In Vancouver, the Canucks’ hot for a goal and four points on Wednesday night in a 5-3 win over the visiting Montreal Canadiens.
“He’s taken over as the catalyst and the leader,” Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “It’s wonderful to see because you need that at this time of the season.”
Thatcher Demko made 22 saves in the Vancouver win.
“We have one focus right now and that’s winning these games,” Miller said. “We should try to win every game at home, especially. It’s not out of the question. We’ll take it one game at a time, but we need these wins. We’re a desperate team. Every game from now on out should be easy to get up for.”
Artturi Lehkonen hit for a double for the Habs, and Rem Pitlick added a single marker.
“We’ve been playing really good hockey and I think we’re all very comfortable with our game and we all believe in each other,” Pitlick said. “‘Marty’ has been talking about it from the beginning, swagger, and I think that we all understand that we can be a really good team, and we are a really good team so we’re going to keep pushing forward.”
Montreal dropped to 15-35-7.
“We still fought, pulled the goalie early and got a big goal and then we have an offensive zone face off and I’m pulling the goalie again and I feel very confident that we can do it again,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “It just didn’t happen.”
Travis Hamonic, Elias Pettersson, and Brock Boeser scored for the Canucks.
“It wasn’t a Picasso,” Boudreau said. “We didn’t play a great game, but we played hard, and we answered the bell. When they scored, we came back and scored. Our special teams, which a lot of times this year has been really skewered for lack of production, we won that battle and that was the difference in the game.”
Bo Horvat added an empty-net marker late for the 5-3 final.
Sam Montembeault made 28 saves in the Canadiens loss.
“I feel like I’ve always had chances. Sometimes it doesn’t go in and now it’s been going in,” Lehkonen said. “I try and find the open space and Jake and ‘Remy’ made some heck of a plays to me today and I got a couple of good shots off.”
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