“And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.”
- Frank Sinatra, “My Way”
It has been a long, tumultuous season for the Vancouver Canucks. It felt even longer than normal after two abbreviated seasons in the midst of a pandemic. It seemed very strange to watch the Canucks play a full 82-game schedule after 69 and 56 games the previous two years. 82 games is a lot of games!
Against all odds, the vast majority of those 82 games were meaningful. Right up until the final two weeks of the season, the Canucks had a legitimate chance to make the playoffs and up until the final week of the season, the Canucks still had a mathematical chance.
The final game of the season on Friday against the Edmonton Oilers, however, was meaningless in many ways. The result would have no impact on the standings for either team — the Oilers already had second in the Pacific Division completely sewn up and the Canucks couldn’t catch the Vegas Golden Knights after they beat the St. Louis Blues earlier in the evening thank to Jack Eichel’s first three-point game for Vegas, just in time for them to miss the playoffs.
The Oilers even went as far as resting both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, ensuring that they wouldn’t get some freak injury ahead of the playoffs. With an eight-point lead in the Art Ross race, there was little reason for McDavid to be in the lineup.
But the Canucks didn’t play like the game was meaningless. Instead, they continued to play like they had something to prove, even if it was just to themselves.
“Once you get eliminated from the playoffs, there’s not much to play for, but we fought to the end,” said Conor Garland. “Huggy [Quinn Hughes] had a great speech after one of our games, just talking about our culture and how, going into next year, these games are important for us to compete and play hard.”
The Canucks have been talking about culture a lot recently, whether it’s the players, head coach Bruce Boudreau, the management duo of Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin, or even owner Francesco Aquilini. There’s a desire to make losing unacceptable and to set a higher standard for what’s expected from the Canucks.
For Garland, that’s what made even these final, seemingly-meaningless games so important.
“It’s trying to change the culture," he said. "The team hasn’t been in the playoffs in a while and we want to be a group that gets into the playoffs and competes for the Stanley Cup year in and year out. You have to start somewhere.”
Of course, the Canucks talked a lot about developing a winning culture under Jim Benning too. Ultimately, he tried to inject that culture in from the outside, acquiring expensive veteran players in free agency, instead of developing that culture from within. The “winning environment” that he talked about creating for his young players never came to fruition and the organization grew all-too comfortable with losing, setting low standards like “meaningful games in February and March” and just sneaking into the playoffs and hoping for the best.
The new management group has already taken steps to change the organizational culture, opening up their hiring practices to more diverse voices and creating more open communication and collaboration at the hockey operations level.
Boudreau has done wonders for the on-ice culture too, with the team battling hard right until the end, as Garland said.
“The way we played as a group shows what we think of [Boudreau],” said Tyler Myers. “I thought the group played really hard for him and it’s a testament to what he did when he came in.”
Even legendary leader Stan Smyl stepped into the locker room and provided an impassioned plea to the players to come together and get the job done.
Now, with the season over, the organization needs to take the steps to back up their desire for a new direction and higher standards by making the changes necessary to move in that new direction and meet those standards. The best way to sustain a winning culture is with, well, winning. It’s an exciting time for Canucks fans, who can hope that the disappointing finish outside of the playoffs this season won’t be repeated next season.
“I don’t think we want to be a team that just gets into the playoffs,” said Garland. “We have a lot of talent in that room — one of the best goalies in the league — so, that’s usually a recipe for teams that can go far and compete for the Stanley Cup and that’s what our focus should be, not just to get into the playoffs.
“We’ve just got to come back focused and we understand that what we did at the start of the year killed us, so I think we’ll be focused right from day one.”
One last time this season, I watched this game.
- One of the motivational factors for the Canucks in this game was trying to get J.T. Miller to 100 points. They got off to a good start, with Miller scoring the opening goal of the game for his 99th point in the first period. It seemed impossible that he would be stuck at 99 for the rest of the game, but coming up just short was a bit of a theme for the Canucks at the end of the season.
- Miller nearly had his 99th point earlier in the first on the power play. He sent a hard pass to Brock Boeser in the slot for a direction and the puck nearly rolled over the goal line before Duncan Keith pulled it back, just in case you needed another reason to boo Duncan Keith.
