VANCOUVER — Even before the events of Wednesday night, Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet was pleading for calm.
“You’re excited to watch hockey, but you’ve just got to be careful because whether you win or lose — or how you win or lose — sometimes it’s magnified because it’s opening night,” Tocchet explained after the morning skate. “So yeah, you have to temper that excitement. And even after a game, you’ve just got to temper, whatever happens, your opinion of the team.”
It’s a sensible message, but that rarely works around here.
We’ll see how well it takes after the Canucks, who open the National Hockey League season with serious championship ambitions, blew a three-goal lead and allowed four goals in less than 14 minutes before losing 6-5 in overtime against the Calgary Flames at Rogers Arena.
Despite dominating the first period and building early 3-0 and 4-1 leads, the only reason the Canucks salvaged anything from Game 1 is because J.T. Miller ripped a slapshot past Calgary goalie Dan Vladar with 1:37 remaining in regulation time and Vancouver skating six against five.
But the Flames, stuck between a rebuild and a hard place and not expected to be a playoff team 81 games from now, were far more dangerous in the brief overtime and won it when Connor Zary zipped around Canuck defenceman Filip Hronek and slipped a forehand past goalie Arturs Silovs 93 seconds into extra time.
The Canucks’ season-opener was every bit as stunning as a year ago when they beat the Edmonton Oilers 8-1. But not stunning in a good way.
“We just didn’t play our style of hockey,” Canuck winger Conor Garland said. “Play like that, and you’ll lose a lot, so we have to be a lot better in our details — puck management, game management. We’ll definitely learn from this. It’s Game 1, but we can’t do some of the things we did. So it’s disappointing to be up 4-1 and just not play our style of hockey and, you know, close out the game.”
“That’s just an example of taking your foot off the gas pedal,” new Canuck Jake DeBrusk said. “We just let off and we let a team kind of claw their way back in. You know, give them credit, they were working for every chance they got. That’s what you get in this league if you’re not prepared to put a full 60 (minutes) in.”
Through all of last season, the Canucks put in enough of the 60-65 minutes per game that the team lost only once in regulation time while leading after the first 40. They were 42-1-4 when taking leads into the third period.
Led by their new-look power-play units that produced a pair of goals by Brock Boeser and another by Daniel Sprong, another of the eight players new to the Canucks this season, Vancouver was ahead 4-1 late in the second period.
But after blocking a shot, DeBrusk lost coverage on Flames defenceman Rasmus Andersson, who scored from the slot at 17:01 of the second period to make it 4-2.
Martin Pospisil beat Silovs cleanly from the top of the faceoff circles at 2:41 of the third, and Mackenzie Weegar’s post-and-in shot tied it 4-4 on a power play at 8:16 after Zary was quicker to the puck from a faceoff than Canuck defenceman Tyler Myers.
Jonathan Huberdeau gave Calgary its first lead at 10:40, getting inside position on defenceman Carson Soucy and reacting first to a loose puck centred into traffic by Brayden Pachal.
The best save of the game for Vancouver was made by captain Quinn Hughes late in the third period, blocking Mikael Backlund’s shot at an empty-netter before circling with the puck and sending Miller down left wing with a beautiful stretch pass.
In his 800th NHL game, Miller was, literally, the centre of attention.
He had a goal and assist and the hit of the game — a legal shoulder check on Kevin Rooney that propelled the veteran Flame backwards and into the boards. Rooney appeared to strike his head upon landing, and left the game. Calgary put themselves shorthanded twice chasing after Miller, before the old-school Canuck fought Anthony Mantha at 18:53 of the opening period.
Miller also made a risky pass that turned into a shorthanded goal for Mantha, and gave away the puck when Backlund should have secured the win in regulation but was stopped by Hughes.
“J.T.’s shot at the end made it nice to get a point,” DeBrusk said. “But in saying that, I don’t think we deserved one after the last 40 minutes. I think it’s a good little wake-up call for us. Obviously, no disrespect to Calgary; they played a hard game. But we didn’t match them at all.
“We know what team we need to be. Like you said, there’s reactions to first games, but. . . that game should have been over nine times out of 10. It’s a learning lesson right away.”
Up by three goals at home with 23 minutes to play, the Canucks’ conversion rate for wins should actually be much higher than 90 per cent. Maybe 98 per cent.
“I’m not sure how many leads like that we blew last year,” Hughes, the Canuck captain, said. “And so it’s obviously not characteristic of ours.
“I know we can play that way (to close out games). I mean, we know how to play that way. But saying that, you know, just because you do it last year doesn’t mean you’re going to be guaranteed to be able to do it this year. We have to buy-in again and commit to playing the way we want to play, and I know we’ll be able to do that. It’s the first game of the year (and) it was a little bit sloppy. That’s not an excuse for anyone. But I’m looking forward to continuing to build our game as a team and also individually.”
Game 2 for the Canucks is Friday at home against the Philadelphia Flyers.
