The Vancouver Canucks received a double dose of good news on Sunday when both Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson returned to the practice ice with the team in Montreal.
Per a report from Sportsnet’s Iain MacIntyre, Hughes was more involved in the practice session than Pettersson. Original reports from the Canucks were that Pettersson would return to action sooner than Hughes. However, that may not be the case. Rick Tocchet wouldn’t commit to either Hughes or Pettersson playing on Monday against the Canadiens.
Both players have missed four games since Christmas and the club has managed just one victory in that time (1-2-1). In their last game, on Friday, the Canucks were shutout by Nashville 3-0. The team went 0 for 3 on the power play and failed to muster a single shot on goal in 4:55 of action with the man advantage.
Hughes and Pettersson would surely help the sagging power play which is two for nine without them, but has failed to score in the past two games. Of course, the return of Hughes will boost the team in so many areas. He leads the Canucks in assists, points, shots on goal and ice time this season. In 669 minutes at 5-on-5 this season, the Canucks have controlled 58% of all shot attempts and have outscored opponents 39-21 with Hughes on the ice. No one else on the team has been on the ice for more than 26 goals at 5-on-5.
Pettersson hasn’t been as impactful, however he was second on the team in scoring when he left the line-up. He had scored two goals before leaving a December 23rd game against San Jose with an undisclosed injury. Pettersson has 10 goals and 28 points on the season. Conor Garland has surged into second in team scoring with 29 points while Jake DeBrusk has matched Pettersson with 28 points on the season.
The Canucks open a challenging five-game road trip against Montreal on Monday. From there, they carry on to Washington, Carolina, Toronto and Winnipeg.

What we heard

Rick Tocchet on having Hughes and Pettersson back on the ice with the team: “Obviously, you get a couple of star guys like that, even practicing, it gives the guys juice. And they were excited to join the team. I would say it’s day to day, a possibility for tomorrow. We’ll see what 24 hours does plus we want to make the right decision, too. So we’ll take our time on this and we still have 24 hours before we make a decision.”
Quinn Hughes pleased to back practicing with his teammates: “It was nice to be back. I hate missing time. I don’t know what it was before, but I played like 190 games in a row so I want to take care of my body and be available. We’ll see how it goes.”
Hughes on how he and team have handled his undisclosed injury: “I think the way we went about it and handled it, lucky the medical group we have and the support system we have here I think everything we did is how we wanted it to play out and now I’m in a spot where I’m on the up and up.”
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