A day late, but everything is all set up. So the only delays will be due to internal laziness.
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The Canucks broke their win-loss-win-loss streak of the past couple weeks with a solid W against the Hurricanes, jumping out to a better start in the first period and clinching it in the third. Stacking this win on top of their Minny win, the Canucks are now 18-9-1 on the season. If you missed the game, here are the highlights:
Coming into the game, Petey had not really been producing the way he or the team wanted. He had four five-on-five points and 10 overall in his last 14 games, which was in-step with how the Canucks were trending in the standings. Very mid. However, Petey turned in a great three point performance (all even strength) and slotted the winning goal in the third after the Hurricanes came back and tied it less than a minute and a half earlier. Maybe that lingering injury is finally starting to resolve itself.
“I just tried to create space for myself and did a wraparound; I’m glad it went in,” Pettersson said. “For me, getting more shots off or getting more – I don’t know if dangerous is the right word – getting more chances, I’ve scored two of them (wrap arounds) so I’d like to keep going.”
“We’re trying to build something long term,” Pettersson said. “Every game is different and today was a very tough game.”
It seems like Sam Lafferty is finding a place on Petey’s wing, which is good news for the team if they continue to gel, but bad news for the maligned Kuzmenko. With Hoglander looking more settled on Miller’s line (with an assist on JT’s goal there too), it’s tough to see where Kuzy is gonna thrive this season. Is he gonna be relegated to the island of misfit toys with Garland?
“This is definitely the way we want to play,” Lafferty said of his line with Pettersson and Mikheyev. “We’re starting to get a little more familiar with each other. We can anticipate where the puck’s going to be so we can be a bit faster.”
Tocchet echoed the speed sentiment of the line and game, and was obviously more pleased with his team in this showing compared to the last little stretch.
“I think our last two games we’re playing faster,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. “We’re not massaging the puck, the defense is getting up quick, the forwards are getting back quicker. That’s the utopia I’m looking for. That fast hockey and everybody playing the same way.”
One thing to clean up from the game was the penalties. The Canucks took five, and thankfully the penalty kill did it’s job even with some 5-on-3 action, but they were playing a tired team with an average powerplay. Things like that could have changed the outcome.
“The last couple games, we were keeping our sticks down,” Tocchet said. “We were getting, the last four or five games, a lot of hooking and stuff. And I think that we’ve got that out of our game. You check with your feet. It’s when you’re getting those stick penalties, you’re checking with your stick.”
“We’ve been pretty disciplined last couple of games with the stick penalties. It’s something that creeps in there and we got to stamp that out, for sure,” he added.
Miller agreed: “I don’t really want to comment on that. We don’t want to take five. It’s hard to kill five.”
Thankfully they did, and the Canucks get a couple days of rest before facing the Lightning on Tuesday night.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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