How the Canucks’ penalty kill got so good

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In a season full of messes, one pillar of positivity has emerged for the Vancouver Canucks — their penalty kill.

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Remember when the Canucks’ penalty kill was all-time bad? That’s a distant memory at this point.

The Canucks head into Friday’s home game against the Minnesota Wild with the NHL’s sixth-ranked penalty kill. That’s the kind of elite specialty team that will help you win games.

Since J.T. Miller got traded on Jan. 31, the Canucks have killed 23 of 24 penalties.

That is a huge factor in them having the best penalty kill in the NHL since Christmas.

Give Mike Yeo the initial credit, Rick Tocchet said Wednesday. Yeo was one of his assistant coaches last year, and is now on Travis Green’s staff in Ottawa. But it was under Yeo that the Canucks laid a lot of the foundation for this season’s success.

“PK is about attack points. You know, I hate a passive PK. You hate the seam passes (getting) through the PKs,” Tocchet said.

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But the Canucks’ success is about more than aggression, Minnesota Wild head coach John Hynes observed Thursday. His Wild face the Canucks on Friday night at Rogers Arena.

“They have good commitment,” Hynes said. “They get in shot lanes. They have good sticks. I think they pressure as a unit. And usually when you have a good penalty kill, a lot of those things are in sync together.”

Minnesota scoring star Matt Boldy said the challenge for him and his teammates on the powerplay is pretty simple — make the Canucks do things they don’t want to do.

“Sometimes quantity’s the answer,” he said.

In other words, shoot, shoot, shoot.

“Get pucks back, break them down (defensively), get them tired. I think that’s something that leads to a lot of success.”

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Despite having some formidable weapons, such as Boldy and the injured Kirill Kaprizov, the Wild’s power play has struggled this season — they’re at just 19.9 per cent. So that looks like a big advantage for the Canucks going into Friday night.

Here are some other numbers that are standing out at the moment …

20

Elias Pettersson had a career high Wednesday with 20 faceoff wins. He is only the second player this season to win so many draws all on his own.

Sidney Crosby is the other. That’s impressive company.

For the Canucks this season, the next eight-highest faceoff win totals were by J.T. Miller, so the Canucks are surely hopeful Pettersson carries on like this.

The Canucks’ all-time record for faceoff wins in a game was by Mark Messier, who won 28 draws on Jan. 8, 1999 against Florida.

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In more recent times, Bo Horvat won 26 draws Nov. 16, 2019 vs. Colorado.

36

The Canucks managed 36 shots on goal on Wednesday, a season high.

It’s been a very dry season on offence for Vancouver. They have averaged just 25.6 shots per game.

If there is one thing they need more of it’s shots.

And they need that from Elias Pettersson more than anything.

He is currently averaging just 1.8 shots per game. His career average is 2.4 shots per game.

“That comes with not getting looks, trying to make the perfect passes,” he admitted. He needs to do better at that, find his confidence again. “I’ve always been a pass first guy, but I also have a good shot.”

2

For all of Carson Soucy’s struggles this season, he set a career high in game winning goals. Two of his three goals on the year were game-winners.

And now he’s gone, off to the New York Rangers in a trade.

It was a very strange season for Soucy, who proved to be a solid two-way influence last season but this season was a struggle and he fell down the depth chart.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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