Rick Tocchet's First Month with Canucks Delivers Glimmers of Possibility

At this point, wins and losses don't factor into much into judging Rick Tocchet's start with the Vancouver Canucks. But a few players have stepped up their game.

It's not quite 'Bruce, There It Is.' But new coach Rick Tocchet has done an admirable job of stepping into a difficult situation and starting to put his stamp on the Vancouver Canucks during his first month on the job.

When Bruce Boudreau prepared to hand over the wheel of the good ship Canuck following a 4-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Jan. 21, he wisecracked that his successor would be facing a comparatively easier schedule. And he may have something there. 

The Canucks went 18-25-3 under Boudreau this season, a points percentage of .424. Following Thursday's come-from-behind road win in overtime against the St. Louis Blues, the club is now 5-5-2 with Tocchet behind the bench: easy math of hockey .500.

The wins have come even though Tocchet has loudly lamented the Canucks' lack of structure and the shortage of available practice time to instil that structure.

The club's average of 4.08 goals allowed per game under his tenure is a slight increase from the 3.96 that were being given up under Boudreau. But the historically bad penalty kill has improved by a hair, going from a 65.8-percent success rate in Boudreau's era to 67.6 percent under Tocchet's watch.

And there are signs of hope. After establishing a disheartening pattern of blowing multi-goal leads early in the season, the Canucks have shown the ability to come back as well. 

Tuesday night in Nashville, they scored twice in the final 1:07 of the third period to force overtime before falling in the shootout. Two nights later in St. Louis, after two coach's challenges had gone against them earlier in the game, they authored a two-goal third-period comeback before Elias Pettersson capped things off with a spectacular end-to-end effort in overtime.

For the year, the Canucks are 7-5-2 when leading after one period — a conversion rate of .500 which is the second-lowest in the league, ahead of only San Jose. But they've also come back to win nine times when trailing after one period and seven times when trailing after two, both of which were true against St. Louis on Thursday. And that's something to build off.

"I was pretty hard on the guys in the sense that we've got to sometimes dig," said Tocchet after Thursday's game. "They went and played a great third. It's a character win. A lot of guys showed up tonight."

Tocchet's roster already looks dramatically different from the group he inherited from Boudreau. Captain Bo Horvat, of course, is gone. But Anthony Beauvillier has fit in seamlessly on Elias Pettersson's right wing since being acquired from the New York Islanders — in a spot that became vacant just days earlier when Ilya Mikheyev was shut down for season-ending knee surgery.

Beauvillier has been known for being streaky. But he has four goals and four assists in his first nine games in Vancouver, and three of his goals have come on the power play, where he is proving to be just as deft at tipping shots as Horvat was earlier in the season. 

The other player who came back in the Horvat trade, Aatu Raty, earned a call-up on Wednesday following an eight-game adjustment period with the AHL's Abbotsford Canucks, where he described his own play as "horrible." Slotted into the third-line center spot for his NHL debut with his new team against the Blues, the 20-year-old played just 7:37, logging one hit and winning two of his three draws. It's a start.

Another fresh rookie is goaltender Arturs Silovs. A sixth-round pick in 2019, the 21-year-old has had a tough development arc, barely playing through the two pandemic-impacted seasons.

This year, he has been solid as the starter in Abbotsford. And while he drew a tough assignment for his NHL debut last week, giving up five goals to the powerhouse New York Rangers, Silovs has since played two of Vancouver's three subsequent games and fared well. He gave up just two goals against both Philadelphia and St. Louis and earned wins in both games.

With veteran defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson now out with an ankle sprain and Luke Schenn back in Vancouver as he awaits a trade — and the arrival of his third child — the Canucks' back end is also looking younger. On Thursday, the blueline corps included frequent healthy scratch Kyle Burroughs on the right side and lefty Guillaume Brisebois, a 2015 third-rounder who was also called up this week and played just his 14th NHL game.

If GM Patrik Allvin gets aggressive over the next week, the youth movement could soon become even more pronounced. Along with Schenn, there are Demko, Brock Boeser and even J.T. Miller being mentioned in the latest trade rumors as the Canucks look to retool and improve their salary-cap situation. 

As for leadership: Elias Pettersson told Scott Oake on Hockey Night In Canada's After Hours segment last week that he wants to take his time before deciding whether he'd accept the Canucks captaincy if it was offered — saying that he's a pretty quiet guy by nature, has never been a captain at any level, and generally prefers to devote his energy to working on his own game.

Now wearing an 'A' for the first time in Vancouver, he has been taking a bit of a trial run at a higher-profile role — sitting for thoughtful, in-depth interviews with Oake and for the 32 Thoughts podcast and downplaying rumors that he has tension with Miller or that he's looking for a change of scenery.

Pettersson's surprising win in the hardest shot contest at the all-star skills competition also seems to have boosted his confidence even more during an already-strong season on the ice. 

Before the break, he was 21-37-58 in 47 games, for 1.23 points per game. Since returning to action, Pettersson is 7-10-17 in nine games. That's 1.89 points per game, tying him with Connor McDavid for the best production in the league since the all-star break. His 75 points are a career high and as of Friday morning, he's tied with Buffalo's Tage Thompson for seventh in NHL scoring.

Canucks fans can just look back to last year for a reminder that it can be tricky to judge the potential of a team that's out of the playoffs by its late-season performances. But with his emphasis on teaching and how he's getting buy-in from established players while giving opportunities to youngsters, Tocchet appears to have his team on a positive track, given the circumstances.

At this point, it's nearly irrelevant to judge his tenure by wins and losses. With 24 games remaining, the Canucks are 16 points out of a Western Conference playoff spot, but perhaps more importantly, they're just 10 points out of the NHL basement. 

Vancouver is currently 27th overall and holds a 7.5-percent chance of securing the franchise's first-ever No. 1 pick — a prize that's even more meaningful this season because otherworldly local product Connor Bedard awaits for the draft lottery winner.

The tank is on, but solid buy-in from the players and a few good outcomes can also go a long way toward establishing a solid foundation for the future of the Vancouver Canucks.