Fans weren’t happy about the Vancouver Canucks’ lousy performance on Saturday night against the Boston Bruins.
But the coaching staff might be even more upset because they know exactly how the team failed to do what they were supposed to do.
“We had a game plan that some guys didn’t execute,” said head coach Rick Tocchet. “I think sometimes as a coach you take it, not personal, but you get pissed about it, right?”
Tocchet intimated that the entire coaching staff was irate as they watched the team fail to execute.
“We talked about a certain play we want to do against Boston and we didn't do it 'til maybe in the third,” said Tocchet. “I think that pisses the staff off because we had a good game plan.”
It didn’t help that the team was chasing the game after the first period, which was calamitous, as it has been so many times this season. The Canucks were outshot 16-to-4 but it wasn’t just the number of shots but where they were from. High-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick, were 12-to-0 at 5-on-5.
Twelve. To. Zero.
The fact that the Bruins only scored two goals in the first period seems borderline miraculous and speaks well of Thatcher Demko in his second game of the season, even if he ended up with five goals against on just 28 shots.
Tocchet seemed utterly dumbfounded by how his team came out to start the game.
“I just didn't understand the first period,” said Tocchet. “I mean, we have plays to be making and we're icing a puck. Or a forward's got a puck with five feet of good ice to take it and make a play and we dump it in.”
“The weak side was open a bunch of times tonight, we just couldn't find it,” he said earlier. “We didn't see it tonight. Skate four or five more feet, hit the weak side, it's open. Instead of that, we're jamming it up the strong side.”
Beyond falling short on the tactical side, Tocchet pointed out that the team also failed to have the emotional fire and passion necessary to win in the NHL. In what might have been his most damning indictment of his team to date, Tocchet said some of his players aren’t emotionally invested.
“We have, let's face facts, three, four, or five guys, they're struggling — they're struggling to get emotionally invested in the game,” said Tocchet. “And that's my job, to get those certain guys, we've got to find another gear from them. They've got to understand that it's the NHL, and you can't play one good game, and then two bad, or whatever.
“This is a game, a sport, the NHL, where you have to be jacked up to play the game. You have to be emotionally in the game, and sometimes the guys, it takes them, like, 30 minutes to get in the game, for whatever reason.”
And then the most damning statement of all: “Some guys tried.”
“Some guys tried tonight, so I can't throw everybody under the bus,” said Tocchet. “Some guys really worked hard tonight.”
No one wants to pay hundreds of dollars to watch some guys try. I certainly didn’t want to see that when I watched this game.
- The Canucks spent practically the entire first period in the defensive zone and it wasn’t hard to understand why. Every time they got the puck, they handled it like a hand grenade, either icing the puck, giving it away, or dumping it in and failing to win it on the forecheck. Tocchet has been criticized for being overly in love with dump-and-chase hockey but he seemed to hate it just as much in this game.
- “The first period, we iced the puck four times when we shouldn't have; it led to two goals,” said Tocchet. “I saw some guys were a little bit nervous early. We were dumping the puck. And when we did give it to a winger, he would dump it in instead of holding on to pucks…It's two-nothing and now you're chasing the game, then we iced it again. I mean, to me, the icing is inexcusable for all of us. I'm not just blaming the defence, it's the forwards too. That, to me, just gives the other team a lot of juice.”
- The first icing came courtesy of Quinn Hughes — not typically known for poor passing. That defensive zone faceoff led to a flurry of chances for the Bruins, forcing Tyler Myers to take a penalty to put a stop to the dangerous sequence. The Bruins opened the scoring on the subsequent power play.
- Fans were booing Brad Marchand every time he touched the puck but fans should know by now that Marchand is fueled by boos. He cut diagonally from the point down to the backdoor and converted on a pass from Elias Lindholm that Carson Soucy couldn’t block. Marchand then taunted the fans by cupping his hand to his ear to better hear the boos.
- The Canucks managed to get a couple of clears on the next icing by Tyler Myers, so you can’t directly blame the icing. I was more frustrated by Danton Heinen’s soft play on the boards. Instead of taking a direct line to the puck and getting body position on Morgan Geekie, he casually swooped in and went for a lazy stick lift. That allowed the Bruins to maintain possession and take advantage of Erik Brännström chasing David Pastrnak behind the net, leaving Geekie open in front.
