It felt like J.T. Miller had a dozen chances to score a goal against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night and he just couldn’t buy a goal.
He was robbed by Devils goaltender Nico Daws midway through the first period on a glorious setup by Conor Garland. Later in the first, Garland gifted him an open net at the backdoor and the puck went off the heel of his stick on the backhand.
He had a breakaway in the second period on a gorgeous stretch pass by Quinn Hughes but was stymied by the right toe of Daws on a deke to the forehand. Then Miller picked off a pass in the Devils’ zone for a wide open chance between the hashmarks and he fired the puck wide. Chance after chance, Miller just couldn’t find the back of the net.
Hockey analytics site Natural Stat Trick had Miller at 10 shot attempts, 7 shots on goal, and 5 high-danger scoring chances. And, somehow, 0 goals.
It seemed like it just wasn’t going to be Miller’s night. But it was.
Miller finished the game with yet another three-point night, his seventh of the season, as he assisted on three of the Canucks’ six goals. He extended his point streak to 13 games, with a whopping 27 points during his streak. Even when he couldn’t buy a goal to save his life, Miller found a way to not only contribute, but dominate.
“He's been unbelievable,” said Hughes of Miller. “I can't say enough about him. I've got a ton of respect for him and he's a real leader in the group. He doesn't take nights off and he's ultra-competitive — maybe the most competitive player I've ever played with.”
Head coach Bruce Boudreau had even higher praise for Miller, drawing a parallel with the two best players in Vancouver Canucks history.
“You guys had the Sedins here for years,” said Boudreau. “Sometimes they weren't scoring but they were just making plays and you look at the scorecard after and they're plus-three and they've got three points. That's what great players do. Sometimes they're not totally visually dominant, but sometimes they're just out there doing the right things. You put them in the right spots and they take care of business. I think J.T. and Bo [Horvat] both are really feeling it in that respect right now.”
The end result was a dominant win over the Devils, with Miller and Horvat each tallying three points. It turns out you can have two leaders on the same team without arguing over which one should be captain. At least, that’s what I saw when I watched this game.
- Quinn Hughes finally got his first win ever against his younger brother, Jack Hughes, after coming up short in four-straight meetings dating back to when Quinn was in the NCAA and Jack was in the US National Team Development Program. There may not have been a painting riding on this game but it still had to feel good.
- “It was nice to beat him finally but, at the same time, at this point of the season, we needed a win so bad,” said Hughes, “The mentality wasn't really about that, it was more about we need wins right now…He was unreal. I thought he was probably the best player on the ice tonight.”
- Jack Hughes was absurdly good in this game. He was electric when the puck was on his stick, creating scoring chances for his linemates out of thin air. He finished with a goal and an assist but it felt like he should have had far more.
- Well, Jack could have been credited for one more assist. He sprung J.T. Miller in transition with an awful giveaway early in the first period. Miller jumped into the offensive zone, then looped back when he realized he had no help. Brad Hunt must have put on smaller skates today, because he suddenly transformed into Paul Coffey, overlapping Miller, taking his pass down the left wing, and blasting a slap shot just over the pad of Nico Daws and inside the far post.
- It was an old school slap shot off the rush by Hunt and it was matched by an old school hockey smile by Hunt — he’s missing most of a front tooth after a high stick a couple of games ago that was overturned after video review.
- Nils Höglander had just two goals in his last 31 games heading into Tuesday night, but he is still the Canucks’ best player when it comes to creating high-danger scoring chances. Appropriately, when he gave the Canucks a 2-0 lead, the goal was scored right on top of the crease in front of the net.
- Luke Schenn chipped the puck around the boards and Brock Boeser picked it up on his backhand behind the net before swinging it in front to a wide open Bo Horvat. Daws did well to stop Horvat’s initial shot but Höglander crashed the crease to bat the rebound out of midair — as opposed to lowair or highair — and into the net.
- “I hope he plays like he played tonight,” said Boudreau of Höglander. “I thought he was responsible, which is the big thing…he played with energy and he played responsibly — when he plays like that, he’s a pretty good player.”
- Höglander did have a strong game defensively, which makes it kind of a shame that it was his man that scored when the Devils responded before the end of the first. It was a transition chance and Höglander stayed central, which is the safe thing to do, but he needed to make a shoulder check to pick up the trailer, Ryan Graves, who took Yegor Sharangovich’s pass and beat Thatcher Demko over the glove.
- Jack Hughes made up for his earlier miscue by taking a gorgeous flip pass by Jesper “Beat On The” Bratt, speeding past Tyler Myers and tying the game on the breakaway. Ironically, he actually muffed the shot, which slipped off the top of his stick. That probably worked to his advantage as Demko, attempting to read the initial shot, had no clue where the puck was going.
