Whomever the opposition might be, a team that has just fired a head coach, and wins its first game without the coach just seems like a bad cricket.
Suck was the case with the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. In their first match without Bruce Boudreau behind the bench, the Canucks fell behind 2-1 in the second period to the Chicago Blackhawks and then shut down the Hawks offense and turned up their own to run off four straight goals in a 5-2 win.
Vancouver’s new coach, Rick Tocchet , was the beneficiary o the sudden good play from the Canucks.
“The players kind of bought in,” Tocchet said. “There’s been some tough circumstances the last few days. There was a lot of emotions and heads spinning. I threw some stuff at them today; we had longer meetings than I like to. For them to take it in and play good, I commend the players.”
The Canucks improved to 19-25-3.
“We wanted to get that one off the hop for [Tocchet],” Vancouver’s Luke Schenn (goal) said. “There’s a lot going on here the last couple days, so I think we did a good job of preparing. They prepared us well too and we were able to relax and settle in a little bit.”
Collin Delia made 12 saves in the win.
The Blackhawks dropped 14-28-4.
“We knew they were going to come out really hard, new coach and everything, so I thought we weathered it for a bit and had some pushback, just not quite enough in the third,” Chicago forward Sam Lafferty said. “There’s a lot of excitement and everyone wants to prove themselves, so they obviously dictated the play for most of it. We had a chance, so credit to Mrazek for keeping us in.”
Lafferty had a goal in the second period to give the Blackhawks a 2-1 lead before the Canucks started their goal run.
“Just started slow and didn’t seem to have our legs tonight and a little sloppy all over the ice,” Chicago defenseman Seth Jones said. “If it wasn’t for Mrazek, it could have really got out of hand.”
Patrick scored his ninth of the season for a 1-0 lead to the Hawks in the first period.
Andrei Kuzmenko, who had two goals for the Canucks, tied the game, 1-1, 7:02 in the middle frame.
“He’s a horse; he’s a really good hockey player,” Tocchet said. “There’s work to be done. He can even be a better player. He’s buying in, he’s trying to play better defensively. He hangs around that net. He’s good at holding pucks.”
Kuzmenko’s double tied the game at 2-2, at 15:47 of the second.
“Have a good line with [Mikheyev] and [Pettersson],” Kuzmenko said. “They are great players. The two goals was good team work.”
Vancouver then scored three goal in the third.
“The first part of the period we weren’t bad and right up [until] the 2-on-1 [Max] Domi and Athanasiou had,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “We missed and it went right down the other way against us. We were chasing it after that.”
Dakota Joshua and Sheldon Dries scored 34 seconds apart in the third period to break the game open for a 4-s lead.
Bo Horvat scored with 86 seconds left in the game, it was a shorthanded, empty-net goal for the 5-2 final.
“You like the result, but to me the hard part is to do it again,” Tocchet said.
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Petr Mrazek made 43 saves in the Chicago loss.
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