Tocchet wants to get Mikheyev more involved in Canucks penalty kill

This much is known for sure, Rick Tocchet doesn't want to make a habit of having Elias Pettersson play 27:03 like he did on Saturday against the New York Rangers. With six power plays for each team plus overtime, the Vancouver Canucks star centre established a regular season career-high for ice time -- by nearly two minutes.

In the past 10 years, only two Canucks forwards have logged more minutes in a game. Daniel Sedin skated 28:55 after the ejection of four players in the infamous January 2014 opening face-off brawl game against Calgary. And Bo Horvat logged 27:06 in a November 2019 outing against Nashville when the team was already without centre Jay Beagle and lost Brandon Sutter to injury early in the hockey game.

For more context, only Kirill Kaprizov of Minnesota has played more (27:30) as a forward in a game this season than Pettersson did on Saturday. Of his 27:03, Pettersson spent 13:34 at even strength, 9:40 on the power play and 3:49 while short-handed. To top it off, he also played 2:01 of overtime.

So head coach Rick Tocchet is looking for ways to keep Pettersson's ice time in check. And one of these ways is to get Ilya Mikheyev more involved in the Canucks penalty kill than he has been to this point.

The 29-year-old is averaging 14:13 of ice time in his four games this season which is 1:11 per game below his career average. On Saturday, he saw his first penalty killing duty of the season skating for one 50 second shift in the second period with Sam Lafferty in the box for interference.

With his speed, length and reach, Mikheyev has the tools to be a penalty killing ace. And the Canucks definitely want to get him involved more than he has been so far. That said, Tocchet is also mindful of the long road Mikheyev has traveled to get back in the line-up after season-ending knee surgery.

"I was concerned about minutes and I thought he was a little bit tired playing back to back, but I've got to get him in, definitely," Tocchet said. "When I'm playing Petey and Millsy that much, I think Mik can really help us out and take some of those minutes down. He's a guy that killed penalties last year and we have to get him in the rotation, for sure."

Last season, on a partially torn ACL, Mikheyev was still fourth among Canucks forwards averaging 1:24 of penalty kill time per game. At full health, he should be more effective in the role and able to handle an increased work load moving forward.

In addition, when Teddy Blueger returns from injury that should give Tocchet two additional weapons to deploy when the Canucks are short-handed. Not only will Blueger and Mikheyev help the team's penalty kill, but in theory, their availability should prevent Elias Pettersson and JT Miller from logging massive minutes.

RECENT STORY:

Canucks Lafferty, Soucy mourn loss of friend and former teammate Adam Johnson