The Vancouver Canucks hope to shed their excess baggage as a five-game road trip nears its end.
A three-game losing streak and high anxiety-late arrival travel day on Saturday followed them to Toronto and while they have injured Elias Pettersson back, it renewed attention on a reported rift between him and J.T. Miller.
The Eastern swing for Western Canadian clubs is usually a panacea, a chance for many players to see family, and friends and reward fans who rarely see them in prime time, all portending a good effort. Under Rick Tocchet the past couple of seasons, the Canucks are a good story, with a 26-point improvement last year.
Yet this season and the past weeks in particular, it has been a struggle for Vancouver to stay in the wildcard picture. The dressing room stories that the skilled Pettersson and gritty Miller are at odds don’t help.
“I’ve been on teams where there are teammates that you just don’t like and you don’t go over to their houses for dinner, or whatever,” former Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau told the Vancouver Province this week. “When it comes to the rink and you put that jersey on, everybody is on the same side. That was the case when I was there. It wasn’t a question of Miller and Petey liking each other, but if something good happened, they hugged each other. And, for the most part, they played on the same line for crying out loud.
“But the more we make out of it, the worse it is in my mind.”
It’s led to speculation of a Pettersson trade if management deems the situation really untenable.
The Vancouver market isn’t alone in generating off-ice gossip. The Boston Bruins are trying to refute a sports talk radio host’s claim this week that captain Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak are feuding and that Marchand wants Pasta off his line.
Captain Marchand lashed out at the host for calling the Bruins room “a disaster” amid a recent record of 3-6-1 and two losses prior to Saturday’s afternoon game against Florida. Pastrnak’s play had been criticized at times by fired coach Jim Montgomery, but both he and Marchand have denied there is a problem between them.
The Leafs, coming off of a late-game letdown in Carolina Thursday night, were not seeing the Canucks as an easy mark for their noon arrival and whatever else might be distracting them.
“We’re professionals and often times whether it’s something known or something private, everyone deals with their things,” veteran winger Max Pacioretty said. “We expect them to come out hard.”
Two other Leafs, defencemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev, have played in Vancouver and know the team’s littlest details can be a big deal when the club isn‘t playing well.
“It’s pretty similar here, maybe a little more media here,” Tanev said. “But there is always something happening in Vancouver.”
BACK TO THE LAB
The hollering head coach during Saturday’s special teams drills at the morning skate underlined the ongoing challenge to find power play success for the Leafs.
“Let’s f***ing go, let’s move the puck,” Craig Berube said.
Indications were Morgan Rielly would return as the point man in place of Matthew Knies, rather than Thursday’s five-forward look. A short-handed goal prior to it clicking, with Mitch Marner and William Nylander scrambling up ice in unfamiliar positions highlighted the risks.
Berube left the same five out there for an Auston Matthews goal, though showed the 4-and-1 hand Saturday.
“Our percentage has gone up quite a bit from the start of the year,” Berube noted of the rough 2-for-39 beginning under new architect Marc Savard. “But I told you guys before, I’m not opposed to doing something different. I went with five forwards in the Philly game and we actually scored two (counting one just as the penalty clock expired), but got scored on the other night.
“I said that five forwards is tricky. Teams are going to look at that and attack all the time on it. It’s not that I don’t like the five — they move the puck well in zone and do some really good things — I just don’t like it when it goes the other way.
“We’re just going to keep trying new things, which isn’t bad, to move people around, find new spots which frees guys up a little more. I’ve done this before.”
ALL PATCHED UP
Pacioretty put on his best face being a healthy scratch Thursday.
The 35-year-old came off a lower-body injury and had played 16 straight games up to then.
“I like where I’m at. There have been a lot of back-to-backs which is the only thing I’ll say. Now I don’t think we have one for a while. One thing people always say — take care of your body on those back-to-backs. It just takes one wrong move to feel something unusual.
“Everyone has their own routines and there are a lot of modalities and treatment people here. Obviously, sleep, nutrition and hydration are important. Here, they monitor everything, so you have no excuse not to be optimal.”
TIMES ARE A CHANGIN’
Tanev and Ekman-Larsson were given the age-old NHL question is it harder to adjust to a three-hour road trip time change going East-West or West–East?
“You’re asking the hard one,” laughed Ekman-Larsson. “I try to prepare the same way, no matter what because each game is so different. It’s more on the body clock, but I’m fortunate, I can sleep anywhere, anytime.”
Toronto native Tanev said coming home from Vancouver and Calgary for more than a decade was more difficult.
“You lose a lot of time when you get in and it’s tougher to get to sleep. You lose half that day, then have to get to bed early (the night before a game), not used to that being 6 p.m. (local).”
INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION
Saturday was the Leafs’ annual Indigenous Celebration Game, which included a themed logo and special pre-game and intermission guests and entertainment. It resonated with Berube, who is part Cree.
“It’s important for me, growing up in my town, Calahoo (Alta.,). It means being around a lot of indigenous people and I was very involved in and around the town growing up with sports.”
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