Jacob Markstrom made 38 saves for the victory

TAKEAWAYS

1) Good teams find ways to win even when they're not at their best. The Vancouver Canucks are becoming a good team and Wednesday night in San Jose they got out of the Shark Tank with a 5-2 victory despite struggling for the first 40 minutes. As the saying goes, however, it's not how you start, but how you finish and the Canucks had a big third period and a lot of finish that allowed them to pull away from the home team. It showed 5-2 on the scoreboard, but it didn't feel like a 5-2 game with the Canucks trailing 2-1 and getting outshot 28-13 through the first 40 minutes. When Tyler Myers scored on a slap shot from the right point just 2:36 into the third, that tied things 2-2, seemed to settle the Canucks down and provided them the opening needed to seize control of the hockey game. From there, Jake Virtanen, Brandon Sutter and Tanner Pearson completed the four-goal third period to give the Canucks their fourth straight win, their sixth victory in the last seven games and the team's 13th triumph in 16 contests since December 19th.

2) Wednesday was just the latest example of the Canucks grinding out a win in a game that was close in the third period. Goaltending has been the constant through the 16 game stretch and goaltending has kept the Canucks in a number of games until they hit their stride. The only game action Jacob Markstrom had seen since January 16th was at the All Star weekend in St. Louis. But the layoff had no impact on the Canuck netminder who will turn 30 on Friday. He was sharp from the start when the Sharks had an 8-1 lead in shots. He was holding his team in it when the shots were 19-9 six minutes into the second period. Later in that middle frame, Markstrom threw himself across the crease to stone Kevin Labanc with a spectacular pad stack. It was one of 38 saves he made on the night. Goaltending is a huge advantage the Canucks hold on almost every opponent right now and at the end of the night Wednesday there was no doubt the Canucks had the better of the two puck stoppers on the ice. For a few years now, people had wondered when Canuck goaltenders would steal games. They don't ask that question any more. Even a conservative estimate would put the Canucks goaltending tandem near double digits in terms of games in which they've been the team's best players and true difference makers.

3) The third period rally was critical for the Canucks. They wanted to set the tone for a five-game road trip that gets much more difficult from here. They also needed the points to maintain their perch atop the Pacific with the Battle of Alberta turning into a three-point contest. Perhaps the most-impressive statistic aside from the wins and losses during this 13-3 run is the Canucks goal-differential in third periods. Over the past 16 games, the Canucks have outscored their opponents 27-11 in the final period. Again, this team is finding ways to win tight games and it's usually with strong third periods. The Canucks are getting lockdown netminding late in games and the offense is coming through when it has to. Now, some of those goals are empty netters as Tanner Pearson's was on Wednesday. But the only reason the club is in position to score into the empty net is because they've taken a lead into the late stages of hockey games. There is a confidence that has been building for a while now in that Canuck locker room that they're going to find ways to grind out wins. The belief starts with the fact that the team will get stops from its goalies and it just seems to flow from there.

4) People are running out of ways to describe Quinn Hughes -- and he's only 20-years-old and just 55 games into his National Hockey League career. Hughes scored a spectacular goal spinning away from Timo Meier at the left point to create space for himself, then walked to the middle of the ice and blasted a slap shot past Martin Jones for the first road goal of his NHL career. It was his sixth goal and 35th point of the season. He later added an assist on the Tyler Myers goal. With those points, Hughes now has the highest scoring season by any Canuck defenseman since 2011-12. It's a low bar, but this kid is special and he isn't just stepping over it. He's soaring past that mark and you can only wonder where he's going to top out as a point producer at this level. What's he going to look like in two months? Two years? Five years? It's going to be fun to watch as he continues to grow and develop as the main man on the Canucks blueline. His goal on Wednesday was remarkable because it came 48 hours after he coughed up the puck that led to an early St. Louis goal on Monday night. Hughes hasn't made many mistakes as he's learned on the job this season. You could have understood if he'd taken a game or two to shake off a miscue that wound up in his own net and played conservatively for a few nights. But that's not how this guy is wired. There he was at the Shark Tank looking as confident as ever and it paid off in a highlight reel goal.

5) The Canucks power play has been in its first real funk of the season entering the night just three for its previous 34 attempts over a nine game span. But when Marc-Edouard Vlasic got his stick up into the face of Oscar Fantenberg and was assessed a double-minor 4:47 into the third period in a 2-2 game, it had the feel of a 'must score' moment for the Canucks power play. There have been many nights already this season when the power play was a difference maker generating enough offense to lead the Canucks to victory. There haven't been many of those nights lately, but sure enough, early in the second of the two penalties to the veteran Sharks blueliner, the Canucks cashed in. After a lengthy scrum in the corner to the left of Martin Jones and some good work by the trio of Adam Gaudette, Antoine Roussel and Tanner Pearson, the puck popped free to Jake Virtanen who showed poise and patience to step around Dylan Gambrell and then snap home the go-ahead goal at the 7:00 minute mark of the third. The Sharks entered the night with the best penalty killing in the NHL, but the Canucks scored the only special teams goal of the hockey game. They won the special teams battle and they won the game, too. The Virtanen goal turned out to be the winner. Just like old times (well, earlier times this season), the Canucks power play came through when it was needed most.