The good news for Rick Tocchet is he won’t have to hand out any ticket refunds after the Vancouver Canucks’ latest game at Rogers Arena.
The bad news is his team will have to string together a few more wins before anyone can be sure this team has a handle on its consistency issues.
That being said, it was a solid win from a Vancouver team that essentially got its ass handed to them in the previous game Thursday night against the Islanders.
How bad was that Thursday game? When Jeff Paterson left after the second period to get ready for post-game duties, I begged him to take me with him. Offered him money. Cars. Roles in big Hollywood productions. Hell, I’d even smuggle him extra donuts from the dessert table. He turned down every single one of my offers.
Instead I got to watch Bo Horvat dangle by Quinn Hughes to set up a goal, and you know what, that feels like it shouldn’t be allowed. Legally, I mean. It just feels like a crime.
Luckily Saturday night was a different story. And much like a tired Calgary team was just what the doctor ordered the last time Vancouver needed to rebound from a poor outing, the lowly Chicago Blackhawks were the perfect opponent for a Canucks team looking to bounce back against.
Missing Seth Jones and Taylor Hall, the Blackhawks main offensive weapons heading into the game were Mr. All Star Jason Dickinson, Ryan Donato and wonderkid Connor Bedard, leading the team in points but still with questionable parking tendencies.
(I would have made a joke about “better watch out for Ilya “Bang Bang” Mikheyev, but he actually got the lone Hawks goal because that’s just how hockey works around here.)
And hey, like I said against Calgary, you can look down on an opponent pretty easily in hockey, but at the end of the day, you still need to go out there and secure the dub with your boys.
Which to Vancouver’s credit, they absolutely did.
Was the first period sloppier than that time you tried to slide into someone’s DMs to flirt with them? Of course it was.
But as the game wore on, the Canucks essentially took it over. The disparity between the current talent of the two teams was on full display as Vancouver eventually overwhelmed Chicago and secured the victory. And none was more talented than Elias Pettersson, who continues to round into form despite Jeff192838129 telling me on social media that his career was “defo over” and that I was “delulu for thinking otherwise” and that “drip coffee is for suckers”.
Chalk another game up for Elias being the best player on the ice, as he was attacking the offensive zone with aplomb, showcasing the confidence and dekes we knew was inside him all along.
That being said, there were times when it felt like one of those 1-1 games where a team getting caved in might hold on and get a lucky bounce to go their way. Maybe they go up a goal and lock it down the rest of the way and ride out an ugly road win. Maybe Rick Tocchet has to come out and bemoan the price of gas fans spent on getting to such a disastrous game.
That’s where Artus Silovs comes in, however. The Arty Party used to be a glamorous soiree, an A-List celebrity who’s who of celebration, but this season it’s been more akin to a social media post wondering if anyone could send well wishes to their 8 year old kid having a birthday party that nobody showed up to.
It’s been a rough start for Silovs, and I can only assume made all the more tough due to ending last season so strong. With his career seemingly fast-forwarded ever so slightly, all of a sudden he was in the show, and was primed to show the world what he could do with Thatcher Demko still out.
As we all know Kevin Lankinen stole all that thunder, but on Saturday night, we saw the first glimpses of that same Arty Party that took over Vancouver against the Nashville Predators last year in the post-season. Because despite the win from Vancouver, Silovs still had several moments where he had to make a big save to make sure his team stayed ahead on the scoreboard. Any time Chicago did manage to get a good look on net, Silovs was calm and composed in net, playing his tightest game of the season.
All of this despite not using all white pads, I can only assume much to Ian Clark’s chagrin.
In summary, the Canucks did what they had to do. Got in, got the win, got out.
They will look to do the same against the Steve Stamko’s Nashville Predators tomorrow night, so I will give you a few moments to remember that’s a thing now before we head into the gifs.
Best  in the business
I am not pushing others down to elevate Ray Ferraro, I simply want to say I just really enjoy the chemistry he has with John Shorthouse. I also appreciate the loose confident manner that Kevin Bieksa, Ray Ferraro and even Paul Bissonnette bring to sports coverage. Speaking with authority but also giving off the vibe of someone talking sports with you over a couple of drinks, that’s my kind of commentary.
And what a game for Ray to watch as he got to see Elias Pettersson moving the puck into the GOTI, producing the Canucks first offensive chance of the game with Jake DeBrusk:
Fun Fact: Ray Ferraro, Jake’s father Louie, and Travis Green all scored first period goals in a game on March 29th, 2000. Remember Damian Rhodes? Anyways.
The main takeaway from that clip is you’re seeing Elias move his feet and attacking with the puck, something we didn’t see a lot of earlier in the year. In Pettersson’s own words, he’s stopped using social media, and although we don’t have a timeline for when he went dark, I now naturally assume there is a timeline of Social Media and After Social Media, and the ASM version of Pettersson certainly looks much closer to the 11.6 million dollar guy.
