Canucks show key improvements in pre-season finale win

VANCOUVER — "Ready or not" felt like a coin toss if it was posed as a question to the Vancouver Canucks before their final pre-season game.

As coach Rick Tocchet conceded after Friday’s morning skate, there had been some bad to go along with the good during the team’s brief series of National Hockey League rehearsals. But with teams dressing close to full-strength lineups on Friday night, the Canucks handily beat the Calgary Flames 3-1 at Rogers Arena.

The win was irrelevant, the process paramount.

The Canucks held the Flames to just 18 shots on net, which is more impressive if you recall that Calgary pummelled pucks at the Vancouver goal last season at a rate of 38 per game.

Over the last five of the Canucks' six pre-season — we’re not counting the 10-0 blowout at the end of training-camp weekend when Vancouver sent a flock of minor-league lambs to be slaughtered by an NHL-heavy team in Calgary — they allowed an average of just 23 shots.

The Canucks ranked 25th in the NHL last season in team defence and their penalty killing, which went 16-for-17 over the last five tuneup games, was 32nd and historically inept.

On Friday, Tocchet also saw his team start quickly, win more puck battles, get to the opposition net more often and comfortably defend its two-goal lead in the third period.

So, ready or not? The Canucks are as ready as they’ve looked heading into their season-opener Wednesday at home against the Edmonton Oilers.

“I think it's probably a handful of things,” goalie Thatcher Demko said of the Canucks’ new-and-improved defending. “Probably some structure, some details. I mean, it's not just our D-men, it's working as a five-man unit in all three zones to limit the looks that they get. I think we've done a tremendous job the whole pre-season. Obviously, that's going to be something that we have to make one of our staples if we're going to win a lot of hockey games this year. Good to see now but we all know that next Wednesday is when it counts.”

It was indicative of the team effort that the Canucks goals were scored by blue-collar players Phil Di Giuseppe, Teddy Blueger and Tyler Myers. But Tocchet seems to have universal buy-in from his roster about how the team must play.

Skilled winger Brock Boeser, for instance, screened Calgary goalie Jacob Markstrom on Myers’ goal — Tocchet has been demanding his players get “uncomfortable” by going to the net — and helped create Di Giuseppe’s breakaway marker by getting in on the forecheck and forcing a rushed play by Flames defenceman MacKenzie Weegar.

“Yeah, I'm ready to roll,” Boeser said of ending the exhibition schedule. “We had some good pre-season games, some bad ones. We learned from it. I think we've been working hard in practice and we've been here a long time, so I think we're ready to go.”

One of the most consistent Canucks during the pre-season was fourth-line centre and first-unit penalty-killer Teddy Blueger, who was signed as a free-agent in July to provide more depth, grit and shorthanded know-how.

But he has helped more than just defensively. His game-winner in Friday’s second period came on a deft five-hole deke to cap a breakaway spectacularly sprung by Quinn Hughes.

Blueger’s 13:32 of ice time against the Flames included a 31-second twirl on the power play, and 2:12 of the four minutes in which the Canucks were shorthanded.

“It's such an interesting thing, your role,” Blueger told Sportsnet, “because in the course of the season, I think it can change so much. The second you kind of get pleased and satisfied is the second it kind of gets away from you. It's something that you're always working on and trying to improve.”

After spending four-and-a-half season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Blueger was a deadline rental for Vegas last season and helped the Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup. But the 29-year-old Latvian was a healthy scratch in the final against Florida.

“Through a variety of circumstances, it has been the way it's been,” he said of his depth role. “There have been some good stretches of better offensive play that I've had, and then some pretty poor stretches. At the end of the day, I feel like I've still got a lot of improvement in me and a lot of potential. I may be getting to the age... getting close to 30 and people think what people think. But you look at some guys, and Sidney Crosby's a great example. He's well into his 30s and performing at an extremely high level. I think I’ve still got a lot left in me. I started in the league a little later than most players, later than I would have liked. But I still feel like I've got a lot of juice and a lot of growth and a lot of improvement.”

The Canucks could use all those things.

After opening training camp on the first line beside Elias Pettersson, Nils Hoglander slipped out of Tocchet’s lineup entirely and was a healthy scratch on Friday. It’s difficult to envision him playing the opener against Connor McDavid and the Oilers, and Hoglander might already be back in the American League alongside Vasily Podkolzin were he not subject to waivers.

“I've still got to get him to understand his identity right now,” Tocchet said after the morning skate. “Maybe when we put him with Petey early, it kind of made him play a little bit different. I thought he was getting a little fancy out there. He might play in the opener, I'm not sure. What I've been told (is) he's really like a buzzsaw out there and we need him to play that way. And I've seen some of it, but not enough consistency.”

Conor Garland got a turn with Pettersson and Andrei Kuzmenko against the Flames. Tocchet also mixed his defence pairings in what the coach said will be a blue line “committee” this season, starting Hughes and Filip Hronek in a power pairing.

“I'm a puzzle guy,” the coach explained. “It's okay to put pieces in here and there. I don't think it disrupts. Like I told you, the great Scotty Bowman had pairs as forwards. He'd have two guys and he rotated. I remember we won the Cup in Pittsburgh... and Sid had four different wingers in a week. It's okay to do that. We’re not scared to experiment. I don’t think you have to play with this (specific) guy to build chemistry all the time. I think the way we’re built, we’re more of a committee team.”

The biggest downside for the Canucks was an injury late in the second period to defenceman Carson Soucy, who appeared to torque his knee or ankle when he fell awkwardly after getting entangled with Flames forward Yegor Sherangovich. Soucy limped off the ice and did not return, and Tocchet offered no update on him after the game.

Another left-side defenceman, Guillaume Brisebois, did not play due to an unspecified injury, so Christian Wolanin may be on the left side of the third pairing on Wednesday, behind Hughes and Ian Cole. Hronek and Myers will be on the right side, with the third starboard spot going either to Noah Juulsen or pure rookie Cole McWard.

McWard was scratched Friday while Juulsen logged 18:12 of ice time and co-led the Canucks with three hits, one of them a steamroller on Elias Lindholm.

The Canucks are expected to get down to their NHL roster after practices Saturday and Sunday.