Some parts of the Vancouver Canucks’ resurgence under Bruce Boudreau have been at least somewhat predictable.
Elias Pettersson was bound to find his game again. Thatcher Demko is one of the best goaltenders in the NHL, so it hasn’t been surprising to see him continue to thrive. J.T. Miller was already playing some of the best hockey of his career before the coaching change, so it makes sense that he’d find a new gear under an up-tempo coach.
But the emergence of Tyler Motte, Juho Lammikko, and Matthew Highmore as a source of secondary scoring? I’m not sure anyone could have predicted that.
The Canucks followed up their 7-1 dominance of the Calgary Flames with another statement win over the New York Rangers, with the fourth line playing a big role in the win.
Boudreau put that trio together during a tough Eastern Conference road trip in mid-January and they were immediately productive together. They’ve been largely inseparable since, with Boudreau leaning on them to play in a match-up role against tough competition, and getting the added bonus of some big goals.
They certainly weren’t known for scoring prior to Boudreau. Motte was the most productive, with 50 points in 220 games and a pretty good playoffs in the 2020 bubble before Boudreau. Highmore had just 17 points in 98 games, while Lammikko had 11 points in 113 games.
Under Boudreau, suddenly all three have amped up their production. Motte has made modest gains, with 10 points in 30 games, going from 0.22 points per game before Boudreau to 0.33 points per game after. Highmore, with his two points Sunday against the New York Rangers, now has 9 points in 20 games under Boudreau, going from 0.17 points per game to 0.45 points per game.
Lammikko has made the most dramatic improvement. He scored in his first game under Boudreau and just keeps scoring. He now has 7 goals and 12 points in 28 games under Boudreau, an improvement from 0.10 points per game to 0.43 points per game.
That may not sound like much, but 0.43-0.45 points per game is legitimately low-end second-line scoring, albeit over the course of a full season. Considering they’re ostensibly on the fourth line and almost all of that scoring is at even-strength, it’s pretty impressive that Lammikko and Highmore — one-time black holes on offence — have scored like low-end second-liners.
I say mostly at even-strength because Highmore’s goal against the Rangers on Sunday was scored on the power play.
Let that sink in for a moment. A Matthew Highmore power play goal. It was, unsurprisingly, the first of his career. Of course it was. Why would Highmore ever be on the power play?
Heck, maybe he should be on the power play. Guess who now leads the Canucks in scoring rate on the power play this season. Yep, it’s Highmore, whose one power play goal has come while averaging 11 seconds of ice time on the power play per game. He’s ruthlessly efficient.
Is this secondary scoring likely to continue? Probability is not in their favour, with the trio riding an on-ice shooting percentage heater that will eventually cool off. I’m not even convinced they’re particularly good as a shutdown line in a match-up role, as they’re generally getting buried by the underlying possession numbers.
But the unpredictability of sports is one of its greatest strengths. Sometimes, the underdog wins. Sometimes, the most unexpected and unassuming players can be the heroes. Most of the time, the depth player with a sudden run of production is Jeff Cowan — an enjoyable flash in the pan — but sometimes he’s Alex Burrows.
Okay, Juho Lammikko probably isn’t the next Alex Burrows but it was still great seeing him score yet another big goal when I watched this game.
- A folk hero line like Motte, Lammikko, and Highmore needs a nickname. John Shorthouse has been calling them the Motto Line — a combo of the Lotto Line and Tyler Motte — while others have mashed up 4th and 1st to create the Fourst Line. But my new favourite suggestion is The Thrift Shop Line, because of their cheap cap hits but also because shoving their names together creates MotteLaMore, which is awfully close to Macklemore, whose biggest hit is “Thrift Shop.” Layers.
- There’s one caveat to this win. The Canucks legitimately played great but it needs to be noted that the Rangers played a hard-fought one-goal game on Saturday and didn’t have Vezina-frontrunner Igor Shesterkin in net. Not to take anything away from how well the Canucks played but it’s a bit of a cliff dive from Shesterkin’s .941 save percentage to Alexandar Georgiev’s .897 save percentage.