Hockey is probably much easier to handle when you don’t read a variety of people assuring you that your career is over, and I pray EP40 never read one of my dumb articles. Be free of us Elias, be free.
The Canucks continued to attack the GOTI and I have to also assume that was a reaction to the Islanders completely shutting them out of it on Thursday. If you thought your family dinner at Christmas was sobering and depressing then you should have seen the post-game scrums after that game. You could have shown them two puppies joyfully playing with a toy and they’d have looked you right in the eyes and quietly stated that they need to be more prepared next time.
Which is why it was not too surprising to see Quinn Hughes attacking the center of the ice more aggressively and trying to find ways to cut to the middle of the ice.
On this play Quinn skates around the outside but instead of keeping it to the perimeter he cuts in and finds Danton Heinen for a dangerous shot from the slot:
Those were the kinds of chances we weren’t seeing Thursday and you could tell Vancouver was doing it’s best to play direct North/South hockey.
The newly reunited Joshua/Blueger/Garland also got in on the action by playing strong on the boards and again, trying to ram the puck right down the middle of the ice:
Joshua didn’t end up getting a shot, but you can see what the game plan was, and it was get the puck on net.
And while they didn’t light the world on fire in terms of shot volume (they out-shot Chicago 33-29) it certainly felt streets ahead of the 18 they got the previous game.
You could actually see the Canucks system at work in this game, which was a plus for the home team.
Best puck watching
The lone Chicago goal came when the Canucks got caught napping and Ilya Mikheyev banged in a rebound:
Ray Ferraro pointed out that JT Miller wasn’t on top of his defensive duties, so it allowed some space on the ice for Chicago to skate into. And even when Nick Foligno out-skated and out-muscled his way past Erik Brännström, the Canucks were still in an ok spot.
The trouble was Pius Suter and Noah Juulsen ended up puck watching and ignored Mikheyev skating in from the blue line, who essentially got a free goal on the tap in.
Which hey, part of wonders if the team just played the odds on this one. We saw Mikheyev miss many an empty net in Vancouver, so maybe you triple down on Foligno and assume that Mikheyev is going to boot that one wide, as is tradition.
Unfortunately for Vancouver, Ilya found the back of the net, and the Canucks went down 1-0.
I also feel I need to point out that Noah Juulsen completed a full 360 that Kurt Browning would be proud of:
So after starting the game strong and generating some scoring chances, the Canucks found themselves down a goal.
You had a struggling Artus Silovs giving up a goal.
You had Erik Brännström being put into a prime “not big enough for the NHL” highlight reel.
And you had JT Miller generally looking a bit sad.
All of this could have been a recipe for the Canucks to panic and maybe stray away from the game plan. And while the first period didn’t get any better in terms of locking things down, the team did figure its shit out in the second period onwards.
Artus Silovs did not get rattled and gave the Canucks a performance worthy of securing two points.
Erik Brännström did not get frustrated and play poorly, instead he turned into 2003 Todd Bertuzzi.
As for JT Miller, he always looks a bit sad, so that didn’t change much.
But 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
Best sloppy seconds
Before we get to the joy that was the second period onwards, we do have to take care of the rest of the mediocre first period. And old friends Carson Soucy and Tyler Myers once again seemed to struggle with their chemistry.
Whether it was missed passes, blown coverage, or miscommunication, the duo continued their uneven play against Chicago:
Even when Carson Soucy was making a nice play on a two on one against, it was due to the Chaos Giraffe going for a pinch along the boards:
This was a duo that was very stable last year, so when we talk about the team’s lack of consistency, this feels like one of the major talking points as to why. They aren’t getting reliable enough minutes from their second pairing, which makes the team all the more luckier that Erik Brännström is firing on all cylinders right now and thriving in the bottom pairing role.
Best figuring it all out
Prison Mike Erik got beat by Foligno for the first goal, which means he had to send a message. And that message was sit the **** down:
There are a lot of ways to bounce back from giving up a goal, and hammering the shit out of Lukas Reichel might be one of my favorites?
Swagger, moxie, confidence, whatever you want to call it, I just really get a kick out of a dude getting walked for a goal and responding by dropping the hammer on a guy from the other team. You think Prison Erik is too small? He’s got news for you.
The worst things about playing the Canucks:
  • The gruel
  • No movies
  • The Dementors
Being a smaller puck moving defenseman in the NHL can be a tough label to handle, as we saw with Troy Stecher. You get the push back that you can only have so many smaller d-men on your team, otherwise you’re dead come playoff time. And while I freely admit that size is very helpful for a playoff run, you need to have guys that can move the puck on your back-end. Especially when Quinn Hughes is the only guy who can do it with any consistency.
