With hustle and speed, Canucks’ ‘Motto’ line makes good on Boudreau's trust

VANCOUVER – Oh, Motto Line, how Bruce Boudreau adores thee.

All hustle and speed and checking and hitting, of closing gaps and playing on the right side of the puck, of first man in and third man high and playing the right way. No wonder Boudreau, the Vancouver Canucks’ coach, so loves his checking trio of Tyler Motte, Matthew Highmore and Juho Lammikko.

The coach may change lines like socks, but the Motto Line is like Boudreau’s everyday shoes – sturdy, dependable, comfortable.

The problem with the rise of the Motto Line is that it doesn’t often, you know, score. And when Motte, Lammikko and Highmore are the Canucks’ best line, which they have been in several games recently, it seems a very good thing for them but not necessarily the team. For, where are thou, Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller?

But on Monday, there was something of an intersection – or alignment – between the Canucks’ best players and their hardest working ones. And the coach could love them all equally.

The Motto Line generated a pair of goals, including one just 11 seconds after the opening faceoff, Horvat scored for the second time in nine games, Elias Pettersson looked again like a star reborn and the Canucks executed well enough on special teams not to let their power play and penalty killing undermine another game.

The Canucks beat National Hockey League expansion weaklings the Seattle Kraken 5-2. But after Saturday’s 7-4 debacle against the Anaheim Ducks, who were the second visiting team in three games to lead 5-0 in Vancouver, any win on Monday would do.

The truth serum on the Canucks arrives Thursday when a profoundly better team, the Calgary Flames, visits Rogers Arena.

But considering the lost weekend, the well-rounded game the Canucks delivered Monday was timely and gave the team its third win in four games. The Canucks’ 4-2-0 pace since the All-Star Break is a success rate they’ll need to maintain over their final 30 games – 29 of which are against teams other than the Kraken – to stay in the playoff race.

But the checking line is going, and Monday so were the players farther up Boudreau’s lineup. It’s going to be an interesting week.

“Obviously last game, we don’t like that,” Pettersson said after his two assists gave him 17 points in 15 games – matching his output from Vancouver’s first 37 games. “That’s not our identity. We definitely wanted. . . to be ready from the start.”

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Motte, Lammikko and Highmore always look ready under Boudreau, whose belief in his checkers was repaid with a goal by Motte, on passes from his linemates, with his quick strike to start the game.

And after the Kraken got goals from Jared McCann and Mark Giordano, on a two-on-one and breakaway later in the first period, it was the Canucks’ checking line that turned the game for good, generating a tying goal for defenceman Travis Hamonic at 3:45 of the second period.

It was followed by rookie Vasily Podkolzin’s first goal in 17 games, a tap-in rebound from Quinn Hughes’ sharp-angle shot, Horvat’s power-play goal on a feed from Miller, and Tanner Pearson’s empty-netter.

The Canucks outshot the Kraken 25-11 in the first 30 minutes and 46-27 in the game.

“When we’re playing with confidence and we’re rolling, it’s nice,” Motte said of his line. “I think we’ve earned a little bit of trust along the way, too, which is good for our confidence. We play simple, we play hard and fast. Create a few turnovers and we’re going to continue to generate a little bit of offence. I’ll be honest with you, it’s fun playing with those guys.”

It wasn’t fun for any of them before Boudreau arrived.

Motte missed the start of the season after undergoing spinal surgery last summer, and got in only 10 games before Travis Green was fired as coach on Dec. 5. At that point, Lammikko had become a regular healthy scratch after managing to play his first 20 games as a Canuck with only one assist. And Highmore, a Motte clone acquired last season, was injured Oct. 28 and was just a rumour to Boudreau until he made it back to the lineup on Dec. 30.

The three players have become a thing under the new coach.

“I think anytime the coach has trust in players and then they have trust back in the coach. . . it works,” Boudreau said. “And I think right now, we both have trust in each other.

“They do what you ask them to do, and they can all skate. They pressure, pressure, pressure. And where they used to just hold their own (defensively), now they’re starting to score some goals and that makes them even more valuable in my mind.”

Eligible for unrestricted free agency this summer, Motte has four points in his last four games. He played the same number of shifts on Monday as Pettersson, 19, although his time on ice of 13:23 was a couple of minutes less.

Miller matched Lammikko’s two assists.

“I think we skate, we communicate,” Motte said, explaining his line’s success. “We don’t overcomplicate it. I mean, honestly: pucks get in, try get in on the forecheck, create turnovers, play that 200-foot game with speed and pace and play the game the right way. It’s harder some nights than others. But again, when we’re doing it, I think we build confidence and it’s a good thing for our group.”

They have. And it is.

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