When Rick Tocchet arrived in Vancouver as the new head coach of the Canucks, one of the first things he took aim at in his introductory press conference was the ice time of the team’s top players.
“I’m not sure, in today’s game, if you want to win, you can play 24 minutes — penalty kill, power play, five-on-five, six-on-five,” said Tocchet. “I think what happens, you get in the habit of pacing yourself. I’ve coached some elite players — Sidney Crosby plays 19-20 minutes.”
“There are times when elite players are out there and you have to use them,” he added, “but I think in the long run, in the long game, you’ve gotta have a four-line team that can play.”
It’s with a certain amount of irony, then, that the ice time for the Canucks’ two best players has actually gone up under Tocchet. Elias Pettersson is averaging a minute more in ice time per game, while Quinn Hughes is averaging 40 seconds more in ice time per game. Only J.T. Miller’s ice time has taken a modest dip of 23 seconds per game.
Pettersson played over 25 minutes in the Canucks’ shootout loss to the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, while J.T. Miller played just short of 26 minutes. Quinn Hughes played over 30 minutes in that game.
On Thursday night against the St. Louis Blues, it was a similar story. Hughes once again played over 30 minutes — the fourth time he has done so this season — and Miller played 24:35. Pettersson was a more modest 22:33, but still beyond the Crosby-esque goal Tocchet set of playing his top forwards 19-20 minutes per game.
On the one hand, this is understandable. Tocchet does not yet have the “four-line team that can play” that he desires, limiting his ability to roll his lines.
In addition, the team’s top players have given Tocchet every reason to keep sending them onto the ice. Miller has responded well to Tocchet’s coaching approach, particularly with more offensive zone starts. Hughes makes marathon shift lengths look effortless. Pettersson has been the Canucks’ best player, proving to be a true superstar who can take over a game at a moment’s notice.
On the other hand, what exactly is gained by playing the wheels off the team’s top players at this point? The 2022-23 season is a bust and the Canucks have accepted their fate with actions like trading Bo Horvat and shutting down Ilya Mikheyev for the season.
Even Tocchet has said the focus right now is not on wins and losses.
“We want results, but I’m not worried about the results. I’m worried about the process,” said Tocchet a couple of weeks ago. “I know that’s the most overused word. We all use it, but it’s true…It’s a process, you can’t just say, ‘Hey, we want to win games’. There’s so much that goes into it.”
Coaches want to win. Of course, they do. And, in the midst of a game where you’re looking to get good match-ups, reward a player with a hot hand, and send messages to players that are missing the mark, it’s easy to lose track of how many minutes each player is getting. Minutes for top players can creep higher and higher.
But if the focus is on process over results, maybe that should apply to the coaching staff too, who should be looking to roll the lines a little bit more and give players like Vasily Podkolzin (10:44 against the Blues) and Aatu Räty (8:06) more opportunities to put the process into action.
If keeping the minutes for Pettersson, Hughes, and Miller leads to a few more losses along the way, that’s okay: the focus is on process, after all. Well, management is likely focusing on results right now, hoping to see poorer results to get the best draft pick possible, so keep the losses coming.
The Canucks didn’t lose when I watched this game.
- It’s a damnably unfair system that leads to Canucks fans watching a fan-favourite player score a game-tying goal in the final minute of two consecutive games and being unable to celebrate them with the fully-unhinged joy that they deserve. The Canucks were seconds away from getting zero points in the standings from their games against the Predators and Blues; instead, they got three and are now two points clear of the Arizona Coyotes and four points clear of the San Jose Sharks in the race for a bottom-five finish in the NHL standings.
- The trouble for the tanking Canucks is that other teams are tanking too, like the Blues. The Blues have also traded away their captain, Ryan O’Reilly, as well as Vladimir Tarasenko earlier in the month. The Blues are still five points ahead of the Canucks in the standings but are falling fast and were massively outplayed by the Canucks in this game.
- Honestly, if not for two questionable goal reviews from a coach’s challenge, the Canucks would have won this game in regulation. They out-shot the Blues 41-to-22 and it was even more lopsided at 5-on-5, where shot attempts were 51-to-21, shots on goal were 30-to-10, and high-danger chances were 10-to-1. Only Jordan Binnington, with the help of video review, was able to keep this game close.
- J.T. Miller seemingly opened the scoring on a delayed penalty, as the Canucks threw the puck around the Blues zone with impunity, with even Tyler Myers making a slick no-look pass to set up an open net for Miller. But the goal was overturned because Binnington made contact with Conor Garland. Never mind that Binnington initiated the contact and had a fireball’s chance in heaven of making the save, it was ruled goaltender interference.
- Making matters worse, the Blues scored on the subsequent power play. Keep in mind, it was a Canucks power play. Hughes did his best Miller impression and turned the puck over with a blind backhand pass, leading to a 2-on-1 with Pettersson as the last man back. Pettersson gambled with a diving pokecheck and completely whiffed, giving Alexey Toropchenko a breakaway. A backchecking Anthony Beauvillier managed to lift Toropchenko’s stick to prevent one shot but, like Andrew Jackson, Toropchenko just shot again, beating Arturs Silovs on the glove side.
- Tyler Tucker made it 2-0 in the second period with his first career goal because that’s what the Canucks do: give up first career goals. His low wrist shot beat a screened Silovs but Tocchet challenged the goal as Ivan Barbashev had knocked down a puck with a high stick earlier in the play. The referees, however, were like Donna Goudeau — they cannot see, they’re legally blind — so the goal stood.
- The two-goal lead lasted until the middle of the third period, as Binnington turned away chance after chance, but it couldn’t last forever: Elias Pettersson is just too damn good. He had a whopping 17 shot attempts, ten of them on goal.
- The Canucks started clawing their way back with a shorthanded goal of their own. Pettersson made a great read on the penalty kill to pick off a pass back to the point and broke out 2-on-1 with Miller, who managed his speed perfectly to put himself in shooting position. Like a master chef, Pettersson gave his dish just the right amount of sauce, floating it over the stick of the sprawling Nick Leddy and Miller made like a great sous-chef and fired the dish at precisely the right time.
- Pettersson was even making saves, going into a butterfly to stop a shot at the empty net late in the game. Then, back in the offensive zone, Pettersson took a cross-ice pass from Miller and fired it into the mass of people in front of the net, hoping for a rebound scramble. Sure enough, the puck hit Andrei Kuzmenko and he whacked it into the net.
- Silovs didn’t have to do too much in the Canucks’ net, facing only 22 shots, but he came up with a huge save in overtime. He missed an attempted pokecheck but wouldn’t let Rob Thomas push him around, stretching his pad across to hold the goal line and keep him from shoving the puck in.
- That set the table for a stupendous individual effort by Pettersson. He picked up speed in the defensive zone and went flying up the left wing like Homelander and Maeve trying to rescue a hijacked plane. Justin Faulk did his best to match his speed and keep a tight gap on the zone entry, but to no avail — Pettersson had all the room he needed to rip a wicked wrist shot past Binnington’s elbow.
- That polished off a three-point game for Pettersson, giving him 11 points in his last four games. It is a crime that he’s having a season this good for a team this bad.
