Canucks split up Hughes and Hronek defence pairing
The Vancouver Canucks are going with a new look on the blue line that notably does not have Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek playing together.
The team showed off several new pairings in practice today after an overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. They lined up as follows:
Hughes – Noah Juulsen
Ian Cole – Tyler Myers
Nikita Zadorov – Hronek
The changes come on the back of head coach Rick Tocchet expressing displeasure with the defensive group after the recent disappointing overtime loss.
“Not too good,” said Tocchet when asked how his blueliners handled the Penguins’ forecheck after the game last night. “I thought our D were holding onto pucks too long… To be quite honest, little sloppy tonight from the D. I thought the game plan was to get it by their layer and we didn’t and we had to pay for it.”
It’s clear the head coach wasn’t happy with the way that his blueliners handled the puck. Today’s defence pairings allow for the Canucks to have an elite puck handler on the ice for the vast majority of the game with Hughes and Hronek on different pairings.
“Yes, I think sometimes you try different things, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be set in stone,” said Tocchet about the new pairings after practice today. “Sometimes it’s good to throw different things at your group.”
The pairing of Hughes and Hronek has been a staple for the Canucks this season. When those two are on the ice together at five-on-five, the Canucks score 62.63% of the goals and record 55.72% of the scoring chances.
They’ll now each get their own pairing, something that doesn’t worry veteran defenceman Ian Cole.
“Obviously Huggy and Fil have been fantastic together but they’re also great individual players so I think they’ll be fantastic apart,” said Cole today after practice. “We’ll see how it goes and we’ll go from there. However we can balance everything out and roll things over and pick guys in advantageous situations, obviously, we want to do that.”
The Canucks will get a chance to put their new pairings into action tomorrow against the Los Angeles Kings. It’s the first of four games against the Kings over the next six weeks.