“Playoff teams don’t do this”: Tocchet not happy with Canucks in San Jose
Things aren’t quite as happy for the Vancouver Canucks as they used to be.
The team is 5-5 in their last ten games and is coming off a tough 4-3 defeat against the league-worst San Jose Sharks on Saturday night. This dropped their record to 14-7-1 and allowed the LA Kings to pull even with them in the standings.
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet, who hasn’t shied away from criticizing his team after losses this season, was blunt in his post-game media availability.
“The start of the game, we weren’t ready, and then we take a penalty,” said Tocchet. “The first half of the game [the Sharks] deserved the game.
“Playoff teams don’t do this sort of stuff.”
Head Coach Rick Tocchet speaks to the media post-game in San Jose.@theprovince | #Canucks pic.twitter.com/nz59LPjsMD
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 26, 2023
Despite a slow start to the game, Vancouver was able to fight back and make it a 2-2 game heading into the third period. However, just like the previous two losses, the Canucks couldn’t find a way to break things open.
Instead, the Sharks got the go-ahead goal on a beautiful end-to-end rush by Mikael Granlund that beat Canucks goaltender Casey DeSmith. Mike Hoffman made it 4-2 for San Jose just over a minute later.
🦈 MIKAEL GRANLUND GOES END-TO-END 🦈
📺: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/sEijvXhbA1 pic.twitter.com/zODAK8LUXn
— NHL (@NHL) November 26, 2023
Brock Boeser would make things interesting, tallying his 15th goal of the season in the final minutes to make it 4-3, but a tired Canucks squad on the backend of a back-to-back could not find the equalizer.
The Canucks are going through a difficult part of their schedule. This is the team’s eighth game in a different city over the past 17 days. It would be easy to point the finger at fatigue, but Tocchet wasn’t going to pull out that excuse.
“Every team goes through these schedules, and you have to play smart,” said Tocchet. “I just thought we had too many guys just not ready, whether they are tired or not.”
Vancouver has not lost ground in their fight for the division lead. Luckily, the Vegas Golden Knights are also going through a bit of a rough patch, winning just four of their last 10 games.
Both the Canucks and Kings are just a single point behind the Golden Knights for the Western Conference lead.
The team will have a few days to rest before heading home to welcome in the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night.
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