Canucks cap 'really great' road trip by stifling Predators

NASHVILLE – The Vancouver Canucks travelled to the moon and back on this road trip. They flew a lot of miles, too.

One week after a desultory shutout loss in Philadelphia triggered condemnation by their coach and a direct challenge to players about their identity, the Canucks worked their way back as they travelled farther and on Tuesday played their best game so far, beating the Nashville Predators 3-2.

Yes, under the circumstances, this was a better performance than even their 8-1 win on opening night two weeks ago against the Edmonton Oilers – still the only game the Canucks have played in Vancouver.

All victories in the National Hockey League are worth two points (although oddly some games are still worth three). But not all games are equal, and Game 6 for the Canucks was an early mid-term on what this team is supposed to be under coach Rick Tocchet.

Having responded to the 2-0 no-show against the Flyers last Tuesday with a far more noble effort in a 4-3 loss to the Lightning in Tampa on Thursday, the Canucks beat the Florida Panthers 5-3 on Saturday despite a third-period collapse. And then they came to Nashville.

At the end of 12 days on the road, with a chance to finally go home, 4-2 in the standings or 3-3, Vancouver led for nearly 51 minutes of the 60, killed off consecutive Predator power plays late in the third period and held Nashville to just 17 shots – the fewest allowed by the Canucks in a road game in more than eight years.

Literally and figuratively, the Canucks came a long, long way during their five-game odyssey.

“I think this road trip could be very good for us,” veteran defenceman Ian Cole said. “We saw a nice cross section, almost like a little mini-season. We had some really great games, we had some not-so-great games and we had a really bad game. We had parts of good games, parts of bad games, we had leads that we blew and then got it back, and then we had a lead today that we held. There was a lot of situations that we were in over the course of the games on this road trip that we can hopefully look back at later in the season and say, 'This is what worked, this is what didn't, and we're going to stick to this.' And if we stick to this, we're going to put ourselves in good spots to win way more often than not.

“We ended up having a really great road trip, and we’ve got a great blueprint on how to play to be successful.”

Goalie Thatcher Demko said: “I told you guys in Philly that I thought we were going to respond. I think we got a little better each game on the road trip. In Tampa, we were better than we were in Philly, and then Florida, we were better than we were in Tampa. And then tonight was our best game. I knew that that's what this team was going to do. It's important that we go home and take advantage of home ice we have coming up.”

The Canucks play five of their next six games at Rogers Arena, but the homestand starts with their first back-to-back games: Friday against the St. Louis Blues and Saturday versus the New York Rangers.

The best part about the scheduling on this trip was that the five games were spread over 11 nights, with plenty of time to practise and rest. Importantly, for a team that has turned over most of its defence and nearly half its roster since the start of last season, this trip was also a chance for Canuck players to better know and understand each other.

“It's a really good road trip after winning this game,” Tocchet said. “You know, if you lose the game, then it's, like, OK. But winning this game, the psyche of the players, it's like: Hey, if we stick with the process and the staples -- all the stuff I always say every day -- it works.

“I give the players a lot of credit in that room. We were all pissed off at that (Philadelphia) game. And then they took the leadership, and some guys took it on their own: 'Hey, we've got to be better.' So I stayed away. They kind of ran the room a little bit and I thought that was great. We talk about a professional game; I thought there was a lot of professionalism today.”

The game was about much more than the Canucks’ Fab Four – Demko, Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller – flexing their talent, although these players were all good in Nashville.

The goals came from Ilya Mikheyev, Phil Di Giuseppe and Nils Hoglander, who burst back into the lineup from the press box and tipped in Hughes’ point shot for what turned out to be the game-winner at 3:11 of the second period.

But the win was also about the late penalty-killing by Cole and Filip Hronek, Dakota Joshua making a key block late in the third, Conor Garland diving to break up plays, and the Canucks out-battling the Predators for loose pucks.

“You want to win by a large margin -- everybody does,” Di Giuseppe said. “But these are what real games are like more often than not. I think it was a good for lesson for us. A lot of positives and we gutted it out. I think this (trip) was huge. It's something, I think, the whole organization was focusing on -- getting off on the right foot.”

“I don't like dealing in absolutes -- this was the best, that was the worst -- because it can always get better and it can always get worse,” Cole said. “It was a good game. We scored timely goals, we had energy, we checked well, played solid in the D-zone, and we were able to really hold the fort when they pushed at the end. There were a lot of good things to like about it. So yes, it was a very good game.”