The Vancouver Canucks conducted their final practice of the season on Friday at Rogers Arena ahead of Saturday's home finale against Calgary.
Rick Tocchet was caught off guard by the question following Friday's practice at Rogers Arena. Was this the Canucks final practice of the season? With a home game Saturday, travel to Southern California on Sunday and then back to back games on Monday and Tuesday, time is running out before the team's final game of the season next Thursday in Arizona. Surely, the coach won't put his players through their paces in Phoenix ahead of Game 82.
"It probably could be," he said of this being the last practice of the season. "I didn't even think of that. I should have went harder. Why didn't you remind me of that before?"
With just four games remaining on the schedule, Tocchet showed a couple of new looks at Friday's workout moving Vitali Kravtsov and Conor Garland to the wings with Elias Pettersson while Andrei Kuzmenko and Anthony Beavillier found themselves on a line with Sheldon Dries. Aidan McDonough, who was a healthy scratch on Thursday against Chicago, also took turns as a winger with Dries.
"I'm just trying to get some more offense. I haven't seen a lot of offense the last three or four games," Tocchet explained of his line juggling."We had five or six chances against Chicago. Sometimes when you move guys around some guys get more energy. We have to get more offense."
The Canucks have managed just six goals in their last three games and that includes JT Miller's empty net goal in the final minute of Thursday's 3-0 win over the Blackhawks. Miller has just two points in his last four games while Elias Pettersson has two points in his last three. It's hardly reason for concern, but it is enough for the coach to experiment in Saturday's home finale.
Miller was in his usual spot between Brock Boeser and Phil Di Giuseppe on Friday while Nils Aman skated between Dakota Joshua and Jack Studnicka.
Tocchet knows the Canucks are going to see a desperate Calgary team that is fighting for its playoff life on Saturday. The Flames arrive in Vancouver tied with Winnipeg for the final wild card spot in the West although the Jets have a game in hand and have the tie breaker. That means the Flames need to finish ahead of Winnipeg to punch their ticket to the post-season.
"Calgary is going to dump the puck in and they're going to be on top of us and we have to counter act that," he says. "We have to have a good forecheck. We have to have good possession time which for the last few months we've been one of the better teams in possession time, but we've lost that. When you play these heavy forechecking teams, you have to breakout better but you also have to get the puck in the other end and keep it there."
The Flames beat the Canucks 5-4 in overtime to open this five game homestand on April 8th. That night the Canucks had Guilluame Brisebois and Jack Rathbone among their six defenders. On Saturday, the team will be even more inexperienced with Akito Hirose playing his fourth NHL game while Cole McWard will suit up for his second.
The defense pairs at practice Friday remained unchanged from Thursday night. So expect Hirose to be alongside Tyler Myers while McWard will likely play with Ethan Bear.
The Canucks will wear their black skate jersey for the final time on Saturday night. The club also will announce its year-end award winners throughout the hockey game.