The Vancouver Canucks have several star forwards that get their share of media attention. Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Brock Boeser are all big names, but it’s some more unheralded players who have been making a large impact on the team recently.
The Canucks’ third line of Teddy Blueger, Conor Garland, and Dakota Joshua has been extremely effective over the past few weeks. They’re earning the praise of head coach Rick Tocchet and tilting the ice in the Canucks direction game after game.
“That line’s been good. The last 10 games, very rarely they’re in our end,” the head coach said after the team’s recent win over the Carolina Hurricanes. “When I do game review, very rarely do I have those guys on making mistakes in our end.”
Of the four Canucks forward line combinations that have played at least 80 minutes at five-on-five, the Blueger-Garland-Joshua trio ranks first in expected goals percentage. While the actual box score results lagged, that is starting to change as they scored two goals last night.
“Somewhat makes up for the times, like you said, that it doesn’t go our way,” Joshua said about some of the fortunate bounces his line received in a 4-0 win over the Florida Panthers. “It’s always nice to score.”
This trio is giving the Canucks their best third line in years. In fact, the team hasn’t had a depth combination this strong since near the start of the 2010s. During those years, the Canucks rolled out some very solid third lines, even a few seasons after the run to the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals.
In 2013-14, the Canucks had one of their worst seasons of the 21st century, finishing with just 83 points. However, the team’s third line that season, comprised mostly of David Booth, Brad Richardson, and Zach Kassian, was actually quite good.
They played the most minutes of any Canucks forward trio and finished the year controlling 54% of the expected goals while on the ice at five-on-five. There’s an argument to be made that this was the last excellent third line for the franchise.
It’s only been a small sample size, but the combination of Garland, Blueger, and Joshua has the potential to be even better.
The Canucks have won four of five consecutive games at home and now hit the road again. They’ll play four games in six nights over the coming week, starting with a matinee matchup tomorrow against the Minnesota Wild. The puck drops for that game at 11 am PT.
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