Cole breaks through as re-energized Canucks come out flying to start 2024

VANCOUVER – It took Ian Cole less than two days to fulfill his New Year’s resolution.

The Vancouver Canucks defenceman threaded a wrist shot through traffic from the blue line for his first goal of the National Hockey League season, in his 37^th game, part of a wild and wacky five-goal opening period that carried his team to a 6-3 win Tuesday over the Ottawa Senators.

But having satisfied his pledge to score a goal in 2024 — extending his streak to eight straight NHL seasons with at least one (but never more than five) — Cole has 363 more days to identify new aspirations. Actually, it’s a leap year, so make that 364 days.

“I didn't think past the first one,” he said. “I didn't think it would happen this quick. I've got to think of something. Maybe score a second goal. Just keep one-upping myself.

“New year, new me. We’ll see what happens.”

The Canucks started the new year as successfully as they started this season. Then the second period of 2024 arrived.

It was difficult to know what to make of Tuesday’s wipeout, which would have been more fun had the Canucks not switched off after the first 20 minutes, dared goalie Thatcher Demko to make a bunch of big saves and generally played the final 40 minutes with the precision of a pre-season game.

And although their first period was excellent, the five-spot they put up was fueled by several bounces as well as the Canucks’ speed, forecheck and tenacity on the puck.

“We'll take those every day,” Canuck Elias Pettersson said of the bounces. “Obviously, a great first period. We come out and play it the way we want. Very easy to get sloppy and not play the right way, (and) I don't think we did in the second and third. We got to win. We'll be happy with the first period and move on.”

“A great period,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet summarized. “Probably one of our best periods in a month. It was awesome. Just everything — just aggressive, tracking, not too many mistakes. We were connected.”

After Cole opened scoring at 2:14, Pius Suter made it 2-0 at 12:39 when he was able to field the pop-fly from teammate Sam Lafferty’s deflection off the glass, glove it to his stick and score before Ottawa starter Anton Forsberg could react.

The Canucks then scored three times on two goalies in 79 seconds. Pettersson rattled a bank shot between Forsberg and the near post, then raced behind the net to nudge it in at the far post at 16:58, before J.T. Miller deflected a puck in off Senators defenceman Jake Sanderson, who added another own-goal against relief goalie Joonas Korpisalo when he tried to block Pettersson’s power-play one-timer but sent the puck tumbling into the Senators’ net.

Suddenly, it was 5-0 — a position for which the Canucks are unaccustomed and looked unprepared. 

Senators Claude Giroux and Vlad Tarasenko scored goals on badly-defended two-two-on-ones at the start of the second and third periods, and Tarasenko scored another on a late rebound as Canucks skaters tried to defend with stern stares.

The game would have been closer still had Demko not made a pair of five-star saves in the final period before Suter skipped another puck past Korpisalo as if it were a flat stone against the current of the Fraser River.

“To score that many goals that quickly that early, it's a mental challenge,” Cole said. “It's a unique mental challenge, I guess, to try to be diligent defensively through that. They're freewheeling. It doesn't matter to them if they get scored on again (because) they're just trying to score goals at that point. We can handle it better; we know that.”

“I don’t think it’s challenging,” Tocchet countered. “We didn’t play the right way. Take the two points, but it’s a learning lesson for us. I did not like the (final) 40. I hope the guys didn’t. Loved our first period. That’s my assessment.

“It should have been an easier night for Thatcher.”

After a surprisingly flat effort in last Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers — Vancouver’s only game over a nine-day period before Tuesday — the Canucks at least looked re-energized by their schedule break over New Year’s weekend.

The team practised rigorously three times in four days, and Tocchet and his staff were able to review and reset a lot of systems work.

“I just liked our start,” Miller said. “No matter if you score those goals or not, it's good for (our) game, good for the pace. That being said, I feel like we just totally sat on a five-goal lead after the first period. If we're going to take steps as a team, we need to play the second and third like it's (0-0). Nice to enjoy the win. But... we're going to evaluate ourselves honestly and we didn't play very well after the first period.”

“We got to work on a lot of stuff during practice,” forward Conor Garland said. “And then we kind of came out tonight and stuck with it for a while there. And then we kind of lost it a little bit. But it was a good sign that we played like that in the first.”

The Canucks will need much more than one good period to win during a seven-game road trip, their longest of the season, that starts Thursday in St. Louis, then continues with three games in four nights against the New York teams.

• With the chance to re-claim his prime spot on the second line beside Miller and Brock Boeser, left winger Phil Di Giuseppe did not survive the opening period. He left the game with an undisclosed injury and Tocchet said the forward will be out “a while.”