NEW YORK (Nov. 21, 2023) – Vancouver Canucks forward Nils Hoglander has been fined $2,864.58, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for slew-footing San Jose Sharks forward Kevin Labanc during NHL Game No. 278 in Vancouver on Monday, Nov. 20, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.
The incident occurred at 18:09 of the second period. Hoglander was assessed a match penalty.
With 38 seconds left in regulation, Nashville trailed Colorado by a goal.
The Predators won in regulation.
Below, a Prince drops the puck in Vancouver.
via the YouTube page of Sportsnet,
Vancouver Canucks defenceman Quinn Hughes joins Scott Oake and Dave Tomlinson on After Hours to discuss the honour of becoming the Canucks captain, how he's worked to improve his shot, being pranked by Keith Yandle, and much more
Not sure what else to say about Quinn Hughes. Night after night, against the best players in the world, he dominates. After 3 pts and GWG in OT, he is tied for NHL scoring lead — as a D-man.
— Iain MacIntyre (@imacSportsnet) November 16, 2023
“It felt like we were going to find a way tonight; I'm not going to lie to you.”
Watch his GWG below.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
The best two things about the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday were the points they collected for beating the Ottawa Senators 5-2.
Whatever was next best was a distant third.
Actually, the Canucks defended efficiently, limiting prime scoring chances during stretches when the Senators controlled play. But Vancouver managed only 16 shots, and were stuck at 10 six minutes into the third period.
Vancouver’s forecheck failed to cause its usual havoc, and the Canucks were certainly the second-fastest team for most of the night.
And yet, they won.
What a difference a year makes as Canucks avenge their loss with a win over SenatorsPlay VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 1:51Loaded: 8.88% Fullscreen
And they won going away, scoring three times in the final 22 minutes to extend the team’s points streak to nine games (8-0-1). This kind of a result, let alone the confidence and accountability players displayed afterward, would have been unthinkable here a year ago when the Canucks were crashing and about to turn into a fireball.
Until the last four weeks, this was a game the Canucks would probably not have won. But when you’ve already won nine of your first 12, winning No. 10 becomes a little easier – at least mentally.
Game highlights are b3elow.
from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,
One more note, on the surprising 6-2-1 Vancouver Canucks — one of the nice stories of the early season under new coach Rick Tocchet.
I reached out to a few of the head coaches who have faced them so far this season, and here’s what they had to say:
Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, whose team lost 5-3 to the Canucks on Oct. 21: “I thought they had an incredibly consistent game that night. You know, we don’t see them enough. We only played them twice last year. We lost (Oct. 21), it was a tie game late — they had a two-goal lead and we tied it and then lost it late. You hate losing but I wasn’t overly upset with my team because I thought they (the Canucks) played a hell of a game.
“They were good. Very, very structured. They look like they’re all on the same page. They played a very consistent game for 60 minutes.”
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper, 4-3 winners over Vancouver on Oct. 19: “Well-balanced team. High-end skill surrounded by workers. The goalie gives them confidence, and the coach gets the best out of them.”
more ($) plus talking with Phil Kessel...
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
The Vancouver Canucks have evolved so much, so quickly, that the 72 hours between their game Saturday night and the next one on Tuesday will be filled across the city with angry talk about how the home team was robbed by referees in a 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Rangers.
Before this season, all that outrage and despair was generally channelled towards the team itself, which didn’t need much help from officials or anyone else in order to lose National Hockey League games.
On Saturday, a too-many-players penalty to Canuck Dakota Joshua while his team was already shorthanded led to the Rangers’ second five-on-three goal of the game and another power-play marker 63 seconds later as New York turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead.
And after Carson Soucy’s slapshot tied it for Vancouver with 4:18 remaining, K’Andre Miller won it for New York on a two-on-one in overtime after Canuck Elias Pettersson turned over the puck when tripped skate-on-skate by Ranger Chris Kreider.
Rangers' Miller snipes OT goal after Pettersson tripped at other endPlay VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time 0:00/Duration 1:40Loaded: 9.86% CaptionsFullscreen
The too-many-men call against Joshua, who jumped on the ice (but did not seem to impact the play) when Pettersson was still well away from the bench on the penalty kill, felt harsh. The skate-on-skate contact in OT, as Pettersson was cutting back on Kreider, looked like a penalty.
