Canucks game recap, Dec 23, 2023: 7-4 win vs San Jose Sharks

Andrei Kuzmenko had been demoted to the fourth line before he was a healthy scratch for two straight games. Trade rumours had started to buzz surrounding the winger, as other teams poked and prodded at the Vancouver Canucks to see if the Russian winger was available.

He wasn’t scoring the way he did last season and his head coach, Rick Tocchet, pointed at missed assignments in the system that made it hard to trust him away from the puck. The Canucks president of hockey operations, Jim Rutherford, even called into question his decision to do his offseason training in Bali.

“He worked very hard this summer,” said Rutherford. “I think, when you look at his conditioning and you compare him to another person his age, he’s in top condition. He prepared himself, he worked hard at it. Probably didn’t work at the kind of things you need to to be in ‘hockey shape’, and that affected him a little bit.”

On Saturday night against the San Jose Sharks, Kuzmenko made a very noticeable return to the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup.

Reunited with Elias Pettersson and Ilya Mikheyev in the top-six, Kuzmenko opened the scoring on his very first shift with the type of seeing-eye wristshot that has eluded him all season.

Kuzmenko’s third shift came on the power play, where he slipped into a familiar spot in the bumper and deflected in a J.T. Miller pass for his second goal of the game. Just like that, Kuzmenko had emphatically responded to his recent demotion, writing a redemption story across the face of this game.

Here’s the thing: Kuzmenko was also on the ice for three goals by the San Jose Sharks.

Was Kuzmenko directly at fault for all three goals? Of course not. But he was at fault for one of them and he ultimately had a negative goal differential when he was on the ice. That slightly muddies the waters of the redemption story.

Tocchet, at least, took a philosophical approach to Kuzmenko’s two-sided game.

“I mean, listen, people make mistakes,” said Tocchet, who kept putting Kuzmenko on the ice despite the gaffe. “I just told him, I want to get him back out there…He’s a great kid, after the game he came up to me and he apologized for a couple of things. And I’m like, just play. You don’t need to apologize.”

It’s understandable that Kuzmenko might be in his own head about making mistakes on the ice. The coaching staff have been steadily shortening the amount of rope he’s been given.

He still enjoys scoring goals, though.

“Yes, I like it, because I forgot what it is to score,” said Kuzmenko with a laugh. “What is the feeling after a score?”

Aside from that quick joking moment, Kuzmenko was mostly quiet and introspective, talking about the importance of “this moment” in his growth as a player. But getting the goals helps.

“This season, every score is,” said Kuzmenko, then paused. “It’s no surprise for me but it’s a little help for me because the mentality’s a little difficult [in this] moment.”

I get it. Sometimes you need a little boost when things get tough, so immediately scoring two goals after being scratched had to be huge for Kuzmenko’s confidence.

What helped my mentality was taking one of the little candy canes in the press box and sticking it in my hot chocolate to make a delicious mint hot chocolate. That was the boost I needed when I watched this game.

• The opening goal kicked off with a superb breakout pass by Quinn Hughes to send Elias Pettersson flying up ice. His pass to Ilya Mikheyev took a deflection and Kuzmenko jumped on the loose puck, dragged it to the middle of the ice, and fired it through Nikita Okhotiuk’s legs. Like a geriatric rude boy, Mackenzie Blackwood had trouble picking it up and it beat him past his glove.
• Pettersson made a lovely play at the blue line to escape pressure ahead of the 2-0 goal. He eventually slid the puck across to J.T. Miller and Kuzmenko, hungry for the puck, was beaver-tailing in the bumper. Miller, who evidently speaks beaver, responded with a perfect pass on the tape for a deft deflection. Like an Instagram influencer, Kuzmenko found the perfect angle with his (selfie) stick.
• Here’s the issue for the Canucks: they controlled play for most of the first period but that possession didn’t turn into many shot attempts, let alone shots on goal. Far too often, the Canucks had opportunities to shoot from dangerous areas and instead tried to make like Arsenal and walk it in with low-percentage passes. It happened multiple times, but this moment from Pettersson on the power play felt the most egregious.

• To illustrate the issue, shots on goal were 5-5 after the first period despite the Canucks seemingly holding the territorial advantage. Even worse, the score was 2-2.
• The Sharks got on the board after Kuzmenko and Mikheyev lost a battle down low and Pettersson gambled on a pokecheck, leading to a 3-on-2 the other way. Anthony Duclair came down the right wing and kept things simple by firing a shot instead of looking for the perfect pass. It got him an assist anyway: his shot caught a piece of Mikael Granlund’s stick and fluttered past Thatcher Demko.
• The 2-2 goal came off a turnover by Pettersson, as he tried to hook a pass to Mikheyev but sent it to William Eklund instead. Tomas Hertl beat Tyler Myers to the rebound off the subsequent shot and fooled Demko by botching his shot. Demko anticipated Hertl elevating his backhand but the puck instead slid off his stick and under Demko’s raised pad. It was the most fortuitous mistake for someone from the Bay Area since the invention of the popsicle.
• Teddy Blueger made an incredible play to give the Canucks a 3-2 lead in the second period. At the tail end of a penalty kill, Blueger swatted a neutral zone pass out of the air, kicked the puck up to his stick, and went in 2-on-1 with Nils Åman. He faked a shot with a Ryan Kesler-like leg kick, then dragged the puck around the sliding Mario Ferraro to set up the Åman finish.
• “I like to think I can make a play here and there and not just dump it in all the time,” said Blueger, adding later, “It’s mostly instinct. Things happen quick, there’s not too much time to think about stuff. Once I saw the D slide, I knew if I could get around him, Åms would get a pretty good chance. Once that happened, that thought shot through my head, but other than that, it’s mostly instinct.”
• A couple of minutes later, the Canucks extended the lead just after a power play of their own. Conor Garland fed Ian Cole for a point shot and Sam Lafferty tipped it in for his ninth goal of the season. I’ll just hand the microphone to the biggest Canucks fan in Pittsburgh for the joke for this goal:

