VANCOUVER — Brock Boeser said the week of the National Hockey League trade deadline earlier this month was the second longest week of his life.
“The first was the week my dad passed away,” Boeser said Tuesday night. “And the second was that. I never really felt like that before; the time went by so slow because you didn’t know what was going to happen. You were just kind of sitting around waiting to see what’s going to happen.”
As it turned out, nothing happened for Boeser and the Vancouver Canucks. But time didn’t exactly speed up for the longest-serving Canuck after the March 7 deadline.
There was general manager Patrik Allvin’s public confession that there wasn’t much trade interest in Vancouver’s available players, which wasn’t the ringing endorsement Boeser hoped to hear. But there was also, as Boeser admits, his poor play and a scoring slump that reached 12 games before Tuesday.
But in this tumultuous season of unexpected, unforeseeable plot twists for the Canucks, the team offered one of its biggest surprises by thumping the Western Conference-leading Winnipeg Jets 6-2 at Rogers Arena.
And as if this were not reinvigorating enough for the Canucks in their late drive for a wild-card playoff spot, the offensive ambush of the Jets and Vezina Trophy-favourite Connor Hellebuyck was led by Boeser, whose two goals equalled his output from the last 20 games.
When least expected but most needed, Boeser broke out on a line with Elias Pettersson and Nils Hoglander to hit the 20-goal mark for the sixth time in eight seasons in Vancouver. Canuck centre Pius Suter’s pair made him a 20-goal NHL scorer for the first time.
“I think it’s just a building block,” Boeser told reporters after the game. “It’s definitely a good game to keep going off and build off of. I thought our line played well. But not just our line, our whole team played well and were connected and worked hard. So overall, it’s just a great game to build confidence (ahead of) a huge road trip.”
Just 6-7 since the NHL’s February schedule break but still tied for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, the Canucks start a six-game playoff-race survival test Thursday against the St. Louis Blues, who are even with the Canucks at 75 points but have played one more game.
In its previous 18 games, Vancouver had scored more than three goals just once. And the six they poured in Saturday against the Chicago Blackhawks came were an asterisk because, well, it was against the Chicago Blackhawks.
But the formidable Jets are one of the Stanley Cup favourites and their goalie, Hellebuyck, considered the best in the world at his position.
The Canucks pumped in three goals in the first period, two more in the second after the Jets had climbed back within a goal, down 3-2, and added Suter’s empty-netter with four seconds remaining in the third.
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Boeser tipped in Quinn Hughes’ shot for a power-play goal that broke a 1-1 tie at 18:29 of the first period, then darted to the net to hack a rebound through Hellebuyck’s pads to make it 4-2 at 13:57 of the middle period.
Just Tuesday morning, Boeser told reporters after the morning skate how hard he has been on himself for his goal-less streak — before and after the trade deadline — and that he needed to bring a more positive attitude.
“I’ve been really hard on myself to, you know, step up and be better for our team,” he said before the game. “And I think if I just have a positive attitude and a better mindset, I think I can find my way back to my game.
“You know, at the end of the day, I’ve got to be grateful for the position we’re in (and) grateful to play in this league. And I think just having a positive mindset and a better attitude coming to the rink every day, I can work my way out of this.”
He got a massive dose of positivity against the Jets, finishing with three points and five shot attempts in 19:38 of ice time.
“I had the right mindset,” Boeser explained later of his slump. “But I think I let frustration take over my game a lot. You can have the right mindset (to start) but if you’re going to get frustrated after three shifts, it just comes apart.”
“Brock’s one of my closest friends,” Canucks captain Hughes said. “He’s been someone I can lean on, and just been, you know, a really quality friend. Obviously, you never want to see anyone struggle. But in saying that, I think you know everyone on this team has kind of gone through some ups and downs this year. And as far as Brock and the message that everyone in here needs to have, it’s just: every game’s a new night and each game has a new personality, and you don’t know when you’re going to break through.”
In a radio interview Tuesday morning, Canucks coach Rick Tocchet defended his priorities on defending and playing low-event hockey, explaining it gives Vancouver the best chance to win the way the team is currently configured.
“Without the puck, we’re a good hockey team,” Tocchet said. “We’ve just got to be a better team with the puck.”
They were both on Tuesday. With the advantage of offence, which included beautiful goals off the rush by Drew O’Connor and Hoglander, the Canucks’ usual strengths were still evident: solid goaltending from Kevin Lankinen, mindful defending and net-front protection, and outstanding penalty killing.
The Jets’ best chance to get back in the game were overlapping Canuck penalties that bridged the second intermission and included a 17-second five-on-three. But Lankinen had to make just one close-range save.
The Canucks surrendered only eight third-period shots to the Jets, and just 21 in the game to the NHL’s third highest-scoring team.
“We just did the right things,” Suter said. “I think it’s a great confidence boost for everybody. Obviously, in two days we’ve got a huge, four-point game coming up (against the Blues). I think this helps just to kind of get everybody’s confidence up and everyone feels good about themselves.”
“This is great,” Tocchet said of the performance. “Enjoy it for, you know, five minutes, and then we’ve got to get back to reality that we’ve got to go into St Louis. I mean, that’s just the world we live in.”
ICE CHIPS — The Canucks played without Conor Garland due to an undisclosed injury the play-driving winger has been managing. Minor-league call-up Linus Karlsson replaced Garland in the lineup, and rookie Jonathan Lekkerimaki took his spot on the first-unit power play. Lekkerimaki assisted on Boeser’s first goal.
