Former Vancouver Canucks forward Chris Higgins joins Canucks Insider Podcast host Chris Faber, following his hockey journey from Smithtown, New York to the NHL.
When Higgins joined a stacked Canucks squad in 2011, he shares his conversations with Alain Vingneault about starting on the fourth line and how he could earn the opportunity to move up.
Higgins talked about how much he looked forward to practices as a Canuck, because even after playing a lifetime of hockey, a play would unfold during a drill that no one had seen done before. It was an ultra-competitive environment, but they also wanted to learn from each other, which helped keep the bar high.
"It would be four or five things every practice with somebody doing something that was executed so crisply, so nice, and so difficult to do,” Higgins said. “The execution rate in practice was so high. You didn't want to give a bad pass because everyone was like ‘what the hell was that’ it stuck out and [seemed] so bad because the level was so high. It had to be perfect, or you were like, 'Dude, you hit a skate there with the pass, what are you doing?'”
“It was so much fun to be around because coaches [holding us accountable] were secondary. It was just pushed to the side, and we took hold of things, and it was just this competitive environment where a lot of guys are just trying to one up each other and it’s so addicting.”
The culture of that Canucks era has been making a comeback, and during Higgins’ time in hockey operations with Vancouver from 2019-24, he took note of how the Abbotsford Canucks battled for each other during the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs as reminiscent of how it was when he was a Canuck. The Abbotsford Canucks lost to the Calgary Wranglers 3-1 during the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs, but the way they fought through that series told a different story than the result.
“I remember writing reports after I saw that they went down, but they went down swinging, and they went down playing for each other,” Higgins said. “I wrote, ‘I haven't seen what I saw out of these guys here in a long time', I think they could win the whole thing next year, just based off of what I'm seeing.”
Higgins talked about setting a standard and what it takes to create a culture where everyone takes accountability. He says it’s going to look different than when he was a Canuck, but the things that are non-negotiables are the buy-in and putting the team ahead of the individuals.
“It takes a group of seven to 10 that kind of grow together. That group has got to find some way to come together and push each other to get better, and then when you have that group that's taking control and starting to have success in the NHL, you’ll drag people along with you,” Higgins said.
“They're going to have to hold themselves to a standard that they probably don't know exists right now. They’ve got to go find it; they’ve got to go find the standard. Hopefully Hank, Danny, and RJ are the ones that lead the way on that, dangle the carrot along the way, and watch them grow.”
Listen to this and much more as Higgins joins Chris Faber on the latest episode of the Canucks Insider Podcast.
