VANCOUVER — As far as their schedule goes, the worst is over. We’re pretty sure you can say the same thing about the Vancouver Canucks’ season. The worst is over.
But if they’re actually going to save their year, which would confound critics and realists alike, the Canucks are going to need a bunch more results like Tuesday’s, when they stumbled out of the National Hockey League All-Star Break before finding their feet and trampling the Arizona Coyotes 5-1 at Rogers Arena.
It opened a spell of six home games out of their next seven — a starter’s gun to what will need to be a remarkable 36-game sprint to the finish line if the Canucks, 6-14-2 a couple of months ago, are really going to climb all the way back to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
They’re already closer than most of us thought possible — 13-5-4 since Bruce Boudreau came in to coach the calamity. But they need to build winning streaks longer than a couple of games, taking advantage of weaklings like the Coyotes but also going big-game hunting. The New York Islanders visit Rogers Arena on Wednesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in Vancouver on Saturday.
It’s not only a big week for the team, but a big week of meetings for the rebuilt hockey-operations department, headed by president Jim Rutherford and new general manager Patrik Allvin.
They have noted, like everyone, that the Canucks roster has holes and needs improving, and whatever happens in the next few weeks, the organization must be in a stronger position a couple of years from now.
But having witnessed the buy-in of the Canucks players they’ve inherited, how many are they willing to sell before the March 21 trade deadline?
It’s a delicate balance, and the players are not making it easy on management.
The resilience the Canucks displayed on Tuesday is indicative of the turnaround to their season.
Ragged after a week without games and only one full practice, the Canucks were badly outplayed in the first period by the worst team in the Western Conference. The period ended with the Coyotes on a 12-1 shooting run — and the score still 0-0 thanks to Vancouver’s all-star goalie, Thatcher Demko.
Then the Canucks burst upon the ice for the second period a different team, and pumped in three goals in two-and-a-half minutes. And the scorers were significant: struggling top-six forwards Conor Garland, Bo Horvat and Elias Pettersson.
“I hope it builds up their confidence. . . for guys that have been in a little bit of a slump,” Boudreau told reporters on Zoom. “If your best players aren’t your best players, then you very rarely win. And I thought tonight, they stepped up and did the job when they had to. We’ll be better tomorrow, but the best players did what they had to do and that’s score some goals.”
Boudreau said the opening period, in which the Canucks were outshot 15-7, was as bad as he has seen since he became coach 22 games ago. It was certainly in Vancouver’s bottom five.
“We knew that wasn’t good enough,” winger J.T. Miller said. “We got outskated, outworked, out-executed. They drew penalties because they played with the puck and we chased them around. So it’s not good enough. The message was fairly simple.”
“I was pretty surprised,” Boudreau said of the false start. “We came out and it was like we were in quicksand.
“Usually if I’m really upset, I’ll go in (to talk to the players) right after the period, but I didn’t do that. I tried to calm myself. And when I went in I just told them, in no uncertain terms, we had to be better and that this game was really important to us. And it really didn’t mean a lot to Arizona, and we can’t have that… them outworking us.”
Miller secured the win with a spectacular solo goal at 6:20 of the third period. On the ice for more than a minute at four-on-four, most of it in his own zone as the Coyotes pressed, Miller skated the puck end to end before rounding defenceman Janis Moser and goalie Karel Vejmelka.
And to cap a highly imperfect win with a near-perfect scoresheet, the Canucks got their fifth goal from Brock Boeser, on a terrific power-play shot-pass by Pettersson.
Five Canucks goals from five scorers vital to any success the team is going to have.
Former Coyote defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson had three assists as Vancouver’s power play, minus COVID-positive quarterback Quinn Hughes, went two-for-three.
Miller said he was “lucky” on his goal. His team wasn’t.
It was good enough to beat the Coyotes. Nearly everyone is. But the Canucks will need some luck, a lot more goals from their best players and a pile of wins in the next two months to give themselves a chance at actually making the playoffs. They’ll also need Rutherford and Allvin to believe in them.
“I don’t think it was a perfect game by any means,” Miller said. “I know we’re going to need to be a hell of a lot better tomorrow (against the Islanders) to win the game. I thought we capitalized on our looks and needed a special-teams game like that. I have no doubt we’re going to be a lot better tomorrow.”
