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Canucks’ Tocchet ’emptying the tank’ amidst season of upheaval
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet admitted the 2024-25 season has been a “draining year.” But despite all the adversity, Tocchet and his staff are keeping their nose to the grindstone. “I really feel like we’re emptying the tank.”
NEW YORK – The Vancouver Canucks’ current first-line centre was the fifth-line centre when the season began. Pius Suter is another major plot twist, one of the positive ones, in this unscripted and probably unscriptable season for the National Hockey League team.
With centres Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil injured, Suter logged a career-high 23:02 of ice time in Monday’s 4-3 shootout win over the New Jersey Devils. The Canuck scored once and assisted on Conor Garland’s dramatic game-tying goal, registered five shots, two hits, two blocks, took 21 faceoffs and won his matchup against the Devils’ far more renowned two-way Swiss centre, captain Nico Hischier.
Suter has scored a career-high 21 goals and 36 points in 70 games for the Canucks. The only game he missed was the season-opening 6-5 loss to the Calgary Flames on Oct. 9.
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“I want to share a story,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said Tuesday during a day off for the team. “Pius, obviously, he’s played really well for us. But at the start of the year, he was kind of hurt and I didn’t play him in the first game. He probably could have played. He came in the next day and he wanted to talk. And he’s not really a guy that comes to your office a lot. He’s not a complainer, not one of those guys. He comes in and says. . . ‘I just want to know: Where do I stand? What do I have to do to improve?’ And we had a really good talk.
“I said, ‘Pius, I really think you’ve got a ton of potential. For me, your fitness level, if you raise that… just really take over at practice and be a better practice player.’ He looked at me, like: ‘Yeah, OK, thank you.’ He wasn’t complaining, just asking. I don’t know, man, I just have a lot of respect for that guy because he’s been one of our best practice players this year. We land on a road trip somewhere at 7 o’clock (in the evening), a lot of guys probably go for dinner. He’s in the hotel gym. Sometimes, I’ll go to the gym at 11 o’clock at night, 12 o’clock, and he’ll be in there. I just really respect that he took the information and he applied it, and he’s having a really good year for us. I guess those are the guys that I root for.”
When asked a few minutes later about the unconventional decision to start Monday’s overtime with Suter and two defencemen, Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek, Tocchet had another story.
“This is how awesome and open Quinn is,” he began. “He comes to the bench (before OT), and goes: ‘Toc, do you want me to go on the ice with Hronek? If we win the draw, I’ll stay. If we lose it, I’ll try to get off and then get back on again.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, good idea.’ So I’ve got to give Quinn the credit on that. Obviously, you know, it’s my job to make the decisions. But for me, I love when players come with an idea. That means the guys are dialed in.”
About 20 seconds after Suter won the draw from Hischier, Hughes skated himself into a semi-breakaway and nearly scored.
Those two stories say a lot about Suter and Hughes. But they also say something about Tocchet, who has had to adapt and improvise as much as anyone on the Canucks during this season of upheaval which, stunningly, can still end with a playoff spot.
Given their injuries, schedule, the Western Conference standings and the St. Louis Blues presently channelling the 135-point Boston Bruins from a couple of years ago, it’s quite unlikely with 11 games to go that the Canucks can come back from a wild-card race deficit that was at five points before Monday’s clutch comeback.
Just back from his own six-week injury layoff, goalie Thatcher Demko is expected to make a second straight start Wednesday against the New York Islanders while Kevin Lankinen works his way back from a minor injury.
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In the last seven games, the Canucks are 4-2-1 and, generally, have played with the most engagement and consistency of their uneven season.
As we’ve said before, the work by Tocchet and his staff has been at least as important this season as when the Canucks sailed along to 109 points last year and their coach won the Jack Adams Award.
“Coaching is hard sometimes, right?” Tocchet said when asked about the strain on him. “You’ve got to deal with a lot of stuff. But this year? Yeah, this has been really a test of adversity for myself dealing with certain stuff. But I’m not a quitter, I’m not a guy that complains. I’ve got to look at myself for certain things. But, yes, it has been a draining year.
“I can only tell you, like, for me right now and the little over two years or whatever I’ve been here… I really feel like we’re emptying the tank as a staff. That’s the one thing I’m most proud about. We might not make the right decisions. Hey, there might be some flaws. But I will tell you, for me, we’ve emptied the tank. Whatever’s come our way, you know, we’re in the offices and we’re grinding. So that’s what I’m proud of.”
General manager Patrik Allvin and hockey-operations president Jim Rutherford have both talked about culture and the need for leadership on the Canucks to be stronger.
Tocchet describes culture as a team’s “armour,” the shield that protects it and prevents adversity from penetrating.
“We’ve had some parts of this year where that (adversity) stuck in us and affected us,” Tocchet said. “It hurt us, whether a little bit of chemistry or injuries or just little things. I think what we’re trying to do is just build that armour.
“It’s everything. I was telling the players this a month ago: ‘We’ve got to build armour around here. Whether it’s noise or whether it’s in-house, injuries, whatever it is, you can still survive.’ I know everybody in the media and the fans want to find a guy to blame (for this season). Is it this guy? Was it that guy? Is it the group? The coach? I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s just one person or one thing you can just blame. I just think sometimes everything hits at once, and you try to deal with the cards in front of you.”
Despite their ongoing injuries, the Canucks are 4-2-1 in their last seven games and, generally, have played with the most engagement and consistency they’ve shown all season.
Tocchet credits a group of veteran players who are trying to lead by example and re-elevate standards. He named Hughes, Hronek and Suter, Demko, Tyler Myers and Marcus Pettersson, but then stopped and said there were others.
But it’s clear that Hughes, the captain, is the leader. Playing through his third injury this season, he has dominated the Canucks first two games in the New York area, which included an unfathomable 5-3 loss to the Rangers on Saturday when Vancouver outshot the home team 39-12. Hughes played 32:13 in New Jersey, including 9½ of the final 15 minutes.
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“One thing I love about him — obviously, he’s a world-class player — but for me, he’s such a sincere kid,” Tocchet said. “I’ll grab him the next day after a game… and I’ll say: ‘Hey, how you doing, buddy?’ And he’ll go, ‘No, how are you doing?’ He’s done that to me two or three times, maybe four times. And it’s kind of a joke now… but he’s such a sincere kid. How do you not love a kid like that? I mean, he’s worried about me. He’s worried about his coach.”
