Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers fights for the puck against Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks during the third period in Game One of the Second Round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on May 8.Derek Cain/Getty Images
Before the playoffs began, Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford reflected on the rise of his young team and looked back at the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, the first squad he helped lead to a Stanley Cup title.
That Hurricanes team hadn’t been in the playoffs in several years and was led by 21-year-old Eric Staal. Rookie goalie Cam Ward started the playoffs on the bench. He was briefly benched again in the third round. The 22-year-old finished the final as playoffs MVP.
“You figure out how to do it,” Rutherford told The Globe and Mail last month.
The hockey postseason is an acid test, separating those who figure it out – and those who do not. For every declaration that losing in the playoffs eventually leads to winning, there’s also a ready list of the opposite, stories that become hockey folklore. Think of Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy.
It made sense that the hockey punditry near-unanimously declared the Edmonton Oilers would roll the Canucks. The Oilers have the experience and the best player in hockey. It looks like their time. The Canucks had played unexpectedly well through the season but losing their starting goalie to injury early in the first round, Vézina finalist Thatcher Demko, seemed to be the end of the road.
Instead, the Canucks are, for now, up 1-0 on the Oilers in an all-Canadian second-round series, after an unlikely comeback on Wednesday night in Vancouver. An at-times-wobbly Arturs Silovs, Vancouver’s third-string rookie in net, was able to maintain composure after the Canucks fell behind 4-1 before, late in the game, the team barrelled back to win 5-4.
On Thursday, Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said the team has piled up a lot of experience in a short span. He’s said before he’s skeptical of overvaluing years of experience. He pointed to the Canucks’ grinding out their first-round series victory against Nashville – one in which the Predators coach said afterward the better team lost. In a crucial Game 4, the Canucks won in overtime after starting the third period down 3-1 – with Silovs making his first playoff start in his 10th NHL game.
“We’re getting a crash course,” Tocchet said of Vancouver figuring out how to succeed in the playoffs.
That includes the coach. Tocchet has won Cups in Pittsburgh as a player and assistant coach but this is new for him, too, at the helm behind the bench, one of the final eight teams. And he’s not playing it safe. He could have picked backup goalie Casey DeSmith, a reliable veteran, to start the series. Tocchet chose the rookie. He could have pulled the rookie when it was 4-1. Yet Tocchet stuck by Silovs.
“They score the fourth goal,” Tocchet said, “and, you know, ‘What do I do here?’ You don’t have much time and then you go with your gut.”
Big bets define winners and losers. Rutherford has also made a few and they’ve paid, so far. He signed J.T. Miller to a long contract well into his 30s and Miller, at 31, produced his best season yet. Rutherford dealt for Elias Lindholm ahead of the trade deadline and Lindholm was key again on Wednesday night, with a goal and assist.
How Edmonton responds in Game 2 on Friday night in Vancouver – and how the Canucks manage their home-ice advantage and sense of momentum – will go a long way to shaping the outcome of this series. For Edmonton, despite questions of Leon Draisaitl’s health, all eyes are on Connor McDavid – even more than usual.
Shutting down the 27-year-old McDavid was an essential factor in Vancouver’s Game 1 win. For the first time in 55 playoffs games, McDavid didn’t get a single shot on goal. And while the Canucks win was thrilling for the frenzied home crowd, the comeback was almost smothered midway through the third, when the Oilers were up 4-2. Edmonton had been sitting back, trying to coast to a win. Then, four-on-four, McDavid corralled an outlet pass at centre ice and was flying toward a breakaway when Vancouver forward Elias Pettersson dove to poke the puck away. Moments later, Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a point-blank view of the Vancouver net, with Silovs looking the wrong way, but rang his shot off the post.
A few more seconds later, Miller scored to cut the lead to one and Vancouver rapidly notched two more. After the Miller goal, during a TV timeout, the crowd was roaring, repeatedly bellowing Miller’s name like an incantation.
“The adrenalin was going for hours after the game,” Canucks defenceman Carson Soucy said on Thursday. “That was probably the loudest building I’ve ever been a part of. Even on the bench you couldn’t hear a thing.”
Stopping, or at least slowing, McDavid is one thing. But figuring out how to win in the playoffs includes coming off a dizzying high to do it all over again. Tocchet, a usually even-keeled guy, excitedly high-fived some fans leaving the bench postgame. “I feel sorry for that one guy, smacked his hand pretty hard,” Tocchet said to laughs.
Tocchet felt good about his team, which had Thursday off, settling down. “I’m pretty sure this group is back on earth,” he said. “They know, they know. That was great, but we’ve got a long way to go. And that game [Friday] is huge.”