- It’s especially unfair when the Canucks had Thatcher Demko committing more robberies than Carl Gugasian. He robbed Mika Zibanejad when the Rangers star snuck behind Lammikko and Motte to the backdoor and the Canucks opened the scoring on the very next shift. Another backdoor save on K’Andre Miller led directly to the 2-0 goal. Without Demko’s brilliance, this game would have gone very, very differently.
- “I’ve run out of things to say because he’s been incredible,” said Boudreau about Demko. “The Calgary game wasn’t a 7-1 game and this game wasn’t a 5-2 game. If it wasn’t for Demko early, it would have been a lot different.”
- Tanner Pearson opened the scoring with some hustle, sneakiness, and finish. He kept the puck in at the blue line with a quick burst of speed, then looped high into the neutral zone, where the Rangers lost track of him as J.T. Miller carried the puck down low. With Conor Garland going hard to the net, all of the Rangers’ defensive attention was focused away from Pearson as he walked into the high slot, took a pass from Miller, and rifled it past Georgiev.
- Pearson has quietly been very, very good under Boudreau. Only Brock Boeser has a better corsi percentage than Pearson since the coaching change and only J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson have more points than Pearson’s 14 at even-strength.
- It felt like the rangers had at least six grade-A scoring chances in the first period but the Canucks came out with the 2-0 lead thanks to another primary assist by Miller. Off a Demko save, Highmore sent Miller away in transition and Tyler Myers jumped up in the rush. Miller found Myers and Myers found the back of the net, which he's had a harder time finding than Willam searching for a sailboat in a Magic Eye.
- Probably the most impressive part of this game for the Canucks is how they played in the second period, not just withstanding the predictable pushback from the Rangers but extending their lead twice over. The Canucks, even under Boudreau, have a tendency to sit back with a lead but against the Rangers, they kept the pressure on, frequently hemming the Rangers in their own zone.
- “We wanted to get in on them — their defence is young and a little bit inexperienced and they played last night,” said Boudreau. “The key to us was to get in on the forecheck, turn pucks over, and play in their end. If they play in our end, their team is too good and too skilled. You can see how many great, golden opportunities they had.”
- The Thrift Shop Line created the 3-0 goal with that forechecking pressure. Motte put the puck in deep, then Lammikko and Highmore pressured the defence, forcing a turnover up the boards to Luke Schenn. Lammikko smartly cut in front as Schenn threw the puck on net and turned his stick into a ramp, sending the puck up off the post and in.
- Elias Pettersson was instrumental to the 4-0 goal in two ways. First, he drew the penalty that led to the power play, then he made a fantastic reverse hit on Ryan Lindgren to maintain possession of the puck, following it up with a nifty dangle to avoid Kevin Rooney.
- Because of that play by Pettersson and a couple of other great puck retrievals by the Canucks, they never had to worry about gaining the zone, which has been the Achilles’ heel of the power play. With 9 seconds left in the power play, the Thrift Shop Line came out for a faceoff in the Rangers’ zone. Lammikko won the draw, then Highmore neatly tipped in an Oliver Ekman-Larsson point shot with one second remaining in the power play.
- The Rangers pushed back in the third period. Off a Travis Hamonic turnover, Zibanejad set up Alexis Lafrenière for a one-timer and the 2020 1st overall pick picked the top corner.
- A few minutes later, Ryan Strome tipped a point shot off the post and banged in the rebound to make it 4-2. Quinn Hughes was fronting Strome instead of battling him in front — likely a coaching decision for the smaller Hughes — which meant Strome’s stick was more free than a convoy occupier in a hot tub.
- After the Strome goal, Boudreau called timeout to settle down his team. “I didn’t want to wait until it got out of control,” said Boudreau. “If they got another one, a timeout might have been a little useless. After two goals, I said, ‘We’ve got a two-goal cushion, let’s calm it down, play the right way, get back to playing fast,’ because we were starting to play pretty slow and watching them.”
- It seemed to do the trick. Or, at least, Demko didn’t allow another goal, which is, to be fair, a good trick. He even picked up an assist on the game-sealing goal, clearing the puck around the boards into the neutral zone, where Pettersson beat Zac Jones to it before backhanding a bouncing puck into the empty net.
- That’s now 11 points in 5 games for Pettersson on his current scoring streak and 21 points in his last 17 games. Not too shabby.
