The Canucks went full powerplay in the third to come back from a 4-1 deficit to edge out the BJs in OT. Boeser netted his third hatty of the season to push him to that elusive 30 goal mark, Petey had the OT winner, and Canucks secured two points to roll into the All Star break on a 9-0-2 streak. Not bad. Here are your highlights:
It’s been a bit wobbly the past few games – dominant at times, lackluster at others, uneven efforts abound – and the Canucks seem to be walking a fine line between narrow wins and narrow losses… but they’ve been pulling it out, and they did again Saturday night. The boys battled back after a tough second period that was the opposite of a dominant first, showing their resilience (again) in climbing out of the hole. Tocchet had a little summary of the game:
“Our puck management wasn’t good, but you guys know that. The adversity hit us and the guys did a great job. The powerplay was awesome, PK, the special teams were awesome. And the crowd gave us some juice. Great game.”
It was a tough task to come back, but the mindset of this team compared to last year’s is astronomically different. It shows, and it’s going to really come into play when the playoffs hit.
Miller stated it pretty frankly: “We felt confident. There was no panic.” It’s a nice change.
Ian Cole – Stanley Cup champ and veteran of 116 playoff games – touched on it too after the game, saying, “Being able to… move forward and win the hockey game shows the level of resiliency that you need. And our level of confidence and maturity, being able to say (when it was 4-1), ‘It doesn’t really matter how we got here, we need to win the game, and this is what we have to do to win it,’ I think that mentality is very beneficial to play for a while into the spring and summer.”
What did Tocchet tell them in the second intermission, you ask? “I just said, we don’t have to hit a home run every shift. I mean, when we got to 2-1, we were looking for home runs instead of just letting the game (flow). We’re getting better at that, I will tell you that. But it’s still something that we got to be careful. Can’t hit home runs, sometimes you just gotta let the play happen.”
“I guess it shows character that we can come back and we just keep going,” Petey said, adding to the sentiment. “We got the goal and we got some momentum, got another power play and we scored again. Everybody was just into it. The fans gave us good energy. It shows what we can do when everybody’s feeding off each other.”
The boys will take the points, take the lessons learned, and head into the All Star break at a place no one thought possible at the start of the season. The break comes at a great time for the boys to recharge and reset, and hopefully work those kinks out of their game for the stretch drive.
On a hugely positive and congratulatory note, Boeser hit 30 goals for the first time in his career – and this is after only 49 games! For a guy who has had serious injuries affect his career, deal with the health and death of his father, go through trade scenarios/requests, deal with the Vancouver media attention… it’s been a long journey for him but one everyone should feel good about. It’s been his stated goal for a while now – so much so that he avoided saying it this year to reporters – so for him to hit it after everything must feel amazing.
Boeser was delighted after the game, though when asked about it said, “I don’t know if it’s hit me yet. I think more so just that we won that game; I think that’s really exciting for me right now — the fact that we came back from 4-1.”
One person who was elated for him – who always seems supportive of his players – was Tocchet:
“I’m just happy for him. He’s worked hard this summer. And, you know, to score 30 goals in, like I said, 50 games that’s a hell of a…you know, he’s not done. That’s the thing. He knows that. There’s a lot of hockey left.”
40 goal season? 50 goals? That would be sweet.
The next Canucks game is in 10 days against the Hurricanes. Until then try not to kill each other.
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(Quotes from MacIntyre, Patrick Johnston, and NHL.com)
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