But fixating on the officiating in a game when each team had six power plays obscures a larger point: Saturday was yet another test aced by the Canucks as they rebrand themselves under coach Rick Tocchet.
Game highlights are below.
from Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province,
Sometimes, images can get distortedd
On most nights, it easy to see why the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues are mirror images of each other. They skate hard. They forecheck with a purpose and deny the opposition seamless break-outs.That was expected to be the plot Friday at Rogers Arena.
After all, Canucks bench boss Rick Tocchet and Blues head coach Craig Berube were teammates and roommates with the Philadelphia Flyers. They share the same coaching philosophy in designing a game plan and they regularly converse.
However, a plan can look good on paper and not translate to the ice.
Whether it was the lethargic Blues leaving their legs in Calgary on Thursday, where they claimed a 3-0 victory, or the Canucks showing resolve from first puck drop, the combination resulted in a convincing 5-0 victory that stretched Vancouver’s win streak to three games and improved its record to 5-2-0.
Highlights are below.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
Hronek is a story again because he has been playing since the regular season began with Quinn Hughes in a power-pairing that has the potential to become one of the NHL's best – if it remains intact....
Hronek is a story again because he has been playing since the regular season began with Quinn Hughes in a power-pairing that has the potential to become one of the NHL's best – if it remains intact.
While Hronek’s reluctance to be interviewed was expected, the H2 defence duo is a surprise. Hronek and Hughes barely played together during the pre-season, when the Canucks made it clear they’d rather balance the blue line by having their top two defencemen deployed separately....
According to naturalstattrick.com, in the 15:18 of five-on-five ice time that Hughes and Hronek were together on Saturday, shot attempts were 21-10 for the Canucks and high-danger scoring chances 7-3. In the other 34:21 of five-on-five, the Panthers clobbered the Canucks 50-18 and 9-0 in those metrics.
Through five games, Hughes has logged 78 of his 96 minutes of even-strength ice time with Hronek and the Canucks have outscored other teams 7-1. Hronek, who has eight more minutes than Hughes at evens, has a 7-2 personal goals-differential. Each is averaging 25 minutes a night.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
The Vancouver Canucks will need a new mantra. They can’t say that it’s “only one game” because now it’s two.
The team got 37 saves from Casey DeSmith in the backup goalie’s first start for the Canucks, and fellow newcomer Sam Lafferty used his speed and power to score an impressive third-period winner as Vancouver beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Saturday in Alberta to sweep the teams’ season-opening two-game series.
And honestly, even though the Oilers outshot the Canucks 40-16, Saturday’s game was at least as surprising as Wednesday’s 8-1 blowout as Vancouver recovered from an early deficit and stared down Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, on the road, for a second straight game.
from Mark Spector of Spotsnet,
You can beat up the Edmonton Oilers all you want for an 0-2 start that nobody saw coming.
Despite the fact they allowed just 16 shots on goal Saturday (33 shot attempts in total), or that Casey DeSmith faced 40 shots on net, and another 48 that were blocked or sent wide.
Let’s face it: If Edmonton hadn’t been a no show in their 8-1 opening night loss in Vancouver, this effort would pass by without notice.
Or, as Zach Hyman said, “If you lose two games in the middle of the season it is not the end of the world. You lose two games here and you get all these questions about your defensive game.
“It is not ideal, obviously, to lose the first two games,” he concluded. “But there is no panic.”
Watch the game highlights below.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
It wasn’t the concept of leadership that spurred Quinn Hughes to assert himself within the Vancouver Canucks. It was the other L-word: losing.
"It wasn't even that I had to push myself,” Hughes explained Sunday of his evolution last season. “I'm just so sick of losing that if this is what we have to do or this is what I have to do. . . that's easy compared to losing and the toll of the season. Looking at the schedule (last season) and we have, like, 30 games left but we're out of the playoffs, that's really hard. I would say anything is easier than having that toll on you. So if I need to speak up or do whatever, that's easy.”
He needs to speak up. Hughes said he needs to step up, too.
Four years ago, in the first game of his rookie season in the National Hockey League, a 19-year-old Hughes was sent out with defence partner Chris Tanev, Hughes’ Obi-Wan Kenobi, for the season-opening faceoff in Edmonton against Connor McDavid.
