After a frustrating, grinding loss to the St. Louis Blues on January 4, the Vancouver Canucks made a seismic shift to their lineup.
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet reunited Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, and J.T. Miller on the top line, affectionately dubbed the Lotto Line. Since that move, the Canucks have gone 7-0-1 in their last eight games, with their only loss coming via the shootout at the tail end of a difficult road trip.
In those eight games, Elias Pettersson has piled up a whopping 10 goals and 16 points, while J.T. Miller has 13 points and Brock Boeser has 7, though Boeser has also had three goals called back.
It hasn’t just been the Lotto Line producing, however. The third line, aka. The Good Job Boys, have chipped in seven goals in the last eight games, led by Conor Garland’s four goals. Meanwhile, Nils Höglander also has four goals from the fourth line.
The one line that hasn’t produced anything is what is ostensibly the second line of Ilya Mikheyev, Pius Suter, and Andrei Kuzmenko.
"You don't want to go scoreless as a line for that long."
In the last eight games, Mikheyev and Suter have no goals and just one assist each. Kuzmenko has no points at all. In fact, Kuzmenko is pointless in his last ten games. That’s a problem for a line that ought to be a scoring line if it’s anything at all.
The lack of production from that trio is a potential problem because it will be a lot harder for the Canucks to keep the Lotto Line together long-term if they can’t get secondary scoring behind them. The bottom-six have chipped in — heck, the third line has pretty much been playing like a second line — but for the Canucks to be able to confidently roll their lines, they need more out of Mikheyev, Suter, and Kuzmenko.
That’s something of which they’re well aware.
“Obviously, it's frustrating. We're not definitely not happy with the output,” said Suter after Monday’s morning skate. “You don't want to go scoreless as a line for that long.”
There are some signs of life for that trio, however.
"We want to demand more of ourselves."
Saturday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs might have been their best outing as a line. Even if they didn’t score, they had several strong shifts that built momentum for the Canucks. One shift led directly to a Nils Höglander goal after they were able to hem the Leafs in and get a line change while in the offensive zone. Another shift led to Kuzmenko drawing a penalty and giving the power play a chance to work. They just couldn’t get that last finishing touch to get on the scoreboard.
“I think last game, we had good shifts, you know, drawing penalties, or just some O-zone time when we change, and then after, we score,” said Suter. “It’s that last little bit we have to take care of. Kuzy made a nice play and I had it on the stick and I just missed wide so those are the ones you've got to put in.”
Without that last touch to put the puck into the net, it’s harder to take a positive perspective even after a good game.
“I should have put that in, right?” said Suter. “So then you would probably look at the whole game differently, which you probably shouldn't.”
Suter is also taking encouragement from the fact that his line has been given plenty of time to figure it out thanks to the team’s winning streak.
“I mean, it's not like we do everything wrong, right?” said Suter with a smile before turning serious once more. “If you don't score you don't want to be the reason you lose, right? I think all three of us want more. We want to demand more of ourselves.”
Striving to be a connected line
Tocchet, for his part, saw the positives in their play — “I thought they were better last game” — and he specifically pointed out that they were more connected than they had been in previous games. Staying connected has been a major talking point for Tocchet and he spoke about what that looked like in relation to the third line of Garland, Teddy Blueger, and Dakota Joshua.
“They’re always in a triangle, they’re connected,” said Tocchet. “It’s not one guy’s here, one guy’s there, and the other guy’s at the blue line. They have a tight triangle and that’s the way they play the game and that’s why they’re successful — a really connected line.”
That connectedness is something that Suter and his wingers are aiming for and believe they can find. Suter said that the sign of when they’re connected as a line is when they’re coming up with pucks on the forecheck. If they’re too spread out, then winning the puck becomes a lot harder to do.
“It's just the reads and then going in the right direction,” said Suter. “If it goes left, everybody goes left. If one guy's on the other side, it's gonna be tough when you chip it to get the puck back…If you've got two or three guys in there, you're gonna get that puck and then it's just about reading and being on the same page.”
"Can they all throw that in the blender and come out with a good line?"
While Kuzmenko has been the focal point of a lot of criticism, Mikheyev has struggled in equal measure. To Tocchet’s eye, the primary issue for Mikheyev is that issue of being connected as a line.
“Our big thing is getting Mikheyev to use his speed, and a lot of times when you’re not connected, you watch, he’ll be skating backwards, looking for the puck,” said Tocchet. “When he’s on his game, and the other guys are connected with him, it’s a lot of support, and that’s when Mik’s at his best. I think he’s a guy that’s going to rely on that connected hockey; if it’s disconnected, he gets lost out there.”
It’s been tough sledding for Suter, who was on a hot streak before getting matched with Mikheyev and Kuzmenko. Prior to the Lotto Line reuniting, Suter got some top-six opportunities as a winger with either Elias Pettersson or J.T. Miller and thrived with seven points in seven games.
“I think Sutes is caught in between with all this non-connection,” said Tocchet, “because he’s a very cerebral player, a very smart player, but when you don’t play north and he doesn’t know what everybody’s doing, it’s like anybody: you’re on an island, right?”
Tocchet does think that line has the right ingredients.
“If you look, you’ve got Kuzy, who’s very good with the puck, you’ve got Mik, who’s one of the fastest guys on our team, and you’ve got one of the smartest players on our team,” said Tocchet. “Can they all throw that in the blender and come out with a good line?”
But an ostensibly top-six line can stay together only so long without putting the puck on the net.
“I’m anxious to see how they play tonight,” said Tocchet. “This is a big game for them: can they take the information from the last couple of days, the positives, and then take it to another level?”
