I missed Friday’s Vancouver Canucks game, which means I didn’t witness one of the few games this season Elias Pettersson reached into his bag of tricks to unleash a clap bomb goal against the Minnesota Wild.

Rest assured, I had the goal described to me in vivid detail by many a fan. They had tears in their eyes as they recounted the windup, the release, and the sound of the goal horn going off in ecstasy. One fan told me he named his child “holy sh!t Elias actually shot the puck” to honour the goal, which I found quite charming, despite my concerns about their future driver’s license.

I also watched many highlights of the goal to make sure what I was seeing was real, that this actually happened. Hell, at one point in the post-game scrums, Elias Pettersson even smiled. Not the smirk he uses when he wants you to know you’ve let him down, but a real, honest-to-goodness grin. It was one of the rare times when I didn’t envision Smithers standing behind him with a gun, telling him to keep smiling.

With this in mind, I headed to the game Sunday with maybe not vim in my step, but a lot of vigor. I was excited to see the revival of Elias Pettersson continue.

Instead, what I was met with was yet another dreary defensive game that saw Elias Pettersson end the night with 16:05 of ice time, to go along with Brock Boeser’s 15:49 and Jake DeBrusk’s measly 12:45.

When asked by Daniel Wagner post-game about their lack of ice time and if that was indicative of their play on the night, Rick Tocchet cut him off, forcefully informing us that “You gotta earn your ice time around here. That’s how you win. So you guys can stir it up all you want. You have to earn your ice time. I don’t care how long you’ve been here, you gotta earn your ice time. That’s the way it works. That’s how you win Stanley Cups.”

If you listen to the audio and hear repeated pounding during this clip, that’s because Tocchet was hitting his fist on the podium to make his point. This wasn’t a coach talking about what players need to do to get better; this was a coach emphatically letting you know that he was not having it with his top guys on the night. Which means those allegations of Tocchet maybe embracing dinosaur hockey a little too much? They aren’t going away anytime soon.

We’ve talked more than enough about his coaching career being littered with teams that lacked offensive punch, so all I will say is that in a game in which you lose 4-1 and produced little offence, maybe you give your top guys some slack as the game comes to a close. Maybe there is a time and place to teach lessons to your star players when you’re in dire need of offence and battling for that sweet, sweet playoff revenue. No offence to Drew O’Connor, but maybe I have some questions that Ja Rule can’t answer.

Of course, that being said, the Dallas Stars are an extremely good hockey club, made even better with the addition of Mikko Rantanen at the trade deadline. It’s hard to watch the Canucks play a team like the Stars and think they’re anywhere close to being able to compete in a playoff series against them, Quinn Hughes or not.

So maybe the long game here for Tocchet is to teach the lessons now and hope they pay off later. Maybe you still lose this game with your top guys on the ice anyway, so why not go Dad mode on them? Tocchet wasn’t wrong in saying they weren’t playing at a top level earlier in the game, even if I didn’t think they were that awful.

And some people, hey, they like the tough love approach. If you’ve got your third and fourth liners busting their asses off, maybe you lean into that. Maybe you see Derek Forbort scores his first goal as a Canuck and suddenly anything seems possible.

It’s just, it’s a huge ask for one of your bottom roster guys to score a goal in a tight checking game, spirited effort or not. That’s where you have to go to your top guys to come through in those key moments we keep hearing about. It’s tough to step up in a key moment when you’re not on the ice.

Which means the questions about whether Rick Tocchet knows how to produce offence coaching an NHL team or not? They are not going to be going away anytime soon.

And with a battle to make the playoffs ahead of them, I can only imagine what a potential post-season run with this team will look like offensively.

Hold onto your butts, folks.

Best good enough for me

Give me that aggressiveness every game Petey #Canucks

— Rohil Patel (@rohilpatel15) March 10, 2025

Look, for me, the Dallas Stars are a top team, which means the Canucks chances of beating them? If I run the Scott Steiner math, it’s not great.

But when you add in the fact the Dallas Stars played the night before in Edmonton, sure, maybe you feel the Canucks should have fared better.

I just keep coming back to the fact that the Dallas Stars are a ridiculously deep team. I remember many a night in which the 2011 Canucks would sleep walk through the second of a back to back game and win in the third period when Henrik Sedin would bank the puck in off of Sami Salo’s balls or whatever.

