One question has been dogging the Vancouver Canucks all season long: is it sustainable?
The Canucks are first in the Pacific Division with a fantastic record, they have the league’s best goal differential by a wide margin, and they boast five All-Star-caliber players. It’s no longer a question of whether the Canucks are a playoff team but whether they’re a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
The issue is that the Canucks haven’t controlled play at 5-on-5 this season like a bonafide Cup contender. Instead, they’ve largely been dependent on finishing and goaltending that are so far above average that they’ve left a lingering concern that this success might not last.
Success never does, of course. As Robert Frost said, nothing gold can stay. You might as well enjoy it while it lasts and maybe, just maybe, it’ll last long enough to get the Canucks at least one Stanley Cup before the world ends. I’m pretty sure that’s what Frost was talking about in that poem.
But the Canucks might be able to sustain their success a little bit longer if they can find a way to control possession at 5-on-5 more consistently and Saturday’s game against the New Jersey Devils might have shown how they can do that: the Lotto Line.
The Lotto Line was first put together during J.T. Miller’s first season with the Canucks, putting him on a line with the team’s two young star forwards, Brock Boeser and Elias Pettersson. Their three numbers — 6, 40, and 9 — combined to make the same number as Canada’s nationwide lottery game, Lotto 6/49.
They excelled together then but nothing gold can stay. The trio drifted apart in subsequent seasons as Canucks coaches looked for a way to diversify the top-six rather than loading up one line with the team’s top offensive talents.
They were reunited on Saturday, however, and they dominated. They combined for four goals, all of them at 5-on-5, but also controlled possession, repeatedly hemming the Devils in for long stretches. It was a sight to see.
“The gameplan didn’t change just because we were playing with Petey today,” said Miller, adding later, “None of the goals were fancy, they were all going to the net, making plays.”
More importantly, the team as a whole dominated possession. With key offseason additions like Pius Suter, who centred the second line, the Canucks finally have the depth to potentially keep the Lotto Line together.
The Canucks were all over the Devils, particularly early. Shot attempts were 26-to-8 at 5-on-5 in the first period. Even though the Canucks let their foot off the gas later in the game and allowed the Devils to get back into it, they still out-attempted the Devils 70-to-41 at 5-on-5 and out-shot them 34-to-20 by the end of the game.
“We competed like bastards for most of the game,” said Miller. “Our tracking was unreal, so our D could stay up and created a lot of turnovers for them and got them on some bad changes. You could just feel the tide turn at that point and we capitalized on some looks. It was nothing pretty, they were all from hard work.”
Sure, the Canucks were playing a Devils team that had just played an emotionally-charged, hard-fought game against the Chicago Blackhawks the previous night. And yes, the Devils were missing not only Jack Hughes but also Dougie Hamilton, Timo Meier, Tomas Nosek, Ondrej Palat, and, after a few minutes in the second period, Jonas Siegenthaler.
But the Canucks had no sympathy for the Devils and put together a dominant performance that perhaps laid out a template for how they can control games at 5-on-5 going forward. And maybe, just maybe, the Canucks’ success can be sustainable through the second half of the season and into the playoffs.
The Canucks looked as good as gold when I watched this game.
- Will head coach Rick Tocchet actually keep the Lotto Line together? Well… “Why not put it together every once in a while?” said Tocchet. “We’ll see how long I’ll keep it together but sometimes it’s a shot in the arm for the team.”
- Sometimes? Every once in a while? Come on, man. Don’t stamp out the Lotto Line dream before it’s even begun.
- Really, the Lotto Line scored five goals, not four. It’s just that their first goal a few minutes in got called back for goaltender interference. Pettersson fired a puck towards Boeser for a tip that Nico Daws kicked out but Boeser put back the rebound. Unfortunately, it was ruled that Miller was a “significant presence in the crease” even though he was arguably pushed into the crease by Jonas Siegenthaler. I guess Miller should try being more insignificant next time.
- The Canucks crushed the Devils like they were Jesus’s heel in the first period, out-shooting them 17-to-5. The only trouble is that none of those 17 shots went in, with the only puck getting past Daws getting erased from the box score by the coach’s challenge. That’s a dangerous game to play, as tilting the ice that heavily seldom lasts for a whole game and you’ve got to capitalize when you’ve got the chance. But then the Canucks scored six goals in the second and third periods, so I guess it’s fine.
- The Lotto Line kept the pressure on in the second period and opened the scoring less than a minute in. Pettersson’s initial point shot hit Miller and doubled him over but Boeser gathered in the puck to keep the play alive. Pettersson rotated to the front of the net to show Miller how it’s done, neatly tipping in Filip Hronek’s shot from the exact same spot. “See?” Pettersson probably said to Miller. “It’s easy.”
- Another encouraging element of the game was how well Andrei Kuzmenko played on a line with Suter and Ilya Mikheyev. The Canucks out-shot the Devils 11-to-4 when he was on the ice at 5-on-5 and out-attempted them 22-to-6 to lead the team in corsi percentage. It seems like his fifth healthy scratch of the season might have finally gotten to that hard-to-reach itch.
- Maybe the key to unlocking Kuzmenko’s game is to put more of the onus on him to get things done. Suddenly the main offensive focus of the second line, Kuzmenko had a team-high four shots on goal on six attempts, getting some golden opportunities even if he couldn’t cash in, like this chance off a Mikheyev steal that had Daws leaning the wrong way only to get his left toe on the puck.
