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"Can't win that way": Tocchet ticked at way Canucks played on Saturday

Rob Williams
Rob Williams
|
Nov 19 2023, 7:45 am
"Can't win that way": Tocchet ticked at way Canucks played on Saturday
@Canucks/X

Rick Tocchet was not a happy head coach tonight. The Vancouver Canucks bench boss looked as irritated at his team as we’ve seen him so far this season, following a 4-3 loss to the Seattle Kraken at Rogers Arena.

It’s just the second time the Canucks have lost consecutive games this season, as they fell 5-2 in Calgary on Thursday. The Flames defeat was largely excused, given the Canucks were a tired team playing the second half of back-to-back games.

And while the travel demands are challenging at this portion of their schedule, tonight’s opponent faced a similar challenge, playing their third game in four nights.

It didn’t take long into Tocchet’s post-game press conference to realize he was bothered by the way his team played.

“Our changes were awful. Long shifts. That’s .500 hockey. You can’t win that way. It wasn’t good enough,” said Tocchet, who referenced his team’s “staples.”

“Awful changes, long shifts. And that’s what happens. There’s no excuses. They played as many games as us in those days. They were a little bit hungrier on pucks. Basically, that’s really the game.”

The Canucks and Kraken each played a relatively sloppy game, but it was Vancouver that made more mistakes.

“It’s the team that’s willing to do the right things [that wins the game],” said Tocchet. “And Seattle did. We didn’t. We had some awful changes. Awful changes. Changes lose you hockey games, lose you playoff series. You have to change properly, and we didn’t.”

Seattle’s first goal was scored following a sloppy line change, as Elias Pettersson and Ilya Mikheyev headed to the bench, allowing Kraken defenceman Jamie Oleksiak to step into a slap shot at the top of the circles.

 

“There were four or five guys that just weren’t ready to battle,” Tocchet said, explaining why he mixed up his lines in the second period.

When asked about sitting Andrei Kuzmenko at times, Tocchet put it bluntly: “Kuzy’s got to start to play a little harder.”

The Canucks will look to avoid their first three-game losing streak on Monday, when the San Jose Sharks come to town.

“Good teams don’t go on losing skids,” said defenceman Ian Cole. “We need to make sure that we stop this right away. We can’t let this turn into three, four, five losses. I mean, we need to stop this next game… We’re going to need to be ready.”

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