The Vancouver Canucks haven’t started a season with two-straight wins in seven years. They haven’t started a season with two-straight regulation wins in 20 years — the last time they managed that was the 2003-04 season before the 2004-05 lockout.
So, the Canucks have reason to be feeling pretty good after handing the supposedly Cup-contending Edmonton Oilers a pair of losses to kick off the 2023-24 season. But, at practice on Monday morning, they weren’t resting on their laurels.
A hard skate capped off what The Athletic’s Thomas Drance called a “grueling practice” in Philadelphia, with head coach Rick Tocchet yelling, “Earn your ****ing ice time” at one point. It quickly became clear after practice that Tocchet wasn’t fully satisfied with how his team played on Saturday night in Edmonton.
“Hey, we're 2-and-0 and we should be happy with the fact that we won our two games, but we'd be kidding ourselves,” said Tocchet to the media. “That game we had a few guys where I didn't think they played well — I don't want to say they didn't compete, I just didn't feel some guys were there.”
Frankly, despite the 4-3 win, the Canucks were badly outplayed by the Oilers in many facets of the game on Saturday. The Canucks took seven penalties and were out-shot 40-to-16 — that’s not a recipe for success most nights.
For Tocchet, the lopsided shots were the end result of a multitude of mistakes in the team’s details.
“I think there’s some stuff in our puck possession — we’re not holding onto pucks, we’re getting outbattled,” said Tocchet. “I understand Edmonton was going to come out flying, but I still thought there were some things that we should have cleaned up. And that comes with being competitive and holding onto pucks.”
While the Canucks did well to hold the lead and close out the game in Edmonton, Tocchet wants more.
“You saw a team that we want to be — our identity is being able to shut a team down — but you’ve still got to press, you’ve still got to hold pucks,” said Tocchet. “We can’t just keep dumping pucks in and throwing pucks away. That’s the key: to hold pucks, make some plays. I mean, we’ve still got to make the other team play defence too.”
There were still some positives to pull out of the game. Several individual players had strong performances, particularly goaltender Casey DeSmith. Tocchet felt the team “checked half-decently” at even strength and were resilient despite getting outplayed.
“That’s the positive: that we didn’t crumble,” he said.
The Canucks made a habit of crumbling last season, repeatedly falling apart the moment they faced adversity. If Saturday’s win is any indication, those days are over.
Of course, there are still 80 more games to go to prove that particular peccadillo is in the past.
And that’s why Tocchet is insistent on the Canucks practicing like the’ve lost two straight instead of won two straight.
