OTTAWA – When people criticize the Vancouver Canucks’ structure or their culture or their lineup, Bo Horvat takes it personally. Of course, he does. He is their captain and longest-serving player. The Canucks are his team.
But when the criticism comes from the team president, well, Horvat admitted Tuesday, it stings a little more.
“Especially being the captain, when you hear it’s a bad culture, I take it personally,” he said, standing in his skates in the Canucks dressing room. “I go out there and try to play my hardest every single night. I think we have a lot of belief in this room, and I think we have a lot of good hockey players that can do the job and are capable of doing it. I take accountability on that. (This was) a little more fuel to the fire.”
It should surprise no one that Horvat feels this way about things, including the criticism Monday on radio from Canucks president Jim Rutherford, whose comments about coaches and players was part honest assessment, probably part button-pushing amid a desperately disappointing start to the National Hockey League season by his team.
But it also shouldn’t surprise anyone, given what we’ve seen from Horvat over the last eight years, that he responded Tuesday by scoring twice in a 6-4 win against the Ottawa Senators that allowed the Canucks to take a breath before facing the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday.
While he waits for a new contract that may not come from the only NHL team he has played for, Horvat has 12 goals in 13 games. Only Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, the best player on the planet, has scored more.
The victory actually substantiated some of Rutherford’s blunt observations about structure and systems play. Outshot 30-10 at one point, the Canucks were pretty awful for most of the game’s first half, offering giveaways like they were the Publishers Clearing House and, generally, failing to complete a pass or win a puck battle. Only goalie Spencer Martin’s brilliance had Vancouver close enough late in the second period for Ilya Mikheyev to tie it 2-2 at 13:50 by torching former Canuck defenceman Travis Hamonic.
But from then on, the Canucks were better. And they were good in the third period when they outscored the struggling Senators 4-2, getting the first goals this season from Brock Boeser and Jack Studnicka and a stress-busting empty-netter from Elias Pettersson with 45 seconds remaining.
These final 27 minutes proved something else: the players still care and they still work for head coach Bruce Boudreau.
“I feel good that we got that win for him, that’s for sure,” Horvat said. “Obviously, he’s under a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, and when stuff like that comes out, he feels like he’s got to do more. For me, he puts all the systems in place. We had a training camp and we know what we have to do out there; it’s just a matter of us going out there and doing it. We kind of feel responsible for that, and to get a win for him tonight definitely feels great.”
“We’re doing this as a group here,” forward J.T. Miller said. “We’re all sticking together, Bruce included. When we all feel good and play good for each other, good things are going to happen. That was a big third period just to get the win there. And obviously Marty played a hell of a game. Probably not a great 30 minutes (to start), but sometimes it feels good to kind of steal the game. And we played a hell of a third period. I think we feel good about the win at the end of the day.”
As they say, there is a lot for the Canucks to clean up. The Senators have lost six straight games, yet dominated the Canucks for most of the first two periods and easily could have led by three or four goals going into the third.
But as Vancouver defenceman Luke Schenn pointed out, the Canucks were equally dominant the first two periods on Saturday against the Nashville Predators but couldn’t get enough pucks past goalie Juuse Saros. The Canucks eventually blew another 3-0 lead and lost 4-3 in a shootout.
They had no such trouble Tuesday against Ottawa goalie Cam Talbot.
Somehow, the Canucks are 4-1-1 in their last six games despite surrendering 22 goals.
“Marty played great for us and kept us in it and made some great saves just like Saros did,” Schenn said. “We’ve got to enjoy the wins and build on it. Obviously, the penalty killing needs to get better and we need to keep pucks out of our net. But you’ve got enjoy winning because it’s hard.”
Boudreau said after the morning skate that he tries to keep “noise” out of the dressing room, but there was no barricading Rutherford’s criticism from players.
“It’s tough to keep noise out of the room when it’s on social media and it’s everywhere and, obviously, when you guys bring it into the room,” Horvat said. “I mean, it is what it is, right? But I think we did a great job of blocking it out tonight (during the game), and maybe fueling us a little bit going out there and getting a win.”
“Our control is what happens inside the room and how we play,” Schenn said. “We don’t make decisions; we’re not paid to do that. We realize we’ve got better hockey in us to play. What is there, 69 games left? We’ve got a ways to go for sure.”
Martin finished with 37 saves and is now 6-0-4 since the Canucks offered him a pathway back to the NHL last season after nearly seven years in the minors.
After Pettersson’s clincher in the final minute, when half of the few thousand Senators fans had vacated their rink, those in Ottawa cheering for the Canucks started a hearty chorus of “Bruce, there it is!” for Boudreau.
The coach couldn’t have been sure he’d hear that again.
“I know the character of those guys,” Boudreau said of his players. “They want to win. Like, any human being doesn’t like anything negative said about them. So, I mean, they wanted to come up there and win this one. And they did.”
