After a big emotional playoff-like win on Saturday night, Monday’s dreary game against the Blackhawks was a bit of an emotional step down. However, the Canucks did enough to earn the victory on the night, with a couple Kuzmenko apples and a Demko shutout sealing the two points. Here are your highlights:
It might not have been their best effort on the season (it wasn’t), but they did just enough to beat a Bedard-less and beat-up Blackhawks roster on Monday. Two points are two points at the end of the year, and the league-leading Canucks will take ‘em. Tocchet was… pretty meh with the game.
“We were just OK,” Tocchet said after the game. “We got the two goals and just kind of coasted it in. It wasn’t a pretty game for us.”
After he called out the top line for also being “just OK”, he circled back around to the points.
“There's a lot of emotion the last couple of weeks, three weeks, (and) the travel. Sometimes you have these games… that's where you rely on your Hoglanders, your Amans and the younger guys to give you juice, and I thought they did. And then when you have a guy like Demmer, who's rock solid for us, you take the two points. You take the positives out of it. It's two points.”
Two points for 68 on the season for the team, another shutout for five on the season for Demko. Coming into this season, Demko had three shutouts in 168 games. This season alone is five in 34 games. He’s earned them, and so has the team in front of them.
“It wasn't our highest-emotion game but we held the fort, Demmer played really well and made some big saves to keep it a two-goal lead, especially in the third, and two points is two points,” Myers said. “We're happy with it, but we need to come out harder next game. We know we have more to give.
“It's great for Demmer. He deserves (the shutout) and is an unbelievable goalie. At the same time, it feels great for the guys in front of him. When we're not letting a goal in, it's telling us that we're doing the right things defensively and we're protecting the house. He made some big saves tonight. He was on when he needed to be, and he's been like that since I've been here.”
Another person happy with the shutout and Demko? Tocchet.
“I love shutouts,” he said. “I'd rather win 2-0 than 8-4 any day of the week. It means that you're… doing the right things most times when you get a shutout. I love shutouts, especially for how hard Demmer works.”
The other bright spot on the night was a slightly re-energized Kuzemko. Two assists on the night, with one sweet spin-o-rama pass, was a nice little shot in the arm for him. Before the game, Tocchet talked to and challenged that line to play better – saying it was “a big game for them” to take it to the next level. It seemed like a good response from them, as they combined for nine shots.
“It’s a little bit of a confidence boost for us with creating more chances,” Suter told reporters after the game. “We got it going a bit after being quiet on the offensive end. Kuzy made an unbelievable pass to me. We held onto the puck better and also got on the forecheck to get everybody going.”
“There was more holding onto pucks and they were closer together,” Tocchet explained. “Even if a guy lost it, there was another guy to pick the loose puck up. They did a lot of video the last few days and it worked for them.”
Hopefully Kuzy and his line can build off of this going forward – if he can find his game before the trade deadline, that would alleviate some of the pressure to find a top 6 winger.
On the opposite end, the first line was a let down. Tocchet talked about them before the game, saying:
“They haven’t been good 5-on-5 the last three games. We met with them this morning. They recognize it. But one good thing about not playing to potential, they’re coming up with the big goal.”
Hopefully they come up with bigger goals on Wednesday against the Blues.
One last thing: the penalty kill isn’t actually terrible! Just another improvement on the year. The Canucks are now 15th in the league at 80.6%. Not great in a vacuum, but compared to last year, oh baby. They’ve been getting better as the season goes on, killing off 49 of 55 in their last 19 games. Now to fix that powerplay…
“We’re getting some good pairs together,” said Tocchet of the PK. “The structure has been pretty good. The power play is a little stagnant and slow. We’ve got to figure it out quickly. We attacked the net Saturday and tonight we were looking for the pretty play.”
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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