GAME RECAP - CDC

The Vancouver Canucks shut out the Colorado Avalanche in a character win at Rogers Arena.

Head Coach Rick Tocchet liked the fact that his team was focused all game and stuck to the game plan. He appreciated how the team played with speed, mentioning how Filip Chytil and Drew O’Connor have come in and made an immediate impact.

“It’s a little breath of fresh air. When you see Chytil take that puck, he goes in the middle of the ice, and that's when things happen. Just adding those two guys has helped our rush game,” Tocchet said.

Brock Boeser finished the night with a goal in 20:38 of ice time and said he was proud of the way the group played against a tough Colorado team.

“I think we kept strong and held the fort down, and Demmer made some unreal saves. So, kudos to everyone tonight,” Boeser said.

He talked about the team spending less time in the defensive zone, making a point of having cleaner breakouts, which was key against a strong offensive team like the Avs.

"They made a couple pushes there, but I think we held strong, and then we kind of took over and got some good looks there in the second. I really felt that we started out-working them and out-competing them and drew a couple penalties, got some power plays and got momentum,” he said.

Thatcher Demko’s saves kept getting more impressive throughout the game, turning aside 25 shots for his first shutout of the season and ninth shutout of his career.

In the second period, he had three highlight reel saves in a sequence – going into the splits and losing his stick on the first one before making another sprawling save and stopping the third with a glove save.

“[I was] just trying to get a piece of something, you know. It's a big sequence there, like you mentioned, a lot of bodies flying around and a couple of scoring chances, but I thought the guys collapsed really well and managed the guts the ice. We’ve got to get through those situations as a six-man unit and on that one we were able to,” Demko said.

After that sequence, ‘Demko’ chants filled Rogers Arena, and he talked about what those chants meant to him in postgame media.

"It's great to hear and I know it's later in the year, but we're trying to establish that home ice, and we take a lot of pride playing here. We've struggled at times this year stringing games together, but I don't want them to feel like for a single second that we don't take pride and we're not aware of the impact that they have on the game,” he said of the fans.

“He was outstanding,” Tocchet said of his netminder. “That McKinnon line, especially that first period, they're fast, trust me. Behind the bench, you're watching them speed up and those cross-ice passes, and he made those two big saves, those are 10 bell saves, right, and then we settled down, but I thought Demmer gave us a chance to settle us down.”

Goals

In the second period, Jake DeBrusk’s lightning-quick reflexes were on display, catching a rebound with his glove net front and quickly put it on the ice, shooting it past Mackenzie Blackwood.

The Canucks took a 1-0 lead going into the final break.

In the third period on the power play, Filip Hronek sent a stretch pass to DeBrusk who made a cross-ice saucer pass to Brock Boeser, Boeser tipping it in net front.

Drew O’Connor scored an empty netter with less than 15 seconds on the clock, notching his first goal as a Canuck and securing a 3-0 win.

Up Next

The Canucks head down to San Jose for a one-game road trip against the Sharks on Thursday, February 6th at 7:30 p.m. PT.