It wasn’t the return of J.T. Miller that hurt the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, but the return of Mike Sullivan.
The two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach, trying to transform the New York Rangers into something more substantial, had his struggling team dialled in positionally against the Canucks.
The Rangers took away space in the neutral zone, owned the boards and yielded almost nothing to the Canucks in the first two periods as they beat Vancouver 2-0 with 39-year-old Jonathan Quick in the New York net.
Still, the Canucks could have used Miller — or anyone else capable of scoring a goal or elevating their play at a critical time.
Vancouver’s top forwards were as muted as they have been this season and, befitting the black October it has been for the Canucks, leading scorer and early MVP Conor Garland became the eighth player to be injured. We are 11 games into the regular season.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Canucks winger Kiefer Sherwood said. “Gars is a big part of our team and creates a lot in all situations. Hopefully, he’s okay; we’ll see what happens. But, yeah, it’s just tough. We’re losing some guys right now, some key guys. But no excuses, we’ve got to just dig in… and try to find a way to unite and make up for those guys that are out right now.
“I think it’s just each and every guy buckling in and executing little details, you know, winning the battles and just winning the pucks. We’re not going to out-skill our way through many teams, especially with the guys that are out right now. So I think we’ve just got to stick within our structure and kind of win by team structure and team effort.”
Sherwood could have been describing the Rangers’ winning game plan. The team that had lost six of its last seven games and was ventilated for 11 goals against in the last two allowed the Canucks only 11 shots on target in the first two periods.
Key Vancouver forwards Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, Jake DeBrusk, Evander Kane and Sherwood combined for zero shots in the first 40 minutes.
The best Canucks player was goalie Thatcher Demko. Mika Zibanejad was the only Ranger to beat him, making it 1-0 at 17:28 of the first period. With Kane a step behind on the backcheck as he tried to fill-in for Vancouver defenceman Elias Pettersson (Junior), Zibanejad deftly finished from Will Cuylle’s pass on a two-on-one
Carrick, who fought defenceman Marcus Pettersson after crushing Garland, eventually added an empty-netter for New York.
Miller did not register a point in his first game in Vancouver since being traded by the Canucks last January, but went 11-4 on faceoffs, had a hit and six shot attempts and finished plus-one with an expected-goals-for of 75.1 per cent in 19:24 of ice time.
“I had a lot of nerves,” Miller said. “I was trying to move my feet and stay focused, and I really liked the way our line played in the first two periods. I thought that we had a cycle game, had an honest game, and it’s an emotional game, for sure. But it actually went better than I thought. I actually thought I was going to be a little worse (emotionally), but made it through.”
Most fans cheered Miller when a video tribute was shown on the Rogers Arena scoreboard during a television timeout in the first period.
“It’s just surreal,” he said. “You don’t realize how lucky you are, and I’m just really happy that my kids got to be here today and my wife. It means a ton to me, and I just feel super lucky to have that support in a hockey-crazy city. It was a really special chapter of our lives here.”
The Canucks are still in the early pages of this season. But with four losses in the last five games as injuries accumulate, they’ve not had the start they wanted and now head back across two times zones for a three-game road trip that starts Thursday in St. Louis.
