Canucks look sharp despite short sleep in win against Maple Leafs

TORONTO -- Getting stuck in the heart of North Carolina because of a frosty winter storm Friday?

Ensuing travel issues resulting in arriving at their Toronto hotel just five hours before the opening face-off against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday?

And then playing one of their best games of the season, ending with a 3-0 victory at Scotiabank Arena that very night?

Welcome to a crazy 24 hours in the lives of the Vancouver Canucks.

“A lot of character in here,” Canucks captain Quinn Hughes said of the victory, which ended a four-game skid (0-2-2). “No one was feeling sorry for themselves.”

Given the whirlwind he and his teammates had just endured, they very well had reason to be. But as coach Rick Tocchet pointed out, there were “no excuses.”

“I think everyone played junior hockey and grew up with different things going on and the weather,” Hughes said. “There’s nothing you control.”

Tocchet recalled an incident during his coaching stint with the Arizona Coyotes when the team plane was stuck on the tarmac until 5 a.m. He said he and Canucks forward Conor Garland, who was with the Coyotes at the time, were discussing that incident during Vancouver’s travel odyssey on Saturday.

“We won that game 4-0,” Tocchet recalled.

Given the similar result this time around, maybe Tocchet-coached teams thrive from travel woes.

And they certainly had their share of them trying to get to Toronto.

To recap: the Canucks lost 2-0 against the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center on Friday. Their charter had been scheduled to leave for Toronto afterwards for the second half of their back-to-back set.

Mother nature had other ideas.

Snowy and icy conditions in the Raleigh area created havoc on the local roads, including a multi-vehicle wreck on I-87 and an SUV crash that took out power lines. As a result, the Canucks were forced to stay overnight.

“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” center Elias Pettersson said. “I tend not to have an easy time to fall asleep after games. Then we were supposed to have an early flight which took (off), like, 90 minutes after it was scheduled. By the time we got to the hotel, it was kind of eat, sleep, and come back here.

“It was kind of nice.”

Nice? After all that?

“Yeah, it was kind of like in junior hockey where you’d arrive the same day as the game,” Pettersson said. “Everyone’s mindset was not to let that affect us and play our game.”

Pettersson did exactly that, assisting on Brock Boeser’s goal just 31 seconds into the game and blocking a team-high five shots, causing teammates from the bench to start calling him “Selke.” They were referring, of course, to the Selke Trophy, which goes to the NHL’s top defensive forward.

“I thought it was one of 'Petey’s' best games of the year,” Tocchet said of the skilled Vancouver forward, who’s heard his name repeatedly mentioned in trade rumors over the past few weeks. “He was blocking shots … yeah, he was excellent.”

Tocchet said the Canucks did not talk about the adversity they’d faced in getting to Toronto.

“We didn’t get to the hotel until about 2 p.m.,” Tocchet said. “After we landed here, we had a police escort from the Toronto airport to the hotel but even with that it was pretty slow.”

Unlike the Canucks start to the game.

Indeed, Boeser’s early goal provided Vancouver with the momentum it would need. Hughes and Kiefer Sherwood also scored for the Canucks, and Kevin Lankinen made 20 saves for his fourth shutout of the season.

“It was a whirlwind 24 hours here,” defenseman Tyler Myers said after getting two assists. “Guys stepped up tonight.

“It was a huge win for the group, coming on a back-to-back with a crazy travel day. It seemed like a lot of guys were going tonight.”

In the end, who needs sleep? Given the final result, the Canucks certainly didn’t.