Boeser yet again showcases transformation as Canucks play to strengths

VANCOUVER – First rule about goal scoring: don’t talk about goal scoring.

After scoring 29 times as a rookie, Brock Boeser spoke openly for years about trying to become a 30-goal scorer in the National Hockey League.

“This is the year,” he said before last season. Then he scored 18 goals in 74 games in easily the worst season of his six-plus with the Vancouver Canucks.

And that was the end of Boeser’s predictions for the media. Whatever his personal objectives were for this season, you couldn’t bribe a number out of him. 

He will tell you his weight, shoe size, golf handicap, stick flex and the biggest fish he caught last summer. If he trusts you, he’ll tell you his phone number, maybe even his credit card number. But Brock Boeser will not tell you how many goals he hopes to score this season.

“Absolutely not,” the 26-year-old Minnesotan reiterated Tuesday after, ho-hum, another hat trick in the Canucks’ supremely impressive 4-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

But Boeser did reveal one thing after the cameras turned off post-game in the Canucks dressing room: in his dreams, he never expected to have 21 goals in the first 29 games this season.

“No, I mean, not after last year,” he told Sportsnet. “It's just, like, if I focus too much on scoring — like if I focus on the chances I had the last couple of games and missed —  I feel that I get away from my game. I keep reminding myself each day, I've got to keep sticking to the details and playing to our structure and then you'll get looks.”

Now a hat trick ahead of his entire output of goals from last season, it was a profoundly different Boeser — happier and fitter and more self-aware — who reported to training camp this fall after two years of emotional turmoil that preceded and followed the death of his father.

“It’s good to see,” Canuck goalie Thatcher Demko told reporters. “Brock and I are really tight. We’ve been really good friends for pretty much our whole career. It’s awesome to see. I know how much work he’s put in, physically, mentally, spiritually, trying to get to his full potential. And obviously we’ve seen him take huge steps in that direction, so it’s awesome.”

The Canucks have taken huge steps, too.

After slogging through a heavy four-week schedule with inconsistent results to match their inconsistent play, the Canucks have suddenly rediscovered the disciplined structure and consistent intensity that allowed them to surprise the league with a 10-2-1 start. Elite talent at the top of the lineup and deeper talent than expected at the bottom had a lot to do with that torrid first month, too.

Just as it did Tuesday when Boeser scored three times, Quinn Hughes had three assists, J.T. Miller had a pair of helpers while going head-to-head against the Brayden Point line, and Demko stopped 28 of 29 Tampa shots that included a two point-blank, backdoor saves against Steve Stamkos during a Lightning power play.

But amid their longest homestand of the season so far (Tuesday was the fourth game of five), the Canucks have been able to both practise and rest, and have re-set themselves under coach Rick Tocchet.

They’ve won three straight games for the first time since Nov. 9, doing so with strong defensive efforts against teams that usually are difficult for them: Minnesota, Carolina and Tampa.

The Florida Panthers visit Rogers Arena for Roberto Luongo Night on Thursday.

When the Canucks play to their strengths, they are difficult to beat. It really is about them, not their opponents.

“I think we have to have that mindset,” Boeser explained. “We're a hard team to play against when we we do those little things right that we always talk about. I think that gives us offence, too. So, we just kind of make sure we're doing that each and every night.”

Boeser is tied for the NHL goal-scoring lead with Toronto Maple Leaf Auston Matthews, the two-time winner of the Rocket Richard Trophy.

With 15 goals and 42 points in 29 games, Miller is alone in second in league scoring, five points behind Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov, who went pointless in Vancouver as the Lightning were shut out over the final 58½ minutes.

Hughes is tied for third in scoring at 39 points, three more than any other defenceman.

And the Canucks are 19-9-1, first in scoring and fourth in goals-against.

The team’s transformation this season has matched Boeser’s.

He scored his first goal against the Lightning on a low-slot rebound from Miller’s shot, hammered the second past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy from 40 feet on a one-timer beautiful teed up by Hughes, and scored the third into an empty net.

“I'm thinking about our team structure, the way we need to play,” Boeser said. “The bigger picture is winning and getting to the playoffs, and I think that's where my mindset is at. And then whatever comes along with it. . . I know I need to produce and our line needs to produce, and we hold each other accountable.

“I don't know, I just feel like deep down I knew I was capable of scoring a lot of goals in this league. Mentally, the last couple of years, it was just kind of a barrier. It feels like I'm past that now.”