The Vancouver Canucks have just clinched the Pacific Division with a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames.
Playoffs are near, and there’s more media than there has been all season in the Canucks’ locker room post game.
A crowd forms around JT Miller, while a smaller group of us reporters walk over to Tyler Myers. He opened the scoring in this game, but there are bigger questions to ask. Myers is now among the Canucks who have been here the longest.
He’s played through some dark seasons (not quite as many as Brock Boeser) and has been through the ups and downs (yes, mostly downs) with this team over the past five years.
So what does it mean for the Canucks, a group mired in mediocrity and false hope for years now, to go from that to Pacific Division champions?
“It’s a good feeling,” Myers said. “Just looking back to where we’ve come from. Even looking back to last year, we came in this year, setting a new standard for ourselves, creating a new culture, and it’s nice to get rewarded tonight. It’s a good feeling.
“We held a higher standard for ourselves. I think guys were a lot more open throughout the whole year at taking accountability, accepting it from other people, not being satisfied when things were going well, and working hard when things weren’t going well. I thought guys bought in all year. It was great to see guys bought into coming into Vancouver early before camp, it started with that can. You can even go back to last year, guys buying into the system more. Guys have worked hard to get where we got tonight.”
It’s true. Nearly anytime the Canucks showed signs of turning into the “same old Canucks” this season, the ship was quickly righted. A lot of that comes down to coaching, and it’s ultimately why head coach Rick Tocchet is the landslide favourite to take home the Jack Adams Award, bestowed upon the NHL coach judged to have contributed the most to his team’s success.
But it also comes from the messaging from the top down, and it’s hard to argue that this is undoubtedly the most aligned this organization has been for the past decade.
Asked to reflect on comments from Patrik Allvin earlier this year — and also last year — where the Canucks’ general manager told reporters that while the club has had good players for some time now, they didn’t know how to play as a team, Myers couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, we got that speech too.”
“We got that speech pretty early on last year.”
“And he was right. He was bang on, and you know, we proved it this year. We knew we had good players, we just needed to come together. Start playing within a system that we could buy into, and guys did it. We worked hard at it, and we worked hard at it all year. And we just want to carry that into the playoffs.”
An out-of-town game between the Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues tonight will help determine who the Canucks face in round one. No matter who their opponent is, the Pacific Division champs are certainly feeling good about themselves as they get set to play playoff games in front of a raucous Rogers Arena crowd for the first time since 2015.