So having the Brannchise on the squad, moving the puck, and honestly, playing bigger than his size, that has been one of my favorite storylines this season.
He protects the puck well, he moves the puck very well, and he can be a prickly son of a gun when he wants to be.
All for a rock bottom price.
Hard to argue that he’s been a fantastic asset for this club.
Best riding the bull, getting loose
The Canucks probably shouldn’t be trading chances with the Blackhawks, but like I said, they figured it out eventually.
Best underlying issues
I will say that the Canucks still need to figure their board game out. They don’t cut off the boards effectively or consistently, so you will see plays like this where Hronek spins and banks the puck up to nobody:
I assume Hronek was trying to bank it in the general area of JT Miller, but instead it just ends up going down the ice right to the Blackhawks, who got a shot off of the turnover, and then generated a powerplay after Hronek got called for hooking in the ensuing scramble.
Against Chicago it’s fine, but when they play tougher teams, they are going to get murdered if they bring this casual board game to the rink.
Not a board game like Settlers of Catan. Tyler Myers isn’t going to be debating the pros and cons of the an end-game strategy based entirely around wheat and ore. I mean if they don’t tighten up their zone exits and protecting the boards when the puck goes along them, good teams will burn them on it.
Though Tyler isn’t wrong, wheat and ore is the most viable end game-strategy in Catan, don’t be that guy/girl that buys development cards fishing for victory points, that’s a fool’s game.
Best never forgetting where you came from
Perhaps having flashbacks to Chicago beating Vancouver back in the Sedins glory years, Connor Bedard tried his best to set up Danton Heinen for a goal:
To me, a great sign a team is actively engaged is their stick work off the puck.
Good teams are blocking shooting lanes, waving their sticks at passing lanes, and basically giving themselves at least a chance to break up plays.
The opposite of this is the Travis Hamonic era in Vancouver in which he would defend and just stare at the guy shooting the puck, not moving his stick at all, and just sort of hoping it wouldn’t go in. Maybe he’d mouth the words “please, I don’t need this in my life” at the guy shooting the puck, but it didn’t matter. The shot went in.
It’s just very easy to get lazy off the puck by not having an active stick, so a good sign a team is putting forth an honest effort is when they do what Danton did on this play, finishing off checks and trying to cut off passing lanes.
Best going dark
After a first period so listless that Jake Paul was considering fighting it on Netflix, the Canucks found their legs and began ramping up the offensive pressure.
And you know who led the charge? That luddite Elias Pettersson, who now uses a rotary phone to place calls, and faxes over his resume instead of e-mailing it:
This just goes back to the active stick thing we talked about, and when Elias is locked in, he is one of, if not the best, players at doing it for Vancouver.
Remember when he was struggling earlier in the season? The main thing I took away from that was how odd it was seeing him be a non-factor defensively. Struggling with confidence on offense, I get it, but it was when Elias wasn’t causing turnovers or being a menace defensively, that’s when you knew he was in a funk.
But in the ASM timeline, Elias is back out there vulturing the puck like Frank Gore used to kill your fantasy football pools, and creating offensive chances with strong defense. It felt like Jake DeBrusk could have had five goals this game if the puck had gone his way on some of these chances.
Best forward mometum
The Brannchise is now a power forward, I will not be taking any more questions:
It’s not just the fact he tried to drag the puck towards the net, it’s the fact he didn’t let up afterwards. Instead he ran to the crease to look for the puck, which is a mortal sin in hockey, which resulted in Chicago taking a retaliatory penalty.
So instead of hanging his head in shame after being a part of Chicago’s first goal, he instead chose to throw a thunderous body check at center ice, and then started dangling the puck on net, and then crashing the crease for rebounds.
Erik is a gamer, plain and simple.
Ride or die vibes out here.
Best the crowd is fickle, brother
With the crowd chanting his name, Elias Pettersson scored the Canucks first goal of the night on the power play:
I don’t know what was more surprising, the quick turnaround on the crowd chanting his name, or the quick efficient passing on the powerplay.
Either way, Elias was due for a goal like that, as he has played tremendous hockey as of late.
You also have to give credit to JT Miller for batting the puck down along the boards, preventing a zone exit, and Quinn Hughes being Quinn Hughes and doing Quinn Hughes things.
This power play goal was basically the result of the Canucks locking things in during the second period.
Good process gets good results.
Best you still have time
If you made remarks about his career being cooked, there is still time to go back and delete them. Nobody has to know.
Best piling on the presure
It was just nice to see Elias back out there dominating a game again, you know? He was all over the ice, making plays and going hard to the net:
In the Social Media EP era, he would fall to the ice and he would get up with the world weariness normally reserved for someone who’s just been told the Skytrain will be staying in the station for longer than normal. That kind of fatigue that comes from having a 9-5 job and learning that you’re going to miss your bus now and dinner will have to wait another hour.
