Welcome Matt: Boeser and Garland have gone from untradeable to indispensable for Canucks

They say some of the best trades are the ones you never make.

The Vancouver Canucks can attest. With a twist.

The best trades they’ve made are the trade requests they didn’t fulfill.

The Canucks continue to lead the NHL, and wingers Brock Boeser and Conor Garland have been big reasons why.

So bizarre because at this time last year, we were talking about which guy to trade and wondered if they were even tradeable given their expensive contracts.

Boeser’s 27 goals are tied for seventh in the NHL, and he’s off to the All-Star Game in Toronto next month.

He requested a trade last season in the midst of a dreary campaign when offence was a team staple, only not with him. His 18 goals in 74 games were the second-lowest total of his career in a full season.

But a strange thing happened this summer when Boeser — taking cues from head coach Rick Tocchet — changed his offseason regiment and came back to camp in better shape, telling management he was happy to be in Vancouver and wanted to remain with the team.

Then there’s Garland. He needed a hat trick in the season finale last April to finish with 17 goals and looked to be a piece that simply wouldn’t fit, given he hadn’t struck chemistry with any of his centres.

On the eve of this season’s opener, word broke that Garland had requested a trade, too. (He would later dispute the ‘trade request’ phrasing with an odd explanation that he changed agents to facilitate the Canucks’ cap problems).

And it has hard to blame him. Last year was filled with dysfunction, and his career was stalling.

Fast forward to Saturday, he was the best player on the ice in a 6-4 win over Toronto. All the hard work and “staples,” as Tocchet calls them, have finally translated into production.

He’s got eight goals and 16 assists and has been a constant for that line, consistently outperforming its opposition.

He’s also that classic coaching example of ‘if you do the right things, the points will follow.’ He’s got 19 points in his last 27 games after just five points in the first 20.

With 35 games to go, there’s still a ways to go with these players and with their stories.

But so far, it’s worth asking where the Canucks would be without them?

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