When you’re in a 20-plus-game-long mean-nothing stretch run, it’s inevitable there will be games that are light on action.
Wednesday’s encounter at Rogers Arena, a 3-2 overtime win for the Vancouver Canucks over the Anaheim Ducks, was one of those.
There were shots, and there were goals, but the crowd was as quiet as it gets. And who could blame them. The action was spare.
One of the Canucks’ goals only went in because it took a crazy bounce off the heel of one the Ducks.
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There just wasn’t much going on. In the third period, the Canucks’ game presentation crew tried to shake the crowd into a frenzy several times, including playing Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. Such was the level of indifference in the stands.
But head coach Rick Tocchet insisted that after a poor start, he was happy with his team’s overall effort on the night.
“We were very cute the first six, seven minutes and we warned guys about that,” he said. “You just got to be ready to play the same way. And I thought that the second part of the (first) was better.”
J.T. Miller scored the winner off the rush in overtime, his second of the night. His first was a fantastic finish off a brilliant takeaway by Elias Pettersson from a pass attempt by Anaheim goalie Lukas Dostal. Andrei Kuzmenko, whose centring pass bounced over the shoulder of Dostal after first hitting the heel of Ducks forward Mason McTavish, had the Canucks’ second tally.
Troy Terry scored on a brutal defensive breakdown by the Canucks — there were several of these by the home team in the first — as did Brock McGinn, who was left alone by Quinn Hughes off a faceoff late in the second period.
Here’s what we learned …
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The power PK
Miller’s goal means the Canucks now have eight short-handed goals since Rick Tocchet took over as head coach on Jan. 22.
Eight goals on 14 shots.
Now, three of those goals have been into empty nets, but that’s still an impressive run of counterpunching by Vancouver.
Pettersson said he read that Dostal was out of options and figured he’d have to try a pass along the end boards. He was Johnny-on-the-spot as a result.
Pettersson said even before he peeked he expected that Miller would be roaring down the slot.
“My pass wasn’t the best but he found a way to still find a way to score it,” Pettersson said.
The Canucks’ penalty kill is playing much better since Tocchet took over, who praised the work of assistant Mike Yeo. Yeo was also in charge of the penalty kill under Bruce Boudreau — and drew praise for his work with the PK last season in Philadelphia — and for most of the season, the PK has been all-time bad.
But they’re now at 68.3 per cent success rate, 0.1 points above the all-time worst mark, set by the Los Angeles Kings more than 50 years ago.
Pettersson forcing the turnover ahead of the goal came off exactly the kind of read Tocchet and Yeo are looking for more from their penalty killers.
“We want up-ice pressure, you know, we just don’t want to back off and that was the right time to do it,” Tocchet explained. “And like I said, those guys got some magic right now.”
The winner
Miller called his winner an ad lib. The Ducks barely challenged his zone entry — Terry aimless skated away, in fact — and he took the shot that presented itself.
“We do a double drop every time and try to get as much speed as we can and hopefully they lose their gap,” Miller said of the Canucks’ normal strategy in overtime. “I think their guy just kind of gave me a lane because Quinn went back again. And at that point, I think they were flat-footed — I’m not 100 per cent sure — but you don’t get a chance to just attack in overtime, with a free lane to shoot — unless it’s turned over or something — so I just tried to take it in and shoot it.”
30 for Kuzmenko
Andrei Kuzmenko giggled about how his goal went in.
He’s been told to shoot more, he said. He’s got a heavy shot, the team’s goalies have noted to more than one reporter.
So it was ironic that the goal came off a random bounce on a pass attempt.
“Yes a big surprise for me,” he said, laughing.
He’s a first-class finisher. A poacher.
He’s having a season that no first-year Canucks player has had in 30 years.
Of course, Pavel Bure was just 20 when he scored 35 goals in 64 games but he had three professional seasons in the USSR under his belt when he arrived in Vancouver.
Kuzmenko wasn’t a full-time KHLer until he was 20.
But he’s already one of the best Russians to ever play in Vancouver, still well behind Bure and Alexander Mogilny but certainly not far off from how Igor Larionov performed over his three seasons in Vancouver.
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Tough night
It wasn’t Hughes’ best night. He struggled defending for much of the game, in a way that hasn’t been evident much this season.
He made poor reads with the puck and lost his man more than once.
And then he took a puck in the face in the third.
He returned later, but it was far from a vintage performance.
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The ice
The ice at Rogers Arena has drawn more than few quiet complaints from visiting teams this season. When the Philadelphia Flyers were in town a few weeks ago, the complaints were audible from the handful of players who took the morning skate, confused over why the puck wouldn’t sit still.
The puck was bouncing with abandon on Wednesday, making it difficult for the Canucks’ skill players to do much of anything.
Replacement of the various ice-making equipment — the dehumidifier, the under-ice concrete pad, the refrigeration equipment — can’t come soon enough.
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