The Vancouver Canucks beat the Washington Capitals 2-1, making it their third consecutive win on Hockey Night in Canada.
Head Coach Rick Tocchet said the team was ready from puck drop, and when the Capitals closed the gap to a one-goal game in the last seven minutes, they reiterated the importance of continuing to play up the ice.
“We started on time, I thought we played a little faster, thought our breakouts were better – that was something we worked on yesterday. I thought there was a little bit [more] intensity from everybody. Grinding out that win hopefully gives us confidence,” Tocchet said.
Quinn Hughes had both goals for the Canucks in 26:38 of ice time, and has a pair of multi-goal outings through January, moving within one game of tying the franchise record of multi-goal games held by Mattias Öhlund (7 GP).
The 25-year-old blue liner said being able to close out a game against the top team in the NHL was important and that’s how they need to close games out every night.
“It's massive, just because, how we've been playing, [which is] obviously not good enough. To come out here against a really good team, and play as well as we did, that's really good sign, but also in saying that we’ve got to find a way to bring that consistency,” he said.
Hughes thought the group did a good job of not only containing the Capitals but playing gritty to get the win.
“Especially in the second period there, we really took it to them. We played with a lot of pace, we stuck to our staples. At times we were simple, and we needed to be, and we grinded out a win against a really good team,” Hughes said.
Hughes called Kevin Lankinen’s performance “spectacular” as the netminder stopped the puck in every different way in the first period. He robbed Lars Eller with a quick glove save and while on his back he stopped the puck with his feet and caught it with his glove. He finished the game turning aside 32 of 33 shots he faced.
