With the Toronto Maple Leafs losing at the top of the standings and Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames starting to win near the bottom, the North Division playoff race is finally beginning to compress a little.
The Canucks have been running hard for a month, but still see only one team behind them when they look over their shoulder. It’s the Ottawa Senators, whom they visit tonight and Wednesday.
Even after five wins in their last seven games – Vancouver getting a couple of the results that eluded them when it was playing better in February – the Canucks remain a distant sixth in the National Hockey League’s Canadian division on winning percentage at .452, which is closer to last-place Ottawa than any of the four teams currently in playoff position.
But the gap has closed slightly, and the Canucks can feel it.
“There’s always excitement this time of year,” defenceman Travis Hamonic said after the morning skate in Ottawa. “When you’re starting to get into crunch time, it’s fun to play. We’re kind of creatures of habit and creatures of competition. You want to win, and you want to go out there and compete and have an opportunity to win and to play hard. And we know that the rest of the way is going to be extremely meaningful games for us.
“It’s probably going to be kind of a moving scale for the standings the rest of the way, just given that all the teams are playing each other. You’ve got to make sure you’re right in the thick of it, keeping pace with everybody. It’s tough not to look at the bigger picture, but I think you certainly have to just kind of have that singular mindset of looking at the game in front of you and not get too far. You win a couple in a week, things can change. You lose a couple in a week, things can change and look a lot differently, so you just got to kind of focus on the now.”
Added Canucks coach Travis Green: “You know in the game when your team is in the game and you’re playing (well)… and deserve to win. I think they felt that a while ago and yet we were still not finding ways to get points and get a win, and that was hard for the team mentally. Obviously lately, they’re having a little more success with their game, and that always makes it easier to come to the rink. So I think they have got a good feeling among the group. I think they’ve had that for a while — that if they play a certain style game, that they can have success.”
The Canucks are coming out of a 4-1 homestand in which first-year starter Thatcher Demko was brilliant, stopping 94.5 per cent of shots.
The team is inching its way back up the standings without top forward Elias Pettersson, who is home in Vancouver with an undisclosed injury. Green said injured role players Tyler Motte and Antoine Roussel are on the four-game trip that includes back-to-back games against the Montreal Canadiens starting on Friday.
Demko will start for the sixth straight game and ninth time in 10 games — his busiest stretch in the NHL.
That run coincides with the return of Hamonic, who missed 18 games due to injury shortly after sitting out all of training camp in quarantine due to his late arrival in Vancouver. The former Calgary Flames defenceman signed a one-year contract with the Canucks on Jan. 12, enticed by the prospect of playing with Quinn Hughes on the Vancouver blue line.
Hamonic had one of his best games so far in Saturday’s 2-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers, registering six blocks in 20:34 of ice time while matching up at even strength against Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ line.
“The way our team plays really suits my abilities, I think,” Hamonic said. “I haven’t played a ton of hockey as of late, obviously, but I’m feeling comfortable as each day goes on. And quite frankly, I expect a lot of myself as well. I know that I’ve got another level to get to and I’m going to get there.”
It helps playing with Hughes, the elite skater and puck-mover who finished second in Calder Trophy balloting last season.
“I mean, he’s one of the best D-men in the world so he’s pretty fun to play with, to be quite honest with you,” Hamonic said. “He’s an exceptional talent. He’s got skill level that you can’t teach, you’re just kind of born with. To see him do some of the stuff on the ice, you just kind of get out of his way, truthfully, sometimes and let him do his thing.
“I feel like my game can complement that. I feel like I try to play a heavy game down low. I try to make sure that I’m making the right reads on the breakouts, the right reads on the defensive side of the puck. Obviously, a big part of our offence is through Huggy, and just letting him play on that side of the puck I think is important not only for us as a pair but for our team. When he has the puck, we’re a good team.”
