Canucks return to Eastern Canada with chance to show what they’ve become

OTTAWA — One year ago to the day, the Vancouver Canucks arrived in Ottawa aflame. This time, they’re merely on fire.

Their annual trespass towards the centre of the hockey universe began last November with former coach Bruce Boudreau spending the entirety of his pre-game press scrum defending himself and his team against criticism levelled on radio by Canucks president Jim Rutherford that the team lacked structure and accountability.

Boudreau thought he was getting fired, and he might have been after the Canucks followed a 6-4 win against the Ottawa Senators with consecutive losses to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins. Except the day after the Boston game was the Hockey-Hall-of-Fame induction of Canuck icons Henrik and Daniel Sedin and fellow alumnus Roberto Luongo.

Canuck forward J.T. Miller famously referred to the first half of last season as a “sh-- show,” and the flaming crash through Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal was probably the crappiest part of it.

“Yes, I recall,” Miller said Wednesday. “But there's some parts of last year I really do try to forget. That's why I use the term ‘sh-- show’ because I don't really want to think about it anymore. We feel confident in the way we're playing right now, and we're just excited to try to keep this thing going.”

At 9-2-1 and with points in eight straight games (7-0-1), the Canucks are a profoundly different team than the broken one that came here 3-6-3 one year ago.

The only scandal now is how Quinn Hughes began the season as the National Hockey League’s 15^th-best defenceman, according to ESPN rankings (The Athletic was more generous and had him in a four-way tie for 12^th), and arrived in Ottawa as the best player on the planet through the NHL’s opening month.

Hughes doesn’t care.

But just as their trip a year ago was a chance for a couple of hockey’s most influential markets to see the Canucks’ despair, so is this tour a chance for the team to show what they’ve become under coach Rick Tocchet.

After Thursday’s game here, the Canucks visit the Maple Leafs and Canadiens on back-to-back nights this weekend.

“Probably it's special but I'm trying to not make it special,” Hughes, an American who played his minor hockey in Toronto, said of the tour. “But, you know, it is the Toronto Maple Leafs and, if it's not Montreal, that's the Mecca of the world for hockey.

“All the doubters or whatnot about our team are warranted. I mean, we haven't had great years in the last two or three years. But I think we're a very good hockey team right now. I'm not surprised by the doubt, but also, for us. . . we've just got to keep plugging along because it's 12 games in and it's a long year.”

Hughes leads NHL defencemen in scoring with 20 points and tops all players at plus-16. He is the first defenceman to reach those thresholds in 12 games since Bobby Orr in 1973. 

Vancouver teammate Elias Pettersson led the NHL in scoring with 21 points until Tampa winger Nikita Kucherov passed him Tuesday during the Canucks’ travel day.

Thatcher Demko co-leads the NHL with seven wins and his save percentage of .948 was third among goalies with at least four appearances. And Miller is top-10 in scoring with 18 points while building an 11-3 goals advantage at even strength despite nightly matching up against the opposition’s best forwards.

Miller was ranked 95^th — and the 61^st best forward — in ESPN’s top-100 players list.

“Hey, top 100!” he quipped after the Canucks practised in Ottawa. “I didn't know my ranking and I don't really care. I know how I fare in the league. I don't think anyone's worried about their status and ranking. Like, it's not a big deal. We're a very prepared and focused team on the task at hand.”

“I mean, you know, there's crazy stuff written and crazy takes,” Demko said. “So I think as a player, you just kind of turn a blind eye to it. And especially after what we've been through the last couple years, like, it's not fun reading the stuff a lot of times that's written about us. You just keep your humanity in perspective, and I think you just tend to just look away from it. I think we're all about what's in this room right now. I know people are still doubting us, but that's awesome.”

It's also fuel. 

Whether the disrespect is real or perceived, it is naïve to think it isn’t also motivating a team trying to rebrand itself and prove not only capable of returning to the Stanley Cup playoffs for the just the second time since 2015, but take down more exalted opponents along the way.

“I don't think the outside stuff concerns us,” Hughes insisted. “I think the pressure from within (the room) from being tired of losing and the sh---- feeling, I think that eats us up more than the outside noise.”

New Canuck Ian Cole, who is from Michigan, hadn’t heard about Canada’s peculiar geography and the “centre of the universe” until Wednesday and, honestly, doesn’t understand what the fuss is about.

“These hockey hotbeds of Toronto and Montreal. . . they'll talk about the teams they play for a day or two and then it will go back to being Leafs and Canadiens,” Cole said when asked about the Canucks’ opportunity to showcase themselves. “That's just how it works. So do I think that one game against Toronto and one game against Montreal is going to all of a sudden elevate these guys (like Hughes) who should be elevated? Realistically, probably not. But it doesn't matter. 

“Listen, I think thus far we have embraced the underdog mentality. And I think we're just going to keep going. Keep doing our jobs, keep winning hockey games.”

ICE CHIPS — Speedy forward Teddy Blueger, injured since blocking a shot in the Canucks’ final pre-season game, fully practised Wednesday. Tocchet said the checking centre and penalty-killer passed a “very important” test and is day-to-day. . . Tocchet also said not only will backup goalie Casey DeSmith play on this trip, he could get two starts, which would allow Demko time to fine-tune his game with goalie coach Ian Clark. So DeSmith could play in Ottawa and Montreal, leaving Demko to start in Toronto against the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada.