As fast and skilled as hockey can be, violence will always be a part of the game.
More than that, hockey fans love violence. While some fans have developed a distaste for fighting, plenty of fans still love to see players drop the gloves, and even the most peace-loving hockey fans love to see a big hit or the physical pushback of a scrum after an opponent has taken liberties.
Hockey fans especially love violence when it comes from an unexpected player.
On Thursday night, Rogers Arena was the loudest it has been all season, not for a highlight-reel goal or a jaw-dropping save, but for Vancouver Canucks star Quinn Hughes grabbing the Chicago Blackhawks’ Andreas Athanasiou in a headlock and tackling him to the ice.
It was the only possible thing that could have made Canucks fans love Hughes even more than they already did.
It didn’t even seem like anything egregious sparked the confrontation. Hughes pushed Athanasiou in the back and he spun around and slashed Hughes and that was enough.
“Oh, I don’t know, just a long season,” said Hughes with a sly grin when asked about what made him do it.
The two continued to jaw at each other in the penalty box and the Rogers Arena entertainment crew recognized the moment and fed it perfectly. They cut back and forth between Hughes and Athanasiou in their respective boxes, prompting deafening cheers for Hughes and vociferous boos for Athanasiou.
“The crowd was into it after that. That’s some nifty camerawork there, panning between the two guys,” said Thatcher Demko with a smile. “It was good to see, I know the team liked seeing that from a guy like that, for sure.”
You see, hockey players love the violence inherent in the game too, and not just when a player stands up for themselves or a teammate. There’s a rush to not just giving a hit but taking one as well.
Cole McWard, in his NHL debut, took a lot of hits: seven of them, more than twice as many as any other Canuck. He didn’t let it faze him in the slightest, as every time he took a hit, it seemed to be in service of making a clean breakout. It was the epitome of taking a hit to make the play.
“Definitely, the first couple hits, it was like, ‘Wow, I’m really in this.’ Big boys out there,” said McWard. “After taking a few of those, you know you can take it…First shift, if you can take a body, it lets your mind know you’re in a war, you’re in a battle.”
I saw the violence inherent in the system when I watched this game.
- McWard did make it clear that he didn’t plan on taking quite so many hits in the future. “I think that's something that with time, I’ll be better about,” he said. “Just getting to pucks quicker and then getting my head up and making plays quicker. Obviously, they're gonna have more time to hit me if I'm kind of lollygagging. That’ll come with adjusting, that'll come with having my head up. So, hopefully, I will take less hits each game, but if I’ve got to take a hit to make a play, then that's what I'll do.”
- McWard looked solid in his debut, making crisp passes and absorbing hits with his hefty frame. He had his parents on hand to see him, already in “McWard” Canucks jerseys but not his brother: “My brother actually doesn’t have a passport, so he couldn’t make it.”
- “There’s something there,” said Tocchet of McWard. “He’s a big kid — he’s gonna get even thicker, [Adam] Foote and me were talking about that…Usually college is a lot of hits and more scrambly. I think when he gets up to speed with the game, he’ll be able to get in those situations where he’s not going to get hit as much but sometimes, in a breakout, you’ve got to absorb hits and he did that.”
- Akito Hirose continued to impress. He played over 20 minutes in his third NHL game, contributing on both the penalty kill and the power play, and tallied two assists — his first points in the NHL. If I didn’t know how “Hirose” was pronounced, I would say Hirose to the occasion.
- “I'd say it's probably something I was just born with. Just a God-given gift, I guess,” said Hirose when asked about where his composure on the breakout comes from. Then he and everyone else in the room burst out laughing as he tried and failed to keep a deadpan expression at the self-aggrandizing boast. “Yeah, I’ll go with that.”
- Hirose picked up his first career assist with, appropriately, a smart and simple play: on a long offensive zone possession, he rung the puck around the boards to Elias Pettersson and giving the puck to Pettersson is always a smart choice. Pettersson sent a saucer pass to Andrei Kuzmenko, who had rotated to the point, and his long wristshot defied Kuzmenko’s inevitable shooting percentage regression to float through traffic and beat Alex Stalock, who basically slid out of the way of the puck.
- It only took 900 words to note that Thatcher Demko got a shutout, his first — and the Canucks’ first — since Bruce Boudreau’s first game as head coach way back on December 6, 2021. Demko made 33 saves on 33 shots, including a few dandies on Boris “Great Value Tkachuk” Katchouk, who seemed to get the Blackhawks’ best chances.
- “I didn’t know how he worked this hard,” said Tocchet of Demko. “In the gym, on the ice, he’s with [Ian Clark] a lot in his office watching video — I knew he was a top goalie but I didn’t know the work ethic he had and leadership qualities. I should mention it more when I talk about the leadership group, he’s in that leadership group, for sure.”
- Demko got the shutout, but Stalock made the save of the game at the other end, robbing Anthony Beauvillier of a power play goal with a Hasekian two-pad stack. Or, as John Shorthouse put it, “John Garrett-style.”
- Shorty’s best turn of phrase — or worst, depending on your point of view — was when he pointed out the absurd number of draft picks the Blackhawks have accumulated and called it “Thomas Drance erotica.” Thanks, John, now that phrase lives in all of our brains, no matter how much we try to bleach it out.
- Vitaly Kravtsov has been a healthy scratch for a few games and came back seemingly hungry to prove himself. It was the right time for him to have his best game as a Canuck and not only did he get a goal, but he had five hits. His physical engagement helped drive his game, as he was a disruptor like Miles Bron all game: causing multiple infraction points on the forecheck and in the neutral zone.
- Getting his first goal as a Canuck was nice, though, because, like a fig tree around Jesus, Kravtsov needs to produce. On the power play, Hirose moved the puck to Kravtsov, who looped behind the net and set up a shot for Conor Garland that was blocked. Garland sent it back to Kravtsov who tried to set up a tap-in goal for Sheldon Dries at the backdoor only for the puck to go in off Seth Jones’ skate instead.
- J.T. Miller has clearly played some mini-golf in his life, as he played the bank perfectly to send the puck into the empty net from his own zone. It was the 30th goal of the season for Miller, the second-straight season he’s hit that milestone. The best part was Tyler Myers skating up to celebrate and seemingly asking him, “Did you do that on purpose?”
- The one downside to the win is that it put the Blackhawks in a dead heat for last place in the NHL, tied with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Anaheim Ducks with 56 points. It would really stink if the Canucks played any role in Connor Bedard ending up on the Blackhawks.
