"There's no more excuses": It's playoffs or bust for Canucks this season
Playoffs?!
Yes. Playoffs.
If there’s one thing that’s clear from hearing Vancouver Canucks players speak on the first day of training camp, it’s that they need to be in the playoffs this season. No excuses.
And their coach agrees.
“When I got here [last season] they didn’t believe that they could do it,” said Bruce Boudreau, who took over one of the worst-performing teams in the NHL on December 6. “I think now, talking to them in the summer, they all believe that they’re capable of doing it. Not making the playoffs would be a big disaster for us.”
It was a tale of two seasons for the Canucks last year.
Vancouver had the 11th-best points percentage (.649) in the NHL after Boudreau took over, posting an impressive 32-15-10 record. But because they had such a terrible start, going 8-15-2 in the first 25 games under Travis Green, it didn’t matter. They missed the postseason.
“To make the playoffs we have to do better and be more consistent over 82 games, not just [57] games,” Boudreau added. “I would be disappointed and would call it a failure if we didn’t succeed in our goals this year.”
Having a better start to the season is on the minds of everyone in the Canucks’ organization right now.
“I think it’s no secret that we have to get off to better starts,” said Canucks captain Bo Horvat, who is entering this season as a pending unrestricted free agent. “That’s exactly what’s happened the last two years, is that we’ve kind of shot ourselves in the foot right at the beginning of the year, where you have to play catch up all the time. In this league, it’s almost impossible to do.”
“It was promising what we did last year, having so many meaningful games and winning a lot of them, I think is a step in the right direction. But at the same time, that’s not making the playoffs, [and that] isn’t good enough. We can’t just be satisfied with almost or we can’t be satisfied with good try.
“We gotta go and do it now. There’s no more excuses. There’s no excuses for us.”
Playoffs or bust
There is reason for optimism.
All players, as far as Boudreau knew, are healthy and ready to go for training camp. One year ago, the Canucks began preseason without Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes, who were in contract disputes. Brandon Sutter, who was supposed to be the team’s fourth-line centre and a key penalty killer, was out due to long-haul COVID. Travis Hamonic, pencilled in as a top-four defenceman, was missing too, reportedly because of vaccine hesitancy.
Boudreau doesn’t expect to do much experimentation in training camp. In fact, he said the line combinations he throws together at the start of on-ice sessions Thursday in Whistler will be what he hopes to see for opening night of the regular season.
We’ll have to wait to see what those combinations will look like, but Boudreau has indicated that he’ll spread out Pettersson, Horvat, and J.T. Miller as centres on three separate lines.
“We have to see ourselves as a playoff team,” said Horvat. “Anything less than that, I think we fail. Honestly. You want to make the playoffs.”
Playoff hockey hasn’t been played at Rogers Arena since 2015. That’s a long time ago, as evidenced by the fact that Horvat’s the only player left from that 2014-15 Canucks team.
“I believe in our group, I believe that we have a playoff team here… All the pieces that we added, I really believe in this group. Obviously, we have unbelievable goaltending, our D corps is solid, and obviously, our forwards are really good. I’m excited about this year.”
“It’s something that you dream of”
While Horvat may like their chances, oddsmakers aren’t so convinced.
Vancouver is deeper on forward, with the additions of Ilya Mikheyev and Andrei Kuzmenko, in particular. But on defence, which is a weakness, the Canucks are returning the same group.
But they do have Thatcher Demko in net.
“If we do get into the playoffs, or when we do get in the playoffs this year, we’re going to be a hard team to beat,” added Demko. “I think we proved that last year, [after being] just so far behind the eight ball and the push that we were able to make trying to get in last year, was really inspiring for the city and for our group to build confidence in those situations. So we’re really excited to bring that atmosphere here.”
Demko, of course, can only dream about what the atmosphere would be like for a home playoff game. His only taste of playoff hockey was in the Edmonton bubble in 2020.
But he does remember 2011.
“I remember watching the Stanley Cup Final [in 2011], I was going to school back in Boston, and I think I’d be in trouble if I admitted to my teammates but I was kind of pulling for the Canucks at the time,” said Demko. “It’s something that you dream of as a kid, and to do it in a Canadian market, more specifically in Vancouver, it’d be unbelievable and that’s something that this entire group is looking forward to this year.”
Demko was spectacular on many nights last season, and he’ll likely have to replicate that success for the Canucks to make the postseason.
At the very least, he’ll have a motivated group in front of him. And that includes the team’s leading scorer.
“Our expectation is to be playing when it counts, in April, May, and hopefully June,” said Miller.
“[We’ve] got a lot of guys here sick of not making the playoffs, and our goal is to win the Stanley Cup and compete for the Stanley Cup,” said Miller. “It’s a very long process to get there. But if we all buy into that process and buy into the way that the Canucks are supposed to play, I think there’s no reason why we can’t be there and competing for the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.”
The work begins on Thursday.
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