Seeing who they were matched against, Hughes asked Tanev before the draw if they would stay out for the shift or quick-change. Tanev told them they were staying. Hughes said, “OK, let’s go.”
from Julian McKenzie of The Athletic,
Mike Penny is a hockey lifer.
The 71-year-old has spent the majority of his adult life as a professional scout or a director of player personnel for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks. Over that time, Penny has scouted a number of players who have gone on to become NHLers. But he refuses to take full credit for arguably the most talented one he ever scouted. A dynamic future Hall of Fame talent who was already skating with the vaunted Central Red Army as a teenager.
He might not have ever known about him if another Russian player he had drafted, Igor Larionov, didn’t give him a heads up.
“I said to (Igor), who’s that guy there? And he said ‘Oh, that’s Pavel Bure,’” Penny said. “He’s 17 years old. This was before he was draft eligible.”...
“So, when we got through to the sixth round, I said to Pat (Quinn) ‘Why don’t we just take him?'” Penny said. “He said, ‘Are you sure?’ I said I know I’m right.
“What’s the worst-case scenario? If we’re wrong? If we’re right, you’ve got a heck of a player.”
Despite other general managers being up in arms, the NHL eventually ruled that the Canucks were correct to draft him.
“And the rest is history,” Penny said.
read on ($)
Full trade, per sources:
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 19, 2023
To #Habs: Tanner Pearson, 2025 3rd Round Pick
To #Canucks: Casey DeSmith
No salary retained.@DailyFaceoff
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
After experiencing three coaches, two general managers and countless trade rumours during his two seasons of turmoil in the Vancouver Canucks’ maelstrom, Conor Garland is accustomed to hearing things.
The 27-year-old winger from Boston, who embraced the idea of a frantic Canadian market when former general manager Jim Benning acquired him from the Arizona Coyotes two summers ago, has exited social media as a survival instinct.
He noted last season that the start of trade rumours attached to him coincided with the start of the five-year, $24.75-million-US contract he signed right after he was traded.
Garland has heard a lot of things during his two seasons. But when he arrived back in Vancouver earlier this month to join teammates skating ahead of training camp, Garland heard something new. It was strange, foreign, almost eerie. It was. . . quiet.
“Yeah, for sure it feels different,” Garland said Monday in his first interview since returning to the West Coast. “Guys got out here early for a reason; everybody's excited and we're working hard on our skates. It just has a different feel.
“Last year was a little bit of a distracted feeling. There was a lot going on. Our captain situation, the coaching situation, we had a lot going on. So it's nice that it's quiet. And now it's up to us.”
There’s nothing going on now except preparation.
from Travis Yost of TSN,
Is there a trade market for Vancouver Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers?
That’s not a question I figured to be exploring in September with the season approaching, but owing to a contractual wrinkle, there is a possibility Myers could be on the move.
The 33-year-old veteran blueliner, who is on pace to cross the 1,000-game threshold this year, will see his contract expire at the end of the 2023-24 season. That deal – a five-year, $30-million pact inked back in 2019-20 – is heavily paid by way of signing bonuses. With his $5-million signing bonus for the approaching season now paid, the remaining money owed on Myers’ contract is just $1 million. (Note: Myers does also have a 10-team no trade list.)
With such little real money owed, and with Vancouver in need of cap space, Myers becomes an intriguing trade option – both for teams that may be searching for artificial help to reach the cap floor and for teams that think Myers has some game left in the tank.
The second scenario is the more pertinent one. With such little cap growth around the league in the post-COVID era, teams have had less difficulty reaching the cap floor, so the appetite for contracts where cap hits may dwarf real salary is muted.
But there’s always an appetite for NHL-ready defencemen, and the allure of Myers’ size and skating ability has followed him throughout his career.
via the Vancouver Canucks,
Wearing the Captain’s “C” on the front of an NHL jersey symbolizes leadership, strength and courage. What that prestigious letter doesn’t always tell you though, is the path, trials, tribulations and significant growth a player must take in order to be bestowed one of hockey’s greatest honours.
