The score wasn’t indicative of the play, as the Canucks came out strong and played one of their better games of the season Saturday night against the Devils. The “Lotto Line” – though apparently they’re not fans of that name – had a strong night and led the team to two points. Here are your highlights:
The reunited Petey, JTM, and Boeser line stacked up 8 points. Demko won his 100th game. Hughes had his 69th multi-point game, surpassing Edler for the most for a defenseman in Canucks history. The third line continued to roll with a back-breaking goal from Garland. Kuzmenko played, and played well, with his line outshooting the Devils by 16 over the course of the game. The Canucks got a clean two points, which was their first victory in New Jersey in a decade. Pretty pretty, pretty good – outside of letting the Devils make it closer than it should have been.
“I liked the grind,” Tocchet said. “Yeah, we gave up a couple of goals, they got back into it and then we had to kill a huge penalty and we withstood the storm there. So to get the two points after killing that penalty was big."
The Canucks came out hot and dominated the first half of the game, outshooting the Devils 26-6 (with a 17-3 high-danger chance advantage), and held a 3-0 lead. Even the Devils acknowledged it post-game.
“Their energy was incredible to start the game,” Ruff said. “We didn't win enough battles."
“Our line got it handed to us by their top line,” Haula said. “I don't know how to explain it better."
The top trio were happy with their effort, at least for the most part.
“There was a lot of good things,” Miller said. “We competed like bastards for most of the game. Tracking was unreal, so our D could stay up. It created a lot of turnovers for them and caught them on some bad changes. And you could just feel the tide turn at that point and we capitalized on some looks. It was all from hard work. None of the goals were fancy. They were all going to the net, making plays.”
“I think it just helped that we came out and had a really good first period together and we created a lot of chances,” Boeser added. “We just kind of put our work boots on. We wanted to do that tonight to get the team going. We're the leaders of the team and when you get put together, you need to be the line that drives guys to play and gets a team going. We said that before the game and I was happy with our effort.”
And drive they did. Tocchet was asked about keeping them together, and he wasn’t too committed to that.
“We’ll see,” he said flatly. “We’ll see how long we keep it together, but sometimes it's a shot in the arm for the team. This is going to be situational. There’s going to be times when I need Petey to play on a different line as a centre.”
Petey, in his normal manner, seemed generally pleased like the rest of the team, though added, “I don’t like we let them back into the game. It’s a win in the end but we have to be better.” Eyes on the prize.
With a Monday night game coming up against the Eastern Conference leading Rangers, that will be a good litmus test for them to be better.
To the comments we go to whinge and embiggen our vocabulary (both of which are perfectly cromulent words):
(Quotes from Patrick Johnston, MacIntyre, Thomas Drance, and NHL.com)
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