The ASM EP era is one where he bounces back to his feet, almost excited to see what he can try next. Elias is at his best when he’s like a Velociraptor, testing the fences and trying to figure out the best way to murder someone.
Best glimpse of the future?
Killer had a great look in the second frame, setting up shop in the house that Horvat built before hastily leaving without painting the walls:
The Jonathan Lekkerimäki experiment has been a positive one so far for the Canucks, in that Jonathan doesn’t look out of place and his shot is everything it was advertised to be.
His defensive game has also been a pleasant surprise. While he’s not out there gathering Selke votes just yet, you can see he puts in the effort to win battles and isn’t shying away from protecting the puck.
All in all it has been a very good audition from the rookie.
Best Arty Party remix edition
We talked about the solid game Silovs had, so he deserves some gif love:
Silovs was in control in this game, and nothing showed that more than when he had to make a save off of Conor Garland turnover:
I am blown away Silovs didn’t just stare in shock at a defensive miscue from Garland. I would have just started openly weeping in the nets if that happened in front of me because I would just naturally assume that a Garland turnover meant the world was coming to an end.
Instead there was Arturs calmly making a save and keeping the game tied, despite Foligno’s best efforts to expose his five hole.
Best Drance Drance Revolution
Again, much of the Canucks taking over the game was at the hands of one man: Elias Pettersson.
We just didn’t see that from Pettersson earlier in the season. We knew he could do it, we just weren’t seeing it, despite us screaming in his general direction.
Now we’re watching him walk around people, creating zone entries and generating offensive zone time.
This is the ASM era:
Look how strong on the puck Elias is. He bounces off a check and sets up Quinn Hughes for the shot, which creates a rebound that Louie would have scored but one that Jake just misses.
The joy of having Elias do board work like this is that it means Quinn Hughes doesn’t have to skate for three minutes on the shift all by himself. It also generates more room for his teammates, Quinn included, which just makes creating offensive chances even easier.
In short, it’s the kind of hockey you can picture marrying.
Best finishing touches
You know how The Brannchise rebounds from a bad goal against?
He goes out and sleeps with the prom queen bags the game winner:
I just love watching this kid play hockey, what can I say.
We do have to hand out kudos to Elias Pettersson for forcing Connor Murphy to make a quick pass behind the net, which was followed up by Kiefer Sherwood forcing Alex Vlasic into making a panicked clearing attempt, which Jake DeBrusk then kept in by batting the puck back to Kiefer, who then shot the puck that eventually landed on Erik’s stick.
The Canucks took away time and space from Chicago, and they burned them because of it.
That line was fantastic the entire night. And I also think it speaks volumes that we now have Kiefer Sherwood going into Top 6 Woody mode and not looking even slightly out of place.
If you’re able to be part of an elite third line but also play in the top six, that makes you an invaluable player for a team, and the Canucks have two of them right now in Sherwood and Garland.
Best shots are overrated
Real ones know the best shots on the powerplay are the ones that happen just after they expire:
Kiefer was in a little too close to get much of an angle on the net, but it’s just another good example of the Canucks finding a way into the GOTI, generating scoring chances.
Best Henrik Sedin morality play
The Trolley Problem asks you to choose between saving 5 lives vs 1, but I assume Henrik Sedin somehow found a way to pass his way out of it.
Which brings us to Elias Pettersson, who was by all accounts feeling it, having one of his best games all season, yet he still passed in a prime shooting position:
I’m not going to grind his gears over this, I just think people were excited to see Elias playing so well, and the only thing missing was that bar down goodness we know is still inside him. The final cherry on top of his resurgence would be going full Hodgson on a goalie.
That being said, you can see the Hank Sedin play here, with Elias avoiding a stick coming in at his shot, so instead he tries to catch the other team off-guard with the drop pass. And if that shot goes in, we’re all high-fiving and writing about what a cerebral play it is.
Live by the pass, die by the pass.
Best here comes the boom
Aatu Räty knows the way to stay in Rick’s good books is to finish your checks:
Best emptying the tank
And that was how the third period kind of went. The Canucks locked things down, and the few offensive chances Chicago were able to create, Silovs shut them down. It was a pretty quick period, as the Canucks played fast, efficient hockey.
And what better way to seal a game than to have Connor Bedard stumble and fall into a turnover right to JT Miller?
Savor these moments. You never know when Bedard will turn into a 100+ point monster and start a new reign of terror for Chicago.
Best you get a goal, and you get a goal
Hey if Chicago is handing out free goals, Teddy KGB wants in on the action:
Game over man. Game over.
Tidy bit of business from your Canucks, and something they need to re-create tomorrow against the Predators.
See you tomorrow night.
Best jersey Botch
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