Consistently inconsistent is an apt way of labeling the Canucks right now. In another sloppy, uneven game, the Canucks fell behind and then had to turn things on to salvage a point in Thatcher Demko’s debut. If you wanna see:
What was a hallmark of hard work and consistency last year has evaporated this season. The Canucks are generally listless and underwhelming when they play, though they have spurts of turning it on and flashing the team that was. Tuesday night was another lethargic effort. One would think getting their franchise goalie back would be an emotional lift, to give them some juice to play… but no. The Canucks were left talking again about a 60 minute effort.
“It was nice to show some fight tonight, but not good enough,” said Joshua, who scored his first goal of the season. “We have to work on our 60-minute game and be on the other side of these games. It was nice for me to get on the board. I know I need to be better and had a better effort.”
After some bad refereeing and some make-up game management, the Canucks needed a last minute goal by DeBrusk to pull out the tie. Jake’s been heating up for the team, which after his cold start is a much welcomed sight. But the Canucks lost the game in OT when they allowed Holloway a pretty clean line to the net, something that the team had been affording all game. You’d expect the team to be aware of Demko’s return and try and tighten things up defensively to ease him back in, but the Canucks allowed five full or partial breakaways throughout the game, including a solid 2 on 0 early in the third.
“Obviously, you don't want to give a guy four or five breakaways or odd-man rushes,” Garland said. “So it's not very good. But he's a battler, hangs in there, makes big saves. Like I said, that's why he's the greatest.
“Hopefully we can play better in front of him whenever he gets in there next.”
Demko, for his part, was great. The Canucks’ weaknesses this year haven’t been at the goalie position. Of course coming off an injury like this gives everyone pause to how it’s going to affect him, but Demko looked like his old self and said he felt good throughout the game.
“Yeah, I mean, felt rusty for sure,” Demko said. “Obviously, it's frustrating losing. I thought I could have played a couple of goals differently. I'm sure that there's stuff that I can pull to keep building. But obviously it's frustrating right now.
“There's a couple of things I thought that I can clean up that shouldn't take too much time. Just different reads and different ideas, positionally, things like that. I'm frustrated losing the game. I want to make a couple of those saves.”
Tocchet was happy with how his goalie played… maybe not his team, but definitely his goalie.
“I thought he was good tonight,” Tocchet said. “It's good to see him in net; he looks big. I love seeing him back in. He's worked really hard, so I thought he did a great job for us tonight.”
With the good news of Demko coming back, there’s another bright spot on the horizon as JT Miller was skating yesterday. The plan is to get him into a practice today, and have him ready as soon as possible. The Canucks need a little emotional boost, and Miller’s energy just might be what the team has been missing recently.
“I don’t know about Thursday, but he’s going to practice with the full team tomorrow,” said Tocchet. “We’ll get him with a line and get him cooking and go from there. He has been skating and is anxious to get going on his terms.”
The Canucks play the Panthers on Thursday, and it would be really nice to have Miller back. After him, it’d be time to get a D upgrade, but I’m sure that’s in the works.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»