"This team has matured": Canucks still hopeful this year will be different
Fans of the Vancouver Canucks have seen this one before.
The team wins a game against a tough opponent, causing lots of optimism in the market, before laying an egg in a game they’re projected to win.
That’s exactly what has happened to start this season as the Canucks were outshot 42-25 on their way to a 2-0 loss against the Philadelphia Flyers.
While it’s only one loss, the Canucks can point to plenty of examples across previous years where bad losses ended up lingering with the team for weeks. For that reason, the coaching staff is looking to get on top of this early.
“For me, it’s not the attitude ‘relax, we have plenty of time,'” Rick Tocchet told reporters this morning. “We want to continue to press accountability, tell [players] what it is because maybe by game 50, we donāt have to go through these meetings.”
While the Canucks might have gotten away with not playing their best in the previous game against the Edmonton Oilers, their subpar performance against the Flyers did not yield the same results.
“It’s a learning moment for us… we need to start fixing things,” veteran defenceman Ian Cole said Tuesday night in Philadelphia. “We can’t start dropping games just because we are tired or resistant to fix things.”
The Canucks have brought in experienced players like Cole, who will be able to provide some perspective in these situations. In addition, a lot of the support will also need to come from the young core, which is not that young anymore, as Quinn Hughes pointed out earlier this season.
“I think in the past, this [the bad performance] is probably something that we overreact on. We probably let it get to us a little bit,ā goalie Thatcher Demko said after the team’s first loss of the season. āIām not worried about it. I have all the confidence in the world that this year is going to be different, and this team has matured.ā
The response starts tomorrow night when the Canucks take on the Tampa Bay Lightning in Florida. The game starts at 4 pm PT. While it could be viewed as a high-pressure game, at least one of the veteran Canuck is framing it a different way.
“It’s a great opportunity to work on the things that we didn’t do tonight [against the Flyers],” Cole explained on Tuesday night.