By entrusting the Canucks captaincy to Quinn Hughes on Monday, it marks the culmination of years of dedication and sacrifice that the young blueliner has had to make; an incredible hockey player who continues to grow up right before Canucks’ fans' eyes. “It means a great deal to me to be named captain of the Canucks,” Hughes said with immense pride. “When I came here 5 years ago, I knew what I was walking in to having grown up in Toronto; just a crazy hockey market and a passionate fan base. It has been a pleasure and treat to play for this franchise and to be the captain is something that is incredibly special and something that I couldn’t ever imagine would happen.”
from Travis Yost of TSN,
Who is Filip Hronek?
Not in the literal sense. We have seen Hronek play in more than 300 games at this point of his career, with the 25-year-old blueliner spending five seasons with the Detroit Red Wings organization before being dealt to Vancouver at last year’s trade deadline.
Despite his looming restricted free agency status (his current three-year contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 regular season), the Canucks were aggressive in their pursuit, and ended up forking over a first- and second-round pick to add the defenceman. Perhaps for good reason: Hronek at his best is a fantastic puck carrier and transitional player, one who can ignite a team’s offence from the blueline. We saw flashes of it when he was with Detroit, even amidst a rebuilding lineup that was shallow on high-end talent.
But it hasn’t always been great with Hronek. On those same talent-weak teams, we saw him struggle from time to time defending the run of play. Video of the first few years of his career is ripe with turnovers against sustained defensive-zone pressure, and even when Hronek wasn’t giving the puck away, he was all too willing to chip the puck out of the zone or simply play it off the boards.
That style of play tends to run very counter to what teams expect from top-four puck movers in the modern era, as defencemen are increasingly tasked with driving offensive play.
from TSN,
Vancouver Canucks star Elias Pettersson has put extension talks "on hold" as he prepares for the upcoming season.
The 24-year-old centre is entering the final season of a three-year, $22.05 million deal, which carries a cap hit of $7.35 million. He is scheduled for restricted free agency next July.
"I've just put that on hold," Pettersson told NHL.com on Wednesday.(opens in a new tab) "I still have one more year left. I've been wanting to focus on training this summer and the contract will sort itself out."
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin also took a passive approach to the contract situation in June, stating team would sit down with Pettersson's camp "when the time is right."
Pettersson scored 39 goals last season, topping the 30-goal mark for the second straight year, and also beat his career-best point total by 34 with 102 points in 80 games.
from Travis Yost of TSN,
Eighteen months ago, Patrik Allvin was hired by the Vancouver Canucks to spearhead an organizational turnaround as the team’s 12th general manager. His chief objective: rounding out a very top-heavy franchise, one that has managed just a single playoff berth over the last eight seasons.
The Canucks have been under salary cap siege for years, but they aren’t completely swimming upstream. The franchise was blessed with two cornerstone talents in forward Elias Pettersson and defenceman Quinn Hughes, two must-see skaters capable of single-handedly winning games.
The rest of the lineup remains a major project.
In many respects, where Vancouver is right now reminds me of where the Edmonton Oilers were just a few seasons ago, with a sharp talent skew to the uppermost parts of the roster. If you have watched a Vancouver game in recent years, you know there are effectively three unique teams:
- The Canucks with both Pettersson and Hughes on the ice.
- The Canucks with at least one of Pettersson or Hughes on the ice.
- The Canucks with neither of Pettersson nor Hughes on the ice.These three teams are as distinct as you will find. Consider the performance of each of these groups over the past couple of seasons – we will focus on even-strength play for apples-to-apples comparisons.
OEL agent Kevin Epp on buyout - got the call this morning, we were surprised, Oliver met with management and ownership after the season and did not believe this would happen.
— Rick Dhaliwal (@DhaliwalSports) June 16, 2023
With 4 years remaining on his contract, an Oliver Ekman-Larsson will span 8 years.#Canucks will incur 88% of the buyout costs#Yotes will incur 12% of the buyout costshttps://t.co/LpoyGxdarS
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) June 16, 2023
from Patrick Johnston of The Province,
The diagnosis when Tanner Pearson first hurt his left hand in a Nov. 9 game between the Vancouver Canucks and Montreal Canadiens was pretty simple.
“Broken hand,” he said Saturday at the final media availability of the 2022-23 season for Canucks players.
The journey since then has not gone anything close to plan. Despite making slow steps toward returning to play — he was spotted skating on his own after Canucks practices in late November in Las Vegas and Denver — complications arose and he wouldn’t play again this season.
Instead he went through, reportedly, a least a half-dozen subsequent surgeries. Six months later, his hand is still bandaged up.
