VANCOUVER — He was speaking about Elias Pettersson when Vancouver Canucks coach Rick Tocchet told reporters on Tuesday that if the struggling centre is good enough over the final 22 games, people might not remember the first 60.
To an extent, the same applies to the entire team.
Look, nobody is going to forget this wildly erratic, plot-twist of a season for the Canucks. J.T. Miller doesn’t even play here anymore; that’s how strange and chaotic this season has been.
But still afloat in the National Hockey League playoff race, and still with a lot of good parts to their team, the Canucks have the power over the final quarter of the regular season to not let this winter’s dysfunction entirely define them.
In the first game of their mission to save themselves, the Canucks played one of their most thorough home games of the season in a 3-2 win Wednesday over the Anaheim Ducks in which they outshot the visitors 36-16.
It was the most shots on goal for Vancouver since Nov. 5 — in Anaheim — and the Canucks displayed a lot of offensive menace for a team that hasn’t scored more than three times in their last 12 games and averaged only two goals over their previous seven.
Defenceman Filip Hronek, whose main fault this season has been his inability during Quinn Hughes’ injury absences to elevate his game and drive the Canucks, had one of his best games. And the enigmatic Pettersson, after taking full responsibility for his poor play during a media confessional on Tuesday, was fully engaged on Wednesday.
Pettersson crunched Alex Killorn into the boards on his first shift, finished the opening period with four hits and three shot attempts and generally looked like a $92.8-million player trying to lead his team. He also went 20-5 on faceoffs, the last win coming in the defensive zone with 5.6 seconds remaining and the Ducks pressing for a tying goal despite being badly outplayed.
“I’ve liked his last couple of days,” Tocchet said of Pettersson’s preparation since a miserable road trip ended Saturday in Seattle. “I like the fact that he owned up to some stuff to you guys. Hey, another good day. Three good days for him. Let’s get some rest and have a good practice tomorrow. He’s just got to go day to day. He had a good game. That’s it.”
So did the Canucks. Now they need 21 more of them — not wins necessarily (although 12 or 14 more of those would be nice), but sound, direct, physical and alert performances.
Do that, and they’ll be a playoff team. And make the playoffs on a roll, with Hughes and starting goalie Thatcher Demko healthy, and they should be a dangerous team, too.
“If anything, that would be even more impressive,” winger Conor Garland said. “It’s been an odd year. A lot of stuff has happened, and we’re still in the dogfight. We’re pretty proud of our group where we are with the adversity we’ve faced, and some of the injuries we’ve had.
“We were just hanging on, but we’ve put ourselves in a spot to kind of control our own destiny. We had a really tough stretch, as all the teams do, but we’ll be really proud of ourselves if we play some good hockey and give ourselves a chance.”
Defenceman Carson Soucy said: “This was a nice, complete game. I think we had, honestly, some of our better practices this week (with) intensity and really focusing on making plays. We know it’s coming down the stretch, and we know we’ve got teams behind us, so we wanted to try and, yeah, play it like a playoff game. Because that’s pretty much what’s coming up here.”
The win opened a stretch of seven out of eight games on home ice for Vancouver, and halted the negative momentum from a dismal 1-4 road trip in which the Canucks faded badly in three of the losses.
They outshot the Ducks 17-5 in the first period but still trailed 1-0 when Sam Colangelo’s deflection arced left and over goalie Kevin Lankinen at 13:21.
The Canucks weren’t as dominant in the second period, but scored three times.
Vancouver’s power play, which went 0-for-2 in the opening frame, tied it 1-1 at 1:05 of the second period when Hronek’s beautiful, stretch bank-pass to Brock Boeser led to a quick breakaway for Jake DeBrusk, who patiently shot high over goalie John Gibson’s blocker.
Gibson, who looked like a Cirque du Soleil performer in the opening period, was fooled by Teddy Blueger’s low, glove-side shot from the top of the circle at 10:33.
Three minutes later, Gibson was gone.
He was bowled over by Drew O’Connor as the Canuck charged to the net in search of Filip Chytil’s goalmouth pass. It didn’t help Gibson that Anaheim defenceman Drew Helleson gave a slight shove from behind on O’Connor. The Canuck was assessed a minor penalty for goalie interference, and Gibson had to be replaced by Lukas Dostal, who had stopped 32 shots in the Ducks’ 6-2 win in Edmonton the previous night.
Dostal thought he, too, was interfered with when Soucy scored to make it 3-1 for Vancouver at 18:51. But as referee Peter MacDougall reported after a challenge by Anaheim coach Greg Cronin, it was Dostal’s own teammates who created the interference.
Ducks defenceman Pavel Mintyukov rode Canucks winger Kiefer Sherwood into the net behind Dostal. Defenceman Jacob Trouba also shoved Sherwood, who was standing alone behind the goalie when Soucy zipped in a one-timer from Nils Hoglander’s pass.
The Canucks might have sealed the win had they also scored on the ensuing power play, but at least continued to push the play in the third period.
Brian Dumoulin scored on a rebound for Anaheim at 13:27, but Vancouver yielded very little over the final 6 ½ minutes and was excellent in the last two as the Ducks skated with an extra attacker.
As an exclamation point on his team’s effort, five-foot-eight Garland won a late fight against Trevor Zegras.
“Good identity-building game that we want to continue to implement,” Sherwood said. “As the second half continues to ramp up, we’re going to need more of these efforts.”
“We’re in a race,” Tocchet said. “We should be excited about this. I told you guys, we should embrace this and have some fun with it. But tomorrow, we have to work.”
The Canucks practise Thursday before facing the Minnesota Wild on Friday.