- The Lotto Line struck again after the third and fourth lines hemmed the Devils in for two straight shifts. They took on the tired Devils and got a bounce, as Quinn Hughes’ point shot was tipped by Boeser and hit Jonas Siegenthaler, whose foot had already been broken by a shot earlier in the shift. The puck deflected to an onrushing Miller, who redirected it into the net with his own, unbroken foot to make it 2-0.
- The Lotto Line got another lucky break befitting their name a minute later, as Tyler Toffoli lost an edge on the forecheck and wiped out Dawson Mercer in slapstickian fashion. That gave the Canucks a 5-on-3 at the other end of the ice and they took advantage, with Pettersson sliding a puck across for a Miller one-timer for the 3-0 goal.
- After two goals in one minute, Miller added another two minutes later. Unfortunately, it was the Devils’ Colin Miller. After Teddy Blueger iced the puck, the Devils won the ensuing faceoff and the defenceman’s shot from the right point beat Thatcher Demko past the blocker, something that surely wouldn’t happen again repeatedly the rest of the game, he said sarcastically.
- Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek were dominant together in the first two periods, so it was surprising to see them split up late in the second period, with Hronek skating with the returned-from-injury Carson Soucy, while Hughes played with Myers. It didn’t go well. Myer got caught puck-watching on a Devils rush, completely missing that Erik Haula was wide open on his side of the ice. I was going to make a joke that Haula hauled ass to get open, but he didn’t even need to. Myers gave him all the space he needed to snipe the top corner.
- That goal came with just 23 seconds left in the second period, seemingly assuring that the Devils would go into the third period down by one. Conor Garland and The Good Job Boys had other ideas. Soucy banked a pass to Joshua, who spotted Garland in full flight up the right wing. Garland drove wide around Michael McLeod and Daws, perhaps knowing Garland’s reputation for shooting from anywhere, dropped into his butterfly, giving Garland the chance to beat him to the far post with a wraparound with ten seconds left.
- Devils colour commentator Ken Daneyko’s pained, “Nooooooo,” after Garland’s goal tells the whole story from the Devils’ side of things. He sounded like a more subdued Darth Vader.
- “That was a gigantic goal at a huge point in the game,” said Miller. “Two-goal lead going into the third on the road is a big difference instead of one. They’ve been unreal and they’ve kind of been a bit of a backbone for us when not everyone is going.”
- The Lotto Line extended the lead early in the third period. Hughes jumped up in the rush, driving the net alongside Miller to open up space for the late man, Pettersson. Boeser slipped the pass across and Pettersson made like a therapist and got Daws to open up before sliding the puck five-hole.
- Demko had some struggles in this game — the Canucks should check to see if someone sabotaged his blocker by sewing lead weights into it — but he also made some outstanding saves. He robbed Tyler Toffoli multiple times, including his best save of the game midway through the third on a Devils power play. Like calling Newark a world-class city, it was a bit of a stretch, but Demko got just enough of his toe on Toffoli’s shot to deflect it over the net.
- It was such a good save that John Shorthouse went as far as apologizing for not giving it its proper due in real-time. “What a save,” said Shorty. “Thatcher deserved a better play-by-play call on that one, I was looking at a power play stat. That was a wonderful save.”
- The Canucks nearly lost control of this game with a few bad shifts in the third period. First, Nils Åman got caught napping in the slot instead of watching the right point. He left Colin Miller with far too much space and the Devils defenceman beat Demko past the blocker for his second goal of the game to make it 5-3.
- Then Ilya Mikheyev made the same mistake as Åman, albeit for a different reason. Mikheyev darted down into the slot with Simon Nemec instead of passing him off to Quinn Hughes. That left Brendan Smith open at the right point and he hammered a one-timer past the blocker of Demko, which isn’t concerning at all, I’m not nervous that teams might have found a weakness on Demko, I don’t know what you’re talking about, hahahaha, everything’s fine.
- “I liked a lot of our game today, I think we all felt pretty good about most of it,” said J.T. Miller. “I just think it’s a classic case of sitting back a little too much with the lead and they have a ton of talent over there, so they’re going to make plays. We’ve got to find a way to find that happy medium of staying aggressive but in our structure where we don’t give them so much time and space.”
- Things got a little more nerve-wracking when Dakota Joshua took a bad penalty in the offensive zone to give the Devils a power play in the final minutes of a one-goal game. Then J.T. Miller tripped Luke Hughes while on the penalty kill, seemingly certain to give the Devils a long 5-on-3. But the ref decided not to call the trip, possibly because Hughes, though he was legitimately tripped, threw some extra spice on it on his way to the ice like he was The Rock selling a Stone Cold Stunner. The refs allowed Hughes to keep kayfabe by not calling it a dive.
- Joshua made up for his penalty with some extra effort for the empty-net goal. Miller won a battle along the boards and he and Joshua moved the puck up ice. Instead of trying for the hat trick, Miller gave the puck to Joshua, who deked past a sliding Jesper Brat and spun off a Nico Hischier check to seal the game away, 6-4.
- Honestly, this game was far closer than it ought to have been. The Canucks dominated the vast majority of the game but for a couple of defensive gaffes and some uncharacteristic play from Demko. The encouraging aspects of this game far outweigh those mistakes.
