Even though he tried to play it off like it didn’t matter, J.T. Miller was choked when he didn’t get to 100 points last season.
“I just keep telling people I didn’t play a full season and it makes me feel better,” quipped Miller during the offseason on John Scott’s Dropping the Gloves podcast. “Yeah, it sucks.”
“That’s most likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the part that sucks is I got the 99th in the first period of that last game,” said Miller. But while that opportunity passed Miller by without him reaching the century mark, he wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to Elias Pettersson.
Pettersson came into Tuesday night’s game in Anaheim with 99 points and Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet loaded up the top line, putting Miller and Pettersson together, with Phil Di Giuseppe tasked with doing the dirty work on the other wing.
“Let’s at least get one point today and make sure you get to 100,” said Miller before the game according to Pettersson.
It was evident how badly the Canucks wanted to get Pettersson his 100th point. His line was flying all night, out-shooting the Anaheim Ducks 14-to-2 when they were on the ice at 5-on-5. When the 100th point finally came, however, it was on the power play and it featured a reunion of the Lotto Line.
Miller got the puck on the left side boards and was looking to find Pettersson as soon as he got the puck. He sent a sick cross-seam pass from one side of the ice to the other to Pettersson, who sent an equally sick one-touch pass to a waiting Brock Boeser at the backdoor.
It seemed fitting that Miller, Pettersson, and Boeser connected for the milestone and Boeser knew exactly what to do: he collected the puck from the net, then made sure that Pettersson was first to the bench to accept the accolades from his teammates.
It's a moment that clearly matter to Miller and it clearly mattered to Boeser. What did it mean to Pettersson?
“It means that I can breathe out again,” he quipped. “I’m very happy with it. It’s something that I didn’t think about before this season…I couldn’t have done it without the guys.”
Pettersson became just the sixth Canuck all-time to record 100 points in a season, following in the footsteps of Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Markus Naslund, and Daniel and Henrik Sedin. That’s a who’s who of the most talented forwards to ever play for the Canucks, four of whom have their numbers retired by the Canucks and three of whom are in the Hockey Hall of Fame. That’s the group to which Pettersson belongs.
I saw a small part of a legend’s journey when I watched this game.
- The Canucks drafted Pettersson fifth overall in the 2017 draft despite falling three spots in the draft lottery. They were only in that position because they lost their last eight games of the season to stall at 69 points, a point below the New Jersey Devils and Arizona Coyotes for second-last in the NHL. With the win over the Ducks, the Canucks jumped from 25th in the NHL to 23rd. I’m just saying.
- Tocchet threw a little cold water on Pettersson’s accomplishment: “When you don’t make the playoffs, you look for little, small victories. Having a guy that gets a hundred points is nice. But now we want team goals, team stats, and stuff like that. Obviously, it’s great, I love that Petey got it, but it’s better if we start having more team goals than individual stats, for me.”
- “I wanted to get Petey a couple of good forechecking guys,” said Tocchet about putting him with Miller and DiGuiseppe. Tocchet clearly wasn’t happy with how Andrei Kuzmenko and Vitaly Kravtsov had played on his wings in the team’s previous game. Kravtsov, who particularly struggled on Monday against the Los Angeles Kings, was bumped form the lineup entirely, replaced by Aidan McDonough, who whiffed on a couple of chances but at least got those chances and played well along the boards.
- Pettersson’s 100th point was a thing of beauty. His one-touch slap pass evoked the Wizardous Sedinery of the past to give Boeser the tap-in goal. You could call it “Petterssonian Sorcery” or “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Sedinery” or “What If Swedish Twins Were Just One Guy.”
- The second power play unit made it 2-0 thanks to a fantastic stretch pass by Akito Hirose, who keeps looking more and more like an NHLer, partly because of the skates and helmet and gloves and stick and jersey, but also because of what he does while wearing all of those things. He spotted Kuzmenko sneaking behind the defence and sent him in on a breakaway, where he snapped the puck past Lukas Dostal.
- Mason McTavish scored a power play goal of his own to get the Ducks on the board, taking a one-timer from the right faceoff circle. Pettersson defended on the penalty kill like he was playing against himself: if McTavish shot from Pettersson’s usual spot at the top of the faceoff circle, Pettersson would have been right in the shooting lane. Instead, McTavish set up wider and lower, giving him ample space to hammer the puck under Thatcher Demko’s glove.
- After McTavish’s goal, the two teams were a collective 3-for-3 on the power play with three goals on three shots. That doesn’t really matter but it’s kinda neat.
- Drew Helleson tied up the game with his first career goal in the NHL. It was an unassuming shot from the point that was completely unscreened, so it was a bit of a surprise that it beat Demko. The puck was standing on end, however, and knuckled wildly and was possibly even tipped by Anthony Beauvillier, sending it down under like a British convict in the 1800s.
- Despite the Ducks’ second goal being on the weaker side, Demko was still very good in this game. He was making so many saves that by the end of the game his file was called Canucks_vs_Ducks_FINAL019_newfinal_revisedfinal3_realfinal_v2.gme. He finally got his save percentage for the season above .900 and just in time, as Collin Delia is expected to get the final start of the season.
- A dominant offensive zone shift led to Pettersson’s 101st point and Miller’s 200th career goal. Pettersson controlled the puck along the outside and drew Ducks to him like he was scattering cracked corn in the park. Di Giuseppe smartly opened up at the right faceoff circle for a one-timer, pulling the defenceman away from the front of the net and leaving Miller all alone to score on the rebound.
- The Ducks know how to tank. This was their 12th-straight loss as they compete with the Chicago Blackhawks and Columbus Blue Jackets for last in the NHL and the best odds of drafting Connor Bedard. Instead of their number-one goaltender John Gibson, 22-year-old rookie Lukas Dostal has started five of their last seven games.
- As much as people say that coaches and players don’t tank, Ducks coach Dallas Eakins is definitely on board for the Ducks’ tank. How else do you explain him waiting until there was less than a minute remaining in the game before pulling Dostal for the extra attacker despite having a late power play that would have allowed the Ducks to go 6-on-4 for basically the entirety of the final two minutes? That’s a professional tank job if I’ve ever seen one.