However, if you’re the type of person that lives and breathes by “get in and see what happens”, if you’re the type of person who thinks “If Brock Boeser walks in free agency that cap space saved is better than any trade deadline deal” then hey, you’re probably a little miffed with this game. Your shiny optimism won’t be broken by this game, but you’re probably a tad bit put out.

For what it’s worth, I thought the Canucks played pretty solidly considering Quinn Hughes was still out, and Brock, Jake and Elias were all being taught a valuable life lesson.

The game started off decent with Elias Pettersson actually shooting the puck with purpose, clanging a post for his efforts:

He didn’t force a pass, and he didn’t curl back and pass it off for a lethal Vittorio Mancini shot. Instead, he did what your top guys are supposed to do, and he attempted to hurt Casey DeSmith’s self-value by scoring a goal on him.

It felt like the confidence from the team was in a solid spot as you even had Vittorio dangling with the puck in his own zone before sending a floater of a pass that Boeser brought down like a young Zinedine Zidane, back heeling it for Pius Suter to skate into:

Heck, you even had Conor Garland cutting towards the middle of the ice to get a shot off:

Does Garland’s shot scare anyone? Of course not. But it’s what it represents that matters. And what it represented was a team that was well on its way to a 23 shot game, and nothing was going to get in their way of it.

Speaking of sons being punished for on-ice crimes, here was Jake DeBrusk setting up Marcus Pettersson for their lone high danger chance of the period:

Again, I understand the tough love approach; it just didn’t feel like this was a particularly egregious game from Jake, Elias and Brock.

Best new kid on the block

Lekky looking confident in the powerplay set up, just a matter of when, not if he scores! #canucks

— 44 (@canuckinsanity) March 10, 2025

It helps if you just accept the fact that the Canucks power play is a rotting corpse waiting to be found in a landfill, that way you’re never really disappointed by it.

That being said, Jonathan Lekkerimäki showed a bit of juice on the second unit during a late first-period power play:

It was nothing mind-blowing, but the fact that he looked confident with the puck and continued to move around the ice to create space? Well ok maybe that is mind blowing for this Canucks power play, I take it back.

It just felt like you could see the potential in his offensive game with the way he was zipping the puck around and had no issues loading up the shot from the slot when given the chance.

He looked like a young Lonny Bohonos out there.

Best one way of looking at it

Mikko Rantanen steps up for Jason Robertson after Nils Hoglander takes run at the Stars winger.
Nickname is Moose. Very appropriate

— Bruce LeVine (@BruceLeVinePuck) March 10, 2025

Bruce is correct in that Nils Höglander took his pound of flesh from Jason Robertson; we cannot deny that:

What Bruce fails to mention is that it was a receipt from Nils for the elbow Jason through earlier in the shift:

Look, Nils is no Cody Rhodes. He won’t take a Travis Scott shot like that and simply let it go. This is a guy who carries a list of names of people who have wronged him taped to his socks, even if I made that fact completely up. The point is, Nils is a feisty guy who has no problems going Sopranos mode when need be.

Now, the Dallas Stars ended up with the power play out of all of this, which Rick Tocchet had no problem with and accepted quite calmly.

Best lip reading

Tocchet to the ref: “that’s why you don’t work the fucking playoffs! Yeah I’m talking to you! Fucking stupid!”#canucks

— ogpinana (@ogpinana) March 10, 2025

OK, maybe Rick was a little heated:

The thing about Rick is that he will never, ever say a bad word about a referee after a game. Just won’t do it. The ref could hit him with a baseball bat, and Rick could attempt to stab him in retaliation, but after the game, he will still say they’re a good group of guys over there, and they worked it out during intermission.

Best mini stick hockey approach

Good period, we are due for another PP #Canucks

— Antagonist (@BigJ13601247) March 10, 2025

The Canucks almost opened the scoring with under 20 seconds left when who else but Conor Garland busted out the mini-sticks hockey approach and almost tapped in the puck at the side of the net off a Marcus Pettersson pass:

Again, for me, a 0-0 tie against this Dallas Stars team, tired or not, is probably the best this team can hope for? I certainly don’t envision Rick Tocchet utilizing a different style anytime soon, so love it or hate it, this counter-attack, defensive style hockey is what we’re in store for the rest of the year; lock it down and hope you get a bounce.

Doesn’t quite sell the tickets by providing any semblance of exciting hockey, but it’s all we’ve got right now.

