VANCOUVER — At the start of this dream campaign for the Vancouver Canucks, team president Jim Rutherford, general manager Patrik Allvin and head coach Rick Tocchet held a press conference at the Parq Hotel to open training camp and welcome members of the media to the 2023-2024 season. .
It was at this press conference that Rutherford, in his frank and memorable style, uttered the phrase that, in some ways, marked and defined the entire Canucks season.
“I think, to be very specific, with the changes that have been made, we will have a playoff team if everything goes well,” Rutherford said.
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It’s a line that has been focused on and discussed ad nauseam in Vancouver ever since, especially since almost everything seemed to be going well for Vancouver over the first four months of the regular season. However, what has been focused on somewhat less frequently is what Rutherford subsequently proposed.
“We want to get to a point where we have enough in our lineup that some things could go wrong … and overcome that,” Rutherford said, a little more ambitiously.
If Vancouver’s path to success seemed somewhat unstable at the start of this season, the way this club performed, particularly its structural and defensive excellence, seemed to change the equation somewhat over the remainder of this season .
Back in September, one might have thought that Vancouver’s success was bound to come on a knife’s edge, and it could certainly be said early in the campaign that the Canucks had benefited from rebounds, but as the season progressed, this team has legitimately improved, even as its results have slowed somewhat.
In February, March and April, Vancouver was not scoring on a historically efficient percentage of its shots. Injuries to some key players, notably star goalkeeper Thatcher Thatcher Demko, but also Dakota Joshua and Elias Lindholm, have piled up. The referees’ whistle hasn’t been as kind to Vancouver, the Canucks have dropped some weird ones with a frequency that didn’t exist in October and November, and the things they were trying weren’t working as well anymore often, while those that their opponents tried more regularly. did.
And to some extent, it didn’t really matter. Yes, the Oilers were able to close the gap in the Pacific Division to make Game 80 interesting, but Vancouver played its game and won. The Canucks retained the division crown, they retained home ice advantage, and while their form looked a little more like “a strong playoff team” than a “world beater”, this team showed the courage to do what good teams do. . Vancouver continued to win and overcame the situation when “a few things (went) wrong.”
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On Tuesday, as the club took an optional morning skate before Game 2 of its first-round series against the Nashville Predators, Demko was absent. This was reported, first by Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff, then confirmed by sources at AthleticismAccording to Rick Dhaliwal, Demko will be out for the second game. His status for the remainder of Vancouver’s first-round series is now very much in question, with Tocchet describing the injury as “day to day.”
“He skated yesterday. He’s not going to play tonight,” Tocchet said. “It wasn’t the old injury and that’s all I really have for you guys.”
Demko is an asset in Vancouver’s hands when healthy. The Vancouver starter has won an incredible 35 of his 51 starts this season, while posting a .918 save percentage and an above-average number of saved goals, bested only by Connor Hellebuyck. He is without a doubt one of Vancouver’s most important players.
And the team needs him if they want to continue the playoffs. there is no doubt.
Contemporary NHL clubs, however, routinely need two goaltenders if they want to make the playoffs that persist through late May and early June. For example, last season’s two Stanley Cup finalists started two different goaltenders during their first-round series. The year before, the Colorado Avalanche turned to a backup to start games in the Western Conference Finals due to injury.
The best teams can have problems and overcome that.
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And now it’s the test of Game 2 and until Demko returns for Vancouver. Between Casey DeSmith and Arturs Silovs, Vancouver has the goaltending depth to get a level of puck stopping that should still allow the Canucks to win games. You don’t expect Silovs or DeSmith to steal games (or steal an entire series) like Demko can, but Vancouver’s two backup goalies have been good enough to win games up front all year. Now they will have to continue to be while Demko recovers.
Meanwhile, the Canucks are about to put Rutherford’s preseason goal to the test for this team. Leading 1-0 in their first-round series against the Predators, the Canucks have enough strengths – particularly their defensive play, which severely limited Nashville’s top line in Game 1 – to win. To advance. And to give Demko enough time to come back.
Now we will find out if this team has reached the stage where they can win.
(Photo: Derek Cain / Getty Images)