J.T. Miller was an absolute beast in the first game of the season against the Calgary Flames. He ended the night with a Gordie Howe hat trick. A goal, an assist, and a fight with Anthony Mantha. Unfortunately, his team saw a 4-1 first period lead evaporate and eventually lost 6-5 in OT to the Flames after Miller tied it with the Canucks net empty.
This team will need a lot more J.T. Miller performances to be successful, not only from J.T. himself, but the rest of the team as well. Jake Debrusk commented after the game, “It was an injustice not to pull out the win for him. He gave it everything he had tonight and, myself included, need to be more like him that way.”
Head coach Rick Tocchet took some of the blame himself, stating post-game that he may have put too much emphasis on the transition game during the preseason.
Goaltender Arturs Silovs had a tough game. It did appear the Flames had the book on him and his weaknesses. Giving up the long-range shots was definitely not a good look.
Brock Boeser potted a couple of goals, but stated post game, “We just got too comfortable. I think we thought it was going to be easy. They just out competed us those last two periods.”
Friday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers resulted in a 3-2 shootout loss and started with Tyler Myers suffering an apparent knee injury. He was unable to put any weight on his right leg, and was helped off the ice by Derek Forbort and J.T. Miller.
Kevin Lankinen played his first regular season game in goal. He looked good, and seemed to bring a calming presence to the back end, stopping 29 of 31 Flyer shots.
The top six definitely look a bit out of sync and may take a while to gel with the new additions of DeBrusk, Sprong, and Heinen. I’m not going to pile on Elias Pettersson too much just yet, although there are 11.6 million reasons to do just that, but he does need to step it up. Quinn Hughes logged a career-high 31:29 of ice time, partly due to Myers’s injury and being down to 5 defensemen for the night.
Rick Tocchet, speaking post game, was quoted saying “Like to see a little bit more net front presence. More shooting mentality. But for the most part, the zone time, we just got to start converting.” Totally agree, Tocc.
The Canucks put on a great pre game ceremony to honor Alex Edler, who signed a one day contract to retire a Canuck. He was dressed in full gear for the ceremony and, in all honesty, could have stepped right into the lineup after the Myers injury. Edler leads the Canucks in all-time career assists at 310. Quinn Hughes, with 292, will pass that this year. Speaking pre-game, Edler said of Hughes, “I have those records because I was here for so long. He’s going to break every record because that’s how good he is.”
The team sets off on a 4 game eastern road trip, beginning in Tampa Bay, on Tuesday night. Providing, of course, that there are no further game cancelations in Tampa due to the recent historic weather events.