Best teamwork makes the dream work

Goddam LANKINEN is a beauty call him blankinen #Canucks

— bfs (@Toad0082) March 10, 2025

The official Natural Stat Trick stats had the Dallas Stars with 19 shots and only five high-danger chances (somehow the Canucks got 10 high-danger chances alone in the third period, which seems like a lie meant to embolden your Uncle on Facebook), which speaks to two things:

The Canucks did play a pretty solid defensive game of hockey
The Dallas Stars are a good team, which means it doesn’t take much for them to score when given a chance

Again, though, the Canucks were doing their best to play GOTI hockey, which means Conor Garland was the first guy to drop to the ice behind Lankinen to protect the net in this scramble:

Corolla Garland is the guy you ask to help you move, and he doesn’t even get mad when you tell him you haven’t packed yet. He just rolls up his sleeves and tells you to point him in a direction to get started.

Best shining Stars

DAMMIT #Canucks 1-0 stars ofc

— bfs (@Toad0082) March 10, 2025

It’s not exactly a goal brimming with skill, but Thomas Hartley managed to bank the puck in off of Marcus Pettersson for the Stars’ first goal of the night:

It was essentially a counter-attack off of a thoughts and prayers pass behind the Stars net from Conor Garland that started the rush into the Canucks zone, and after cycling the puck and causing Vancouver to chase the puck, got enough room to get a shot off that ended up getting a fortuitous bounce into the net.

Elias Pettersson was on the ice for this goal, and you can see him make a diving poke attempt at the start of the clip, and honestly? He played hard on this entire shift. In the moments before the goal, he defended the front of the net and cut off a scoring chance by tying up a stick, and then he would later chase down the puck and throw a hit along the boards. He threw in a bit of a desperation dive at the end there, but nothing about this screamed lack of effort.

All of which is to say I am still not quite sure what Elias did this game that drew the ire of his coach to the point of affecting his ice time.

Best jinx early and often

Casey DeSmith shutout incoming. Who woulda guessed 🤣 #Canucks

— Dombrova (@dombrova22) March 10, 2025

The Canucks almost scored later in the second period when Doc attempted a wraparound, which was followed up by Lekkerimäki getting a slick takeaway to keep the puck in the zone, followed up by Filip Chytil dragging the puck onto the net:

They didn’t score, but at least it was a good greasy attempt? I have to assume this is the kind of thing Tocchet is after, where you drag the puck into the crease and shave off your sideburns.

Best who is that man

I didn’t know Forbort could do that #Canucks

— s (@canucksabs) March 10, 2025

With last year’s best third line in the league re-united halfway through the game, Blueger, Garland and Joshua got to participate in the once in a life time event known as a Derek Forbort goal:

Perhaps Derek realized that someone had to step up to replace the offence the team lost when they traded Carson Soucy.

Now, what is absolutely wild about this goal isn’t the fact that Derek is almost going bar down on his shot; it’s the fact that he’s running the 2-on-1 of Rick Tocchet’s dreams.

How many times have we heard Rick talk about wanting his players to move their feet and open up space on the ice like this?

Now, I don’t know how many more of these shots Forbort has in them, but the give-and-go from the point is something this team needs more of, especially with how much they feed the puck back to the blue line.

No, no, go ahead, watch that goal again, take your time. I still can’t believe it either.

Best rigged election results

little kid from the intermission game just said his favourite player is Derek Forbort

get him a signed stick lmao #canucks

— Jisho (@glen_nelson) March 10, 2025

After the game, Derek was informed of this child in question, to which he replied the kid needed to choose a better offensive player. Then we all laughed. But it was the laughter of people grasping on to anything that could be an uplifting moment from this night.

To which I will say that after losses this year, this team feels like it’s talking at a funeral. I don’t know how the vibes got this bad, and I get that speaking after any loss probably isn’t the most enjoyable thing, but man alive, on some nights, the team just looks right at the floor and talks like they just lost the Cup final.

Everyone except Tyler Myers. That dude refuses to let you see him bleed. 10-1 loss, he will tell you all about the positives of that first goal and how nobody in that room is down right now.

Sometimes, I want to be lied to like that.

Best false fact

Fun fact:

The #Canucks have never lost a game when Forbort scores.

— Rohil Patel (@rohilpatel15) March 10, 2025

In a game in which offensive chances were few and far between, Kiefer Sherwood attempting to turn into Pavel Bure certainly stood out:

That is stickhandling normally reserved for playing online hockey in an EA Sports game, sir.

The only thing missing was dropping the puck back to his skate and kicking it back up to himself. He does that; he clearly scores here.

