Let’s start with the positives.
Quinn Hughes was an absolute beast for the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators. It seemed like every time he stepped on the ice, he was making something happen, whether it was setting up a scoring chance for a teammate or getting a shot off himself.
Hughes’ nine shot attempts and five shots on goal were both game-highs. When he was on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks outshot the Senators 14-to-4 and outscored them 4-to-1 and the only goal against came after he was tripped in the offensive zone with no penalty call. The Senators literally had to cheat to score a goal with Hughes on the ice.
It was an MVP performance.
“Does it surprise you anymore?” said Brock Boeser. “He's an amazing hockey player. We're witnessing greatness from a defenceman right in front of our eyes. He's a special player: he demands the puck, he has such a high standard for himself, and it just doesn't surprise me that he's out there dominating the game.”
Boeser himself was a major positive, as he scored two goals to break out of a brief four-game drought. A few other Canucks also had strong games, like Phil Di Giuseppe, Pius Suter, Kiefer Sherwood, and, unexpectedly, Vincent Desharnais.
But there were also a few negatives.
J.T. Miller picked up an assist but otherwise had a disastrous game, including two crucial goals against that can be directly attributed to his failure to backcheck. He finished the game with zero shot attempts, let alone shots on goal.
Elias Pettersson at least had a couple of shots and drew two penalties but he was a no-show on the scoreboard, extending his pointless streak to six games.
The spotlight was squarely focused on Miller and Pettersson thanks to the rumours of a rift between them — rumours that Quinn Hughes and Rick Tocchet essentially confirmed as true on Saturday morning — so this would have been a great time for both of them to make like Mulan and get down to business on the ice and prove it wasn’t an issue or a distraction.
Instead, the narrative will continue, whether it’s based in reality or not.
“That’s still going on?” said Pettersson when asked about the friction between himself and Miller, seemingly unaware that Hughes and Tocchet had spoken about it earlier in the day. “It’s good. I don’t know why people still try and make s*** up — excuse my language — but that’s my response.”
When he was asked if the rift — or the rumours of a rift — had been a distraction, Pettersson seemed frustrated and said, “Oh god. Next question.” Since no one had any more questions, Pettersson walked out, saying, "Read the room," as he left.
For the record, the media asked to speak to Miller after the game as well. He was not made available, with no reason given.
The entire game felt like a missed opportunity: to quell the rumours and kill a distracting story, to pick up two points and get back on track at the end of a shaky month, and to provide any support whatsoever to Hughes, who has been carrying the Canucks on his back all season.
I got so tired of the drama after I watched this game.
- For all the talk about the rift between Miller and Pettersson, there seems to be a much bigger rift between Juulsen and moving the puck. Early in the game, Juulsen missed Brock Boeser with a breakout pass and Thomas Chabot was able to keep the puck in at the line. His point shot was neatly tipped in by Claude Giroux, who was left entirely unboxedout by Carson Soucy.
- “It’s frustrating, especially our line takes pride in not getting scored on playing against that top line,” said Boeser. “For them to get one right off the bat, we really tried our best to get that goal back in the first period and get the momentum back for our team.”
- Six minutes in, Kevin Lankinen made an utterly bizarre — and arguably illegal — save on former Canuck Adam Gaudette. On a Senators power play, Lankinen stopped Claude Giroux but kicked out a rebound to Gaudette, who had an open net. Lankinen dropped his stick to dive across but his glove hit his stick, launching it into the air. Incredibly, Gaudette’s shot deflected off the airborne stick and up over the glass.
- Gaudette protested that Lankinen had thrown his stick — a bit of a no-no — but technically he never threw it. He just dropped his stick and accidentally swatted it into the air. I wish that nothing else happened in this game, so that I could spend more time talking about how absolutely insane this sequence of events was.
- The Senators took a two-goal lead when Danton Heinen couldn’t catch a pop fly in the neutral zone, which is strange because his hometown of Langley is known for having great baseball teams. That led to a 2-on-1 behind him and Soucy couldn’t prevent the cross-seam pass to Shane Pinto for an easy finish.
- Miller didn’t get a point on the Canucks’ first goal but deserves some credit for keeping the puck in at the blue line and then driving the net and taking a defender with him. Di Giuseppe picked up the loose puck and sent a smart pass off the boards for Hughes to skate onto. Hughes jumped up the left side and set up Boeser at the backdoor for a tap-in goal.
- The Canucks pushed back hard to end the period and managed to draw even before the intermission. Di Giuseppe was again involved, as he crashed in hard on the forecheck, running over Chabot to free up the puck. Miller poked the puck to Conor Garland, who relayed it to Hughes. The Canucks’ captain waited for traffic, then made like a Canucks fan leaving Rogers Arena and beat the traffic, as well as Leevi Merilainen to tie the game 2-2.
