As I watched these new-look Anaheim Ducks play with abandon all over the ice on Wednesday night, I found myself thinking about whether this quack-quack squad had any lessons to bestow on your Vancouver Canucks.
This is the team, after all, that until this season had underwhelmed in their development model: a team that truly blew it all up, went full rebuild, focused on the draft, found a pile of young players, accepted that past glory could be no guide to their future.
So much has been written about how a team can be rebuilt, how long it takes, whether you really have to sit back and be patient for four or five years while a whole new generation of stars develops for you, ready to be the next wave.
In the end the Ducks did this — but it was far from a straight line. Guys like Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale were moved out. Guys like Troy Terry took a while to find their groove.
Maybe it’s just the coach. They’ve had a few in Anaheim in the last decade but none with the on-ice pedigree of Joel Quenneville. (On-ice, we note, as opposed to his record off-ice, which as we know has a very large miss on it, him not recognizing the significance of what Kyle Beach tried to tell his bosses.)
Quenneville has this team playing bold, gutsy hockey. It’s a mile a minute, no doubt, but it’s fun and it’s getting the Ducks success.
On the whole, the philosophy remains young. They’ve made some shrewd pickups with veterans, but the spirit is still early 20s.
This is a team that the Canucks should look to emulate.
The resurgent PK
The Canucks did give up a goal on the PK on Wednesday, but as Jeff Paterson pointed out, they’ve killed 11 of 12 and now over 70 per cent on the season, no longer bottom on the penalty kill.
If this team is going to somehow turn things in a positive direction, somehow compete for the playoffs from here, their special teams have to drive the bus. There’s so much talent on that power play, but equally important is the penalty kill pull itself together.
On special teams alone the Canucks were falling behind. Until a week ago, the penalty kill was giving up a goal one-third of the time, while the power play was scoring once in every five opportunities.
If you can’t even match your opponents on special teams, you’re just not going to win.
An old face
Every time I hear Troy Terry I think of the efforts of the Canucks in 2020 and 2021 to try to land Terry in Vancouver. I remember hearing that there were discussions during that horrendous COVID-19 season of 2020-21 between Canucks management and the Ducks’ where Vancouver was looking to flip Jake Virtanen and a draft pick for Terry, a player the Ducks were frustrated with and felt he needed a new place.
Vancouver fit the bill and then Duck GM Bob Murray got cold feet.
Smart move by him, as Terry had 37 goals just the next season.
The NHL is filled with sliding-doors moments. That’s one.