“It’s been crappy to say the least,” he said.
“I’m just taking it day by day, week by week. Keep trying to progress.”
In January, Quinn Hughes spoke up on Pearson’s behalf, saying that Pearson’s injury hadn’t been handled properly.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
The Vancouver Canucks were robbed, which actually seems pretty fair since their goalie, Thatcher Demko, was stealing goals from the Calgary Flames for most of the game.
The Flames’ 5-4 overtime win Friday night was made possible by a power-play tying goal with 3:13 remaining after a high-sticking call against Canuck Elias Pettersson that was highly-contentious, possibly wrong, and absolutely unauthorized as it appeared to be made by a linesman.
The National Hockey League rulebook allows linesmen to make a high-sticking call “when it is apparent that an injury has resulted from a high-stick that has gone undetected by the Referees and requires the assessment of a double-minor penalty.”
Pettersson, who happens to be the Canucks’ best player and one of their top penalty killers, was assessed only a minor penalty at 15:38 after linesmen Devin Berg and Trent Knorr huddled with referees Kevin Pollock and Kelly Sutherland. Neither veteran referee has his hand in the air when Berg whistled the play while the Flames were in possession of the puck.
If it wasn’t immediately apparent that Flame Walker Duehr was not injured, it should have been when he went back at Pettersson in the neutral zone after the whistle. It appeared on replays that Duehr had lifted Pettersson’s stick with his own as it came up and struck him.
“Very frustrating,” Pettersson said. “Yeah, I don't know what to say. I'm just pissed off.
continued with video of the penalty.
Watch the game highlights below, the controversial penalty is not included.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
This is going from kind of fun to just kind of silly.
The Vancouver Canucks can’t lose.
Their professional, well-earned 3-1 road win Saturday against the playoff-bound Dallas Stars was the draft-lottery-bound Canucks’ ninth win in 11 games. The team that ranked 31st in the National Hockey League in defending — and was 27th in the standings — when Rick Tocchet took over as coach two months ago is 12-4-1 in its last 17 games and has allowed three or fewer goals in 14 of them.
With 10 games remaining, starting Sunday in Chicago against the hapless Blackhawks, the Canucks were in a tie for 23rd in the NHL. Vancouver will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for the seventh time in eight seasons, but if the Canucks finish 21st or higher they won’t be able to select Connor Bedard even if they win the draft lottery in May.
It doesn’t make sense — except for the legitimacy of their record the last five weeks. That makes sense.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
The first thing Adam Foote noticed about Filip Hronek were his hands. Foote knew the defenceman could skate and was competitive, but it was the hands.
“Hronek comes out in practice the first day and I was chuckling,” Foote, the assistant coach in charge of Vancouver Canuck defencemen, said after Wednesday’s practice. “I knew his compete (level), but when I saw him with his hands always in front of him and how smooth he was with the puck ... I loved it because the other D are, like, looking at him.
“I think he's going to bring that element of making big plays. And he competes and he's fast and he's smart. I think he's a big piece for us.”
He better be after Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin sent a mid-first-round pick and early-second to the Detroit Red Wings three weeks ago for the 25-year-old, right-shot, top-four defenceman.
Injured the night before the trade, Hronek is expected to make his Canucks debut Thursday at home against the San Jose Sharks. And he could start on a super-pairing with star blue-liner Quinn Hughes, who has lacked a legitimate top-pairing partner since Chris Tanev was allowed to leave Vancouver in free agency three years ago.
from Gilbert Ngabo of the Toronto Star,
John Tavares helped the Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Blackhawks. Then he helped create a memory that will last a lifetime for a young fan recovering from brain surgery.
Henry Pye, 11, had a large tumour removed last December at the Hospital for Sick Children. He couldn’t sit up, move his head, open his eyes or talk for several days after the operation. Once he started to make progress and regain strength, his family began to think about ways to celebrate his recovery.
They decided to take him to a hockey game.
“It was our first outing in real life after the surgery and it was his first time at a Leafs game, which was an amazing experience,” said Tanya Pye, Henry’s mother. “We were just so happy we could go out again.”
A fun night at Scotiabank Arena on Feb. 15 would become unforgettable for Henry’s family thanks to the “serendipitous, random act of kindness” of a stranger and the generosity of the Leafs captain.