- Bo Horvat stepped up to get the Canucks back on top. He picked off a pass at his own blue line and broke away, then wound up a slap shot straight out of the 80’s, blasting a hole right through Nico Daws like he was Steve Oedekerk.
- “That was just pure ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’ to be honest with you,” said Horvat. “That was probably my first ever slap shot goal, I’m not even lying. I was kind of gassed at the end of a shift, I knew I didn’t have enough strength to throw a good snapshot at him, so I wound up for it and thankfully it went in.”
- For the record, according to the NHL statistics that is the third slap shot goal of Horvat’s career. That probably includes one-timers, however, so he might be right that it was the first pure slap shot goal of his career.
- “Everybody was chirping me saying it was maybe 66 miles per hour,” said Horvat after being informed that his slap shot reached 96.5 miles per hour. “I’ll have to go chirp the guys now that we’ve got the trackers in the pucks.”
- It looked like Tyler Myers was going to follow suit with Hunt and Horvat and unleash a slap shot from the wing off the rush. Instead, he wound up and sent a bullet of a slap-pass to Tanner Pearson at the top of the crease for a tap-in goal. It was legitimately one of the greatest slap-passes I’ve ever seen.
- The Devils clawed one back a few minutes later. Jack Hughes started the rush with a stretch pass to Sharangovich, who rattled Demko’s cage with a high shot off his mask. As Demko reached across his body with his glove to cover the rebound, that twisted his body and pulled his right pad back, allowing Nathan Bastian to poke the puck past him for the 4-3 goal.
- A double-minor on Tyler Motte late in the second period for high sticking gave the Devils a golden opportunity to tie the game but instead the Canucks put the game away with a shorthanded goal. Miller went barreling in on Nico Hischier to separate him from the puck, then Quinn Hughes sent Horvat away with a step on Dougie Hamilton. This time, Horvat had the strength for a snapshot and sent the puck perfectly off the post and in.
- "He was a true leader tonight," said Boudreau of Horvat. "They were taking it to us pretty good until he scored that shorthanded goal...On the bench, he was vocal. He was a true captain tonight."
- Hughes once again got more shorthanded ice time than Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who actually didn’t even step on the ice during the Canucks’ penalty kill. It’s an intriguing development.
- "With Hughes, the one thing on faceoffs, especially that start the penalty kill — we used to do the same thing with Mike Green in Washington because he’s got such good hands that if we won the draw, it was 50/50 that he’d be able to pull the puck out of a pile and get it down for that first clear, which is vitally important,” said Boudreau. “We use [Hughes] for that reason and he’s so quick on the puck. There’s attributes that he doesn’t have that you like in penalty killers, but you can’t have everything.”
- The Canucks finished off the scoring with yet another goal from Juho Lammikko. Motte did the yeoman’s work behind the net to win the puck, feeding it to Luke Schenn in the high slot. His shot didn’t have a lot of juice on it but that worked to the Canucks’ advantage, as it was slow enough for Lammikko to tip down and in.
- This was a tremendously disciplined effort from the Canucks, who neutralized the Devils’ speed with a tight, crisp breakout and an aggressive forecheck and neutral zone pinch. The coaches deserve a lot of credit for the gameplan in this one.
- “We talked about it on the bench — we screamed about it on the bench — that we didn't want to get into a track meet with these guys because they're about as fast a team as you're going to play,” said Boudreau. “People wouldn't say we're the fastest team but if we keep them in front of us and we don't get into a track meet we're usually pretty successful.”
- Elias Pettersson may have missed his second game due to an upper body injury but he was there in spirit. There was a moment when the TV cameras caught a close glimpse of Nils Höglander’s gloves and they had the number “40” printed in sharpie, which initially seemed to be a cute tribute to his good friend, Pettersson.
- On closer inspection, however, there’s definitely an “EP” stitched into the cuff of Höglander’s glove, which means those are actually Pettersson’s gloves. Höglander was wearing Pettersson’s gloves. This is the only thing we should be talking about right now.
- Turns out, Höglander’s been wearing them the whole season. “Yeah, I’m always wearing Petey’s gloves,” said Höglander. “I really like them, so I stay with them.” He explained that their gloves are very similar but Pettersson’s just feel more comfortable, so he’s been wearing his gloves all season long.
- “They’re pretty good buddies, so I think they share more than gloves,” said Horvat.
- All I’m saying is if there aren't a half dozen fanfics titled “More Than Gloves” on ao3 in the next week, then the hockey fanfic community is slipping.