- The pairing of Brännström with Mark Friedman was a disaster and the Canucks realized it right away. The two played less than two minutes together and were rotated through other pairings for the rest of the night. Friedman mostly played with Carson Soucy, while Brännström ended up with Tyler Myers. Sorry, Brännström and Friedman, but you are . Like, ever.
- The Canucks also shook up the forward lines in the second period, with Conor Garland bumped up to play with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser after Nils Höglander started the game on that line. It’s not even that Höglander was playing particularly poorly; the Canucks were just looking for a spark. Alas, there was nothing left to burn, so the Canucks could only .
- The Bruins quickly took a 3-0 lead in the second period after an ill-advised pinch by Friedman in the neutral zone. Then Soucy made it worse by coming all the way across the ice instead of staying in the middle. Then Elias Pettersson made it worse by failing to recognize that Soucy had abandoned the middle of the ice and tried to block a passing lane instead of rotating back to cover for Soucy. It was just worse and worse and worse until Pavel Zacha scored on the breakaway.
- The Canucks then got a power play with a chance to push back. Instead, the Bruins got the best chances on the power play — three of them! — and Demko had to rob Marchand twice to keep the Bruins from scoring a shorthanded goal. Remember when Demko’s return was supposed to inspire the Canucks to play their best in front of him? Instead, they’ve had two of their most appalling defensive performances of the season.
- “We went rogue a little bit,” said Tocchet of the power play. “What happens with that unit, when things don't go our way, we start becoming individuals. That happened last year. For the most part, the power play has been actually pretty good lately the last two-three weeks, we just went back in that mode. Maybe because we're down three-nothing, something didn't work early, and then, all of a sudden, we start trying to be individuals. You can't be individuals even when you're down three-nothing.”
- Just as it seemed the Canucks started to wake up, another soft play led to a flukey 4-0 goal. Call it an own-end goal: Teddy Blueger was too casual with the puck in his own end and had his pocket picked, leading to a Marc McLaughlin shot deflecting off Brännström’s own end and bouncing through Demko.
- The period wasn’t all bad. At least we got some thrilling ice-repair action.
- Pretty much the only fire shown by the Canucks came after Marchand crosschecked Hughes after a whistle and Miller went after the Bruins captain, ripping his helmet off in the process. It was too little, too late in terms of emotional engagement but it at least gave the fans at Rogers Arena something about which to cheer.
- Marchand seemed to think that Hughes had whistled a dump-in past his ear on purpose — you could see him duck for cover just before he skated over to crosscheck Hughes and he seemed pretty peeved as Hughes pulled him out of the scrum.
- Any hope of a comeback was immediately dashed by David Pastrnak in the opening minute of the third period. Demko overplayed a potential Pastrnak shot and had no hope of getting across his crease to stop the wraparound and neither Hughes nor Friedman could get their sticks in to disrupt the play. 5-0 Bruins, warm up the bus, we’re going home.
- There was at least one positive to come out of this trash pile of a game: Max Sasson scored his first career NHL goal. Lindholm couldn’t handle a Marchand pass in the Bruins’ zone and Miller jumped on the loose puck. He had a clear chance to shoot but instead slipped the puck to Sasson, who swept the puck through Jeremy Swayman’s five-hole.
- “Honestly, I was going for a change,” said Sasson. “Millsy makes a great play keeping the puck in. The second I saw him, I knew to open up — he’s a pretty good player. He fed me and, honestly, I didn’t even shoot it where I wanted it but it went right through him.”
- When you dream about your first NHL goal, that’s not exactly the scenario you envision: a meaningless goal in a lopsided loss. But at least he got to break Swayman’s shutout.
- “A goal in this league isn’t easy to come by,” said Sasson. “I’ll cherish it for the rest of my life, I’ll remember this moment. Obviously, I would have liked to do it in a win but what are you going to do?”
- Hughes talked postgame for the first time since a high stick busted up his face a week ago. As per usual, he kept an even keel, only betraying the frustration he felt when talking about how they were playing in front of Demko.
- “I mean, Thatcher's an amazing goalie, and I felt like we obviously didn't bring the level of compete and where we need to play to give him a chance,” said Hughes. “A couple of breakaways — even a couple breakaways two games ago when he was playing — but he still kept us in it. All he's got to do is just keep going and we've got to find a way to perform better.”
