The Vancouver Canucks took down the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Arena with a strong goaltending performance from Kevin Lankinen and a solid team effort.
Head Coach Rick Tocchet said he liked the team’s start and the resolve from his group to close the game out.
“There’s parts of the game I really like. There's some parts obviously, I think where they made a push, we needed to settle down. There were a couple of shifts in a row that I thought were just got a little antsy,” Tocchet said.
“We needed a push from a couple lines to get us back straight and that's what happened.”
The Wild tied the game late in the third period, but the Canucks showed resiliency, finishing the game strong in regulation.
Elias Pettersson lit the lamp with the first goal of the game and was pleased with how the Canucks battled.
“It's been some late game losses, [and] it was nice to be on the other side of it today. I think deserved it, we played a good game and I'm very happy for these two points,” Pettersson said.
Kevin Lankinen stood tall in the crease, protecting his net from 37 of 38 shots he faced. Lankinen saw 15 shots in the final frame and worked together, focusing on what he could control and trusted his defencemen in front of him.
“They [Minnesota] like to send pucks, shoot pucks, and just trying to find it, pretty much focus on my job, make sure to trust my D and they do the rest. And tonight they did, and they made my job a lot easier than it probably looked,” Lankinen said.
“There's about a five minutes stretch over there they were kind of all over us, and he was big for us. Yeah, he made some really good saves. That's he's been doing that all year for us,” Tocchet said.
Filip Hronek had a pair of assists, Tocchet saying he likes Hronek’s leadership on the blue line, helping his d-partner Elias Pettersson.
“He's taking him under his wing. That's my favourite thing when veteran players take a young guy, they spend time together. They're on the bench, they're talking that's invaluable stuff for the development of a young player like him [Pettersson], so I’ve got to give Fil a lot of credit for that,” Tocchet said.
Goals
In the first period, on the power play, Pettersson launched his patented one-timer from the right circle, beating Filip Gustavsson, giving the Canucks a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
After Pettersson’s goal, “Let’s Go Petey” chants rang through Rogers Arena and Pettersson said
“It means a lot. It's the love from the fans, really. I don’t take it for granted and I liked the chance,” Pettersson said.
