Canucks show new defence pairs at practice as Myers nears return
The Vancouver Canucks are shaking things up a bit on the blue line.
The team showed off some new defensive units as they prepare for Tyler Myers to return to the lineup. The 6-foot-8 defenceman has fully participated in a couple of practices and should be back for the team’s next contest after missing a few weeks due to injury.
This was how they lined up today at practice.
Quinn Hughes – Filip Hronek
Carson Soucy – Tyler Myers
Ian Cole – Nikita Zadorov
Mark Friedman – Noah Juulsen
The smooth-skating Myers finds himself on a pairing with Soucy, a duo that played together earlier in the season.
“They had a really good stretch playing more of a shut down role,” said head coach Rick Tocchet about the pairing of the two tall defencemen. “I thought they did a really nice job…we do like that pairing. I’m not sure whether we stay with it or not, but we’d be crazy not to definitely get those back in the mix because they were pretty good a month or two months ago.”
The Canucks don’t play until Saturday, so it’ll be a few days before we see what Tocchet chooses to go with in-game.
It looks like Noah Juulsen will be the odd man out. The Surrey-born player has had a breakout season and played more than twice as many games this year as any other over his career thus far.
Juulsen has turned into a steady defensive player and provided a lot of quality minutes on the penalty kill. It will likely not be long until he’s back in the lineup as Tocchet has expressed he’s likely to rotate his defencemen in an effort to manage workloads.