• There was no resting on their laurels for the Canucks in this game. The Sharks responded again, with Fabian Zetterlund finishing off a pass that just slipped under the stick of a backchecking Nils Höglander. Look, Höglander did a lot right by hustling back, we’re not going to fault him too much for not blocking that pass, even if he’s already so close to the ice that he should have been able to get his stick down that final inch.
• Dakota Joshua made a terrible play on the penalty kill in the second period. He was in the right spot to pick off a pass but then tried to make a hook pass to Pettersson from inside his own zone instead of ensuring the puck got out. The turnover led to a glorious Sharks chance that Hertl rung off the crossbar. If he had flubbed the shot like he did in the first period, maybe it would’ve gone in.

• Tocchet gave Joshua a talking-to on the bench. “Pretty sure he just said, ‘What are you doing?’” said Joshua with a grin. “That was a bonehead play by me and, obviously, I know that. Not going to make that same mistake twice.”
• Joshua made up for the mistake by finishing a goal with his linemates, the Good Job Boys. Myers hacked the puck off the boards and Blueger skated onto it for a 3-on-2. Blueger dropped the puck to Garland, who set up as if to shoot before sending a gorgeous no-look pass to give Joshua an open net.
• Yes, I’m going to keep calling that line the Good Job Boys. Sure, maybe it’s cringe and dumb, but I’m cringe and dumb. Besides, I like it better than any of the alternative line names I’ve heard, though The Joshua Three was pretty good.

• The chemistry between Joshua and Garland has been fantastic this season, which is particularly remarkable given that they nearly got into a fist fight on the ice in training camp. I had to ask them about the moment and Joshua couldn’t help but laugh when I brought it up.
• “He’s a heart-on-the-sleeve type of guy,” said Joshua of Garland. “We’re both competitors. I didn’t like the way he kind of undercut me, so I had to let him know. It was under the rug right away, we’re friends at the end of the day. Just heat of the moment, got in a little battle. It’s funny to look back on now.”
• “It was so long ago, I didn’t even remember,” said Garland. “But it didn’t faze me one bit and didn’t faze him at all. He’s one of my good buddies. I like playing with him and I’m just glad he’s having a great year.”
• You have to feel for the Sharks. They’re at the bottom of the NHL standings, they’re dealing with a whole host of injuries, and they’re literally falling all over themselves on the ice. Kyle Burroughs and Filip Zadina, focused entirely on the puck, ran into each other in the neutral zone in the third period for a calamitous pratfall. You don’t like to laugh at someone when they’re down but sometimes you can’t help it.

• A breakdown by Kuzmenko led to the fourth Sharks goal. Hertl beat Pettersson in the faceoff circle, then Kuzmenko didn’t see Jacob MacDonald sneaking behind him to the backdoor to finish off a rebound. But we musn’t dwell. Let’s move on.
• Pius Suter got a shift with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser and immediately scored, giving Sam Lafferty some competition in the “most likely fourth-line forward to get promoted to a top-six line” competition. Miller won a faceoff to Hughes, who threw the puck towards the net, and Suter tipped it in from almost the exact same place Lafferty tipped in his goal.
• Noah Juulsen had himself a game. Yes, it was just the Sharks, but his pairing with Cole dominated. Shot attempts were 14-to-3 for the Canucks when Juulsen was on the ice at 5-on-5, which is night and day from how disastrous he was early in the season. He’s turned things around and played some solid hockey and this might have been his best game, capped off with an exclamation point of a hit on Granlund late in the third period.

• “I think he’s been great,” said Cole of Juulsen. “We want to be that steady, dependable pair that can get out of our end quick, get in the offensive zone, and if things open up, they open up and if they don’t, as long as we’re playing steady, that’s good…Juuls has been great for us. He’s mature, he’s getting better, he’s a good skater, he plays strong, he makes smart plays — he’s a very good NHL hockey player.”
• “He really struggled early [in the season],” said Tocchet of Juulsen. “I’ve gotta give him a lot of credit because he’s really worked with Sergei [Gonchar] and [Adam Foote] on positions, puck decisions. What did he sit out, about seven games in a row, and he just worked and worked. I’ve got a soft spot for those type of players because he didn’t pout, he came to work every day.“If you watch his positioning, it’s where we want him to be…and his puck decisions have been, to me, really good. I thought he was probably our best defenceman tonight in the sense of calmness.”
• Quinn Hughes, who is typically the Canucks’ best defenceman, finished off the game with an empty-net goal after a Brock Boeser steal in the neutral zone. With the win, the Canucks ensured sole possession of first in the NHL, which is a pretty great Christmas present for Canucks fans.
• “You hit little breaks in time like this at Christmas and you can take a step back and see the bigger picture,” said Cole. “That’s great but, that being said, when we look at the game tape, we’ll see a lot of things we can improve on. Keeping that mindset has got us to this point, so I don’t think we should change a thing.”
• Fortunately, we’re not the Canucks and don’t have to microanalyze things too much. The Canucks are first in the NHL! Merry Christmas, Canucks fans, and happy holidays!

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