- The opening goal came late in the first on a fantastic play by Garland to gain the Edmonton zone, draw a couple of defenders in, then find the trailing Brad Hunt with a backhand pass. Hunt cut to the middle, then dished off to Miller, who made like Olga Korbut with a fancy bar down.
- “[Miller is] our top player. Him and Demmer really carried us this year,” said Garland. “We were obviously trying to get him 100 today, so that one stung. Looking for him lots tonight — I thought when we got that first one, for sure we got it early enough. It just stinks. We got a couple chances too.”
- It seemed like Garland wanted that 100th point for Miller more than anyone else, noting that the two were close off the ice. He was buzzing all game, creating chance after chance, like this blind, backhand pass to Alex Chiasson that would have given Miller a second assist if Chiasson had been able to connect on the long shot.
- I had to laugh at this play by Tyler Myers, as he waited for a puck that was slowly approaching the blue line, then reached out and played the puck at the exact moment when the puck escaped the Oilers’ zone, causing an offside. You couldn’t play it just a second sooner? You’ve got a long reach, my guy, you’re 6’8”.
- Spencer Martin had another fantastic game, and has still yet to lose in regulation across six starts for the Canucks. This stop on Devin Shore was one of his best. As Shore cut across the top of the crease, Martin made like Peacemaker as Vigilante was being tortured and made a toe save.
- Not everything went Martin’s way, such as when his stick was knocked out of his hand. It made me chuckle to see Martin punch the ice with his blocker, like he was saying, “Oh, come on!” as his stick was kicked progressively further into the corner.
- The Oilers tied the game just 31 seconds into the third period. Martin made a couple of sharp stops just before the goal but it’s tough to stop what you can’t see and Evander Kane cut right in front of his face on a Brett Kulak point shot. With Miller a step too slow to get into Kulak’s shooting lane, he was able to put the puck right where he wanted inside the near post.
- The Canucks responded quickly. Quinn Hughes gained the Oilers zone and dropped the puck between his legs for Garland, who had just picked up speed in the neutral zone. He cut in from the left wing and released a quick shot in stride that went just over the pad and under the blocker. The goal, like Garland himself, was on the short side.
- Unfortunately, while Miller was on the ice for Garland’s goal, they forgot to give him a touch before Garland scored, so no 100th point. Miller ended up playing over 24 minutes, as his teammates tried to find him on the ice.
- “I couldn’t play him any more,” protested Boudreau with a smile. “He was so exhausted. I was hoping so much that he would get it early so it wouldn’t prey on his mind and when Garland scored, I knew he was on the ice, I just didn’t know — did he touch it somehow, did he touch it? I guess he didn’t.”
- The Oilers tied the game again on another screened point shot. Myers was battling with Josh Archibald in front, adding an extra layer of opacity to the screen. Martin could only default to covering the middle of the net and hoping for the best.
- Miller’s best chance for his 100th point came in overtime on a fantastic feed from Hughes but Mikko Koskinen robbed him with the right pad. Miller was on the ice for three of the five minutes of overtime, with Boudreau even calling a timeout with a minute left to give him enough rest to stay on the ice.
- The best play of overtime was a defensive play from Hughes. After losing his stick in the offensive zone, Hughes tried to grab a stick from the bench but they botched the handoff like a USA 4x100 Olympic team. No matter — Hughes kept backchecking and broke up the Oilers’ 3-on-1 with a soccer-style sliding tackle to send the puck flying out of play.
- The shootout seemed rather perfunctory. No one could score for the Canucks, with Pettersson, Miller, Boeser, Podkolzin, and — oddly enough — Ekman-Larsson shooting for the Canucks. Not sure why Ekman-Larsson got a shot ahead of Garland, who was the Canucks’ best skater during the game, or even Hughes if they were going to go with a defenceman. But nitpicking the shootout selection in game 82 seems like a fruitless exercise.
So, that’s it for another season. I’m not going to lie, this last little stretch has been fun but tough, as I got COVID at the beginning of the month and I’ve been struggling with some lingering brain fog in recent weeks even though I’m negative now. It makes writing these IWTGs a little bit tougher but I wasn’t going to let it stop me.
Thanks for reading and commenting all season. I really do appreciate all of you regular readers. Stay tuned for what could be an eventful Canucks offseason under new management. I’m looking forward to it.