Best failure to launch

Yup both defenders on 1 guy #Canucks

— Brandon (@Brandon1329304) March 10, 2025

With the period coming to an end, four things happened:

Elias Pettersson lost a faceoff
Tyler Myers and Derek Forbort covered the same guy
Kevin Lankinen punched that puck like it owed him money, giving up the juiciest of rebonds
Apparently, Rick Tocchet entered into a blood feud with his top players after this

I don’t love that rebound from Kevin; I kind of hate it, actually. Just gut punches it towards the general area of the faceoff dot, which ends up blowing up in his face because Derek Forbort, covering the right side of the ice off the draw, just makes a beeline to get back to the middle of the ice, leaving his man wide open.

The end result is ~~Markus~~ Mikael Granlund has himself an easy tap in, which essentially sealed the game for the Stars since the Canucks are legally not allowed to make a third period come back this year.

Best Jeff was on the case

EP40 just 3 shifts over final 10:45 of 2nd period. Yes, there was a Dallas power play in there, but didn't see a lot of ice in 2nd half of second period

— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) March 10, 2025

Again, I am still not sure what the three bad sons did to have their ice time this limited, but that’s where we find ourselves.

Best from bad to worse

Really interested to know what marcus pettersson was doing there. He was following robertson and as soon as the stars made it to the net he turned his back to the puck and left robertson to tip it in?? #Canucks

— the name's AP (@AP_SD_) March 10, 2025

The Stars for real for real sealed this game away halfway through the third period when Matt Duchene found Jason Robertson alone behind the Canucks defence for the easy tap-in goal:

I am also confused by what MP3 is doing on this play. My best guess is he either overthought it or thought Garland might slide in to help cover Robertson? Or he just panicked and closed his eyes and went to his happy place, building Legos on the ranch, back in a time when dairy price agreements meant something.

To me, this is just what a good team does; they find a way to break you the second you make a mistake.

And again, for what its worth, Natural Stat Trick had the Canucks generating 10 high-danger chances in this period. I have no idea how. I have no idea when. But apparently, that happened.

In my eyes, the Canucks got shut down in the third period pretty handily.

Best possible high danger chances

A little more urgency is needed from the whole team. I’m not sure if the #Canucks realize what’s at stake here….

— Bryan Suttie (@SuttieBryan) March 10, 2025

The Best Third Line in the League got at least one of those high-danger chances, and it was right after the Stars’ third goal, when Teddy KGB found Dakota Joshua in all alone for a good look at Casey DeSmith:

I also assume this was another high danger chance when Pius Suter tried to thread the puck down low to Blueger in front of the Stars net:

I think the puck rolled off of Teddy’s stick at the last second, and nobody got to any of the actual rebounds to get more shots off, but hey, at least it felt dangerous? That has to count for at least four chances.

Best a few more high danger shots

got out of my seat twice for the D-Petey crossbar and the Hoglander no-goal. Probably used up our close calls for the night there 🫠 #canucks

— Jisho (@glen_nelson) March 10, 2025

The defensive version of Elias Pettersson would also later hit the post on a shot that Blueger may or may not have gotten a small piece of:

And if punching the puck into the net counts as a high-danger chance, Nils Höglander got one here as well:

So the good news is that hypothetically, the Canucks could have tied this game up.

The bad news is, they didn’t.

Again, not the worst game in the world, and maybe in another universe the Canucks manage to win this one. Maybe you get a bounce or two here and there, and things go your way. I think their structure on the night was solid, even if the same problems of lack of offence reared their ugly heads in the end.

I just don’t envision this team being able to pull this off four times in four series in the playoffs.

Defensive hockey without any ability to score goals only gets you so far.

Best finish them

That game really annoyed me for some reason#Canucks

— Ur_fav brunette (@fav_brunette43) March 10, 2025

Here is the Stars empty-netter for posterity:

Another night, another loss, another tedious hockey game.

I honestly have no idea how this team can be jacking up the prices for next season.

Best tale of the tape

Canucks since January 1st (With NHL ranks)

Goals / Game: 2.19 (Last)
EV Strength Goals / Game: 1.56 (Last)
SOG / Game: 25.1 (31st)
Shooting Pct.: 8.7 (29th)

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) March 10, 2025

Roster problems? Coaching issues? It feels like we’ve been talking about that debate all season long.

At the end of the day, this team cannot generate offence to save its life, and the only way it’s been able to tread water is by playing the type of hockey even the 2003 Minnesota Wild think is a bit much.

See you Tuesday?

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