- As the first period ended, Garland got into a minor altercation with Jake Sanderson, which was fine until Travis Hamonic stepped in to flatten Garland with a shoulder check. That was definitely a cheap shot, which is strange, as Hamonic isn’t known for taking shots.
- The Senators took the lead five minutes into the second period in mildly controversial fashion, as it certainly looked like Hughes was tripped by Drake Batherson just before the goal. With no call, the Senators broke the other way and Pinto walked right around Tyler Myers to snap the puck past Lankinen.
- After Miller contributed to two goals in the first period, it was frustrating seeing him lapse into some of his old, pre-Tocchet habits in the second. On one shift, Miller blew the zone looking for a stretch pass, only for the puck to get picked off, extending the Senators’ possession. Then he slapped his stick on the ice hoping for another stretch pass, which also got picked off, leading to another Senators’ chance.
- Hughes once again helped the Canucks get back on even terms. Myers set Hughes up for a one-timer that was low enough and hard enough that Merilainen couldn’t control the rebound, kicking it off the net-crashing Jake DeBrusk and into the net. You could call it a lucky goal but the Canucks manufactured their own luck on that one.
- The Senators took the lead on what might be the most frustrating play I have ever seen from a Canuck. On a Canucks power play, the Senators won a scrambled faceoff and broke up ice. Miller was back defending against Josh Norris, then suddenly wasn’t back defending at all. He simply stopped up at centre ice and let Norris skate past him. Claude Giroux took the breakout pass and set up Norris heading to the net as Boeser tried to get back to cover for Miller, but he couldn’t get back in time to prevent Norris from snapping the puck in.
- “They saw an opening and us as a unit, we didn't work hard enough to defend, and they took advantage of it,” said Pettersson, utterly refusing to throw Miller under the bus. “It just can't happen.”
- “I tried getting back as hard as I could,” said Boeser, shouldering the blame himself. “I thought I had the puck. I don’t know if it bounced over my stick or what. It’s just that split second or half a second, if I get back, I should have that puck. We’ve got to make sure we’re ready right off the start of the power play. We definitely can be better.”
- “The key was the shorthanded goal. That can’t happen…It’s an egregious play,” said Tocchet, and he was clear where the fault lay. “That’s Millsy’s guy. That’s his guy. If he just stays back — I don’t know if he got surprised. I told Boeser before they went out, make sure you tell the guys to reload because they’re going to take off. You’ve just got to be focused at all times.”
- Canucks colour commentator Ray Ferraro inexplicably placed the blame for the goal on Boeser for losing a puck battle to Hamonic off the faceoff, saying nothing about Miller at all. Sure, Boeser could have won that battle, but it was a weird thing to fixate on when there was something much more, as Tocchet said, “egregious” happening on the ice.
- The Canucks stepped up their game in the third period pursuing the tying goal, outshooting the Senators 11-to-4. Kiefer Sherwood came agonizingly close to the tying goal, as he seemingly waited too long to shoot, then nearly banked the puck in off Merlainen’s pad. Only Chabot’s timely intervention prevented the puck from sneaking over the goal line.
- Di Giuseppe once again played a role on the tying goal. He crashed in hard on the forecheck, taking a man with him as the puck squirted free to Boeser. His centring pass to Pius Suter was deflected, but Suter deftly controlled the puck with his skate and got a shot on net, with Boeser wide open to finish off the rebound.
- “A lot of energy — he’s chasing guys down,” said Tocchet of Di Giuseppe. “His second effort on Boeser’s goal, he’s doing the things we asked him to do. He’s a hard forechecker.”
- There was a storybook ending lurking in the shadows of this game. After a late penalty by Juulsen, Pettersson drew an offsetting penalty to get to 4-on-4. Which forwards took the ice for that 4-on-4? None other than Pettersson and Miller. It was a perfect opportunity for the supposed beef to be permanently squashed, leaving the media to ask, “Where’s the beef?” Alas, ‘twas not to be.
- Overtime lasted all of 14 seconds. Miller got caught coasting and Sanderson burst away from him down the left wing, took a pass from Tim Stützle, and beat Lankinen five-hole — a goal that Lankinen will want back. But that’s two overtimes in a row now where Miller cost the Canucks the game. He can’t get caught chasing Sanderson; he has to stay above him to prevent an odd-man rush in 3-on-3 overtime.
- “You’ve got to know what’s going on ahead of you: this is my man,” said Tocchet, speaking generally. “There’s too many times where — I use the word egregious — that’s you’re man, you’ve got to take him. For whatever reason, we get lost within the moment sometimes and then the other team counters and it’s in your net.”
- When I asked if that general statement applies specifically to what happened in overtime, Tocchet nodded ruefully: “Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, yeah. You got me on that one.”
