The Vancouver Canucks have a third line drawing comparisons to a former Penguins depth trio right now – but the team isn't taking that or the NHL lead for granted.
Remember the HBK Line?
When the Pittsburgh Penguins went on their Stanley Cup runs in 2016 and 2017, the third-line trio of Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino and Phil Kessel put up the points and added electricity with their speedy rush-driven playing style.
As the Vancouver Canucks enter the holiday break with the most points in the NHL following a 7-4 win over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday, they've been getting big offensive contributions over the last couple of weeks from their third line of Conor Garland, Teddy Blueger and Dakota Joshua.
Saturday night, Joshua scored what proved to be the game-winner with 47 seconds to play in the second period.
Garland and Blueger each finished the night with two assists. And while the Canucks roll into the holiday break on a nine-game point streak with a record of 7-0-2, Blueger is riding a personal point streak of six games, while Joshua and Garland have points in five of those games.
The more prominent this line becomes, the more they need a name.
Joshua looked flat-out horrified on Saturday night when told that 'The Joshua Three' had been proposed. No self-respecting NHL player wants his name front-and-center like that.
What about the GBJ Line? It doesn't have quite the same instant familiarity as HBK, taken from the popular WWE Wrestler Shawn Michaels, 'The Heartbreak Kid.' But it does have a similar ring to it ... though it requires swapping the left-and-right wingers Joshua and Garland to make it sound better.
Asked on Saturday if he sees a comparison between the two trios, Rick Tocchet was cautious with his response, even though Vancouver has built a 14-point playoff cushion in the Western Conference standings through its first 35 games. The hockey gods are not kind to those who take their good fortunes for granted.
"In those two Cup years, they really took advantage of those fifth and sixth defensemen, and most teams had matchup problems," Tocchet said.
As far as his current third line?
"I don't even want to talk about the playoffs, but I get it because they're playing so well," he said. "There's matchup problems with the other team. Yes."
Defenseman Ian Cole also has a pair of rings from 2016 and 2017 in Pittsburgh. He broke it down in a slightly different way.
"I heard somebody say at one time that come playoff time, the top guys tend to cancel each other out and it's whose depth steps up," he said. "Going by that, I like the situation that we're in. Garland and Teddy and Dak have been fantastic for us."
Cole, who has a personal active streak of nine straight seasons with a playoff appearance, raised some eyebrows when he chose to sign with Vancouver as a UFA on July 1. But he has slotted in nicely on a Canucks blueline that has been almost completely remade since last season. Quinn Hughes and Tyler Myers are the only holdovers in a beefed-up group that now also features Filip Hronek, Nikita Zadorov and Noah Juulsen. Another new acquisition, Carson Soucy, has just resumed skating after being sidelined since Nov. 12 with a leg fracture.
The Canucks were 11-3-1 when Soucy was injured. And he was missed: Vancouver went 4-5-0 over the next nine games, its roughest stretch of the season.
The tide began to turn after Nikita Zadorov was acquired in a trade with the Calgary Flames. Since he made his debut in Canucks colors on Dec. 2, Vancouver has gone 8-1-2.
With a goal and an assist on Saturday, Hughes is now up to 44 points for the year — tied for fifth in the overall scoring race with Pastrnak, Panarin and McDavid, tops in the entire league with a plus-28 rating (and his partner, Hronek, is second at plus-23), and leading all defensemen in scoring by a five-point margin over Cale Makar.
The Canucks captain earns the headlines, but the fresh group of defenders around him is thriving.
The situation is similar with the forwards — and in net.
At a glance, fans see Brock Boeser challenging Auston Matthews for the league lead in goals while J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson are in the top 10 in points.
It's easy to assume that the Canucks' success this season is driven by this core of stars — along with Thatcher Demko in net, who's already coming up on his 10th anniversary of being drafted by Vancouver.
Demko has been terrific. But last season, the Canucks didn't have a stable backup option in place to take the reins when their starter went down for 35 games with a groin injury.
This year, Demko is healthy and performing at a high level. He's also being ably supported by Casey DeSmith, a September trade acquisition.
DeSmith has delivered 14 of a possible 20 points by putting up a 6-2-2 record in his 10 starts while posting a career-best save percentage of .923 and a 2.44 goals-against average. Tocchet isn't afraid to use his backup in tough matchups when the schedule requires it, and the 32-year-old has been up for the challenge.
Up front, there have also been significant changes since Jim Rutherford was hired on Dec. 9, 2021, then brought in Patrik Allvin as his GM on Jan. 26, 2022. While they committed new contracts to Miller and Boeser and are working to get there with Pettersson, who can become a restricted free agent this summer, the only other holdovers from before Rutherford's arrival that are on the current roster are Garland and Nils Hoglander, who has rediscovered his game as a forechecking beast after a long stint in the AHL last season. He's already up to 10 goals this season, just three shy of his career high.
In the current top 12 forwards, Sam Lafferty was acquired in an October trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs, while Blueger, Joshua, Pius Suter, Ilya Mikheyev, Nils Aman and Andrei Kuzmenko have all been signed as free agents over the past two years. Each player has contributed in his own way, and even the mercurial Kuzmenko responded beautifully to two games as a healthy scratch by scoring Vancouver's first two goals on Saturday night and being named the game's first star.
Aman, Laffery and Suter all scored on Saturday. Mikheyev is up to 10 goals and 20 points and is on his way to a career-best season. And with six Canucks already in double digits in goals, Joshua, Lafferty (nine goals each) and Kuzmenko (eight) aren't far away from hitting double digits.
The Canucks' roster acquisitions haven't been especially splashy — a reality, when salary cap space is at a premium. But bit by bit, Allvin and Rutherford have built a team with more new faces than old. One that is learning how to win — and that other teams are starting to take seriously.
Blueger is another player with a Stanley Cup pedigree — a trade-deadline pickup by Vegas last March who is only a few months removed from a successful post-season run, with the hardware to show for it.
With that enormous ring comes a healthy dose of perspective during three days off to rest and enjoy family time from an unexpected perch atop the standings.
"It sounds good, but they don't give out the Stanley Cup at Christmas," Blueger told Sportsnet's Dan Murphy after Saturday's game. "I think it would be naive to make too much of it. I think we've got to learn and grow and just focus on getting better as the season goes on."