Rick Tocchet’s
update on Sunday wasn’t exactly what Vancouver Canucks fans hoped to hear.
The Canucks’ head coach shared that forward Elias Pettersson is “about a week away” from returning, while captain Quinn Hughes is likely set to be out longer with an injury that Tocchet described as “week to week.”
“They’re not going to make the trip,” Tocchet said following Sunday’s practice at Rogers Arena. “Petey’s probably a week away, give or take a day here or there, and Quinn is probably week-t0-week. That’s the update we have for them.”
Pettersson exited early in the third period of the Canucks’ final game before the holiday break against the San Jose Sharks on December 23rd. Hughes was a game-time decision heading into the game against the Sharks, but elected to play. Tocchet also shared that he doesn’t feel playing in that game made Hughes’s injury worse.
“He couldn’t have hurt what he has any more,” said Tocchet. “He’s a tough kid and he won us the game with a couple of assists. I don’t think him not playing would have made any difference. We’re all hockey players. You want to play. He gutted it out for us and we won the game.”
Losing both players, but especially Hughes, is a crushing blow for the Canucks, to say the least.
Hughes’s absence was felt heavily on Saturday, as the Canucks’ embarrassing collapse to the Seattle Kraken almost certainly doesn’t happen if Hughes is in the lineup. With the captain out week to week, Canucks fans had plenty of opinions to share when it came to the injury news. Here’s some of what we saw on our social channels.
Overwhelmingly, we saw fans cautioning against making a big trade that costs future assets, with some fans even suggesting the Canucks look at selling pending UFA players like Kevin Lankinen, Pius Suter, and even Brock Boeser.
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The Canucks’ next matchup without Hughes and Pettersson is Tuesday’s New Year’s Eve matchup with the Calgary Flames. They’ll then travel to Seattle before returning home to take on the Predators. It’s after those games that the Canucks’ schedule starts to get tougher, with games against the Oilers, Capitals, Hurricanes, Maple Leafs, Jets, and Kings all in the month of January.
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