BROSSARD, Que.— Regardless of what the expectations were for the Vancouver Canucks this season, their locker room is filled with players who believe they have what it takes to earn a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Even in the midst of a frustrating five-game losing streak, no one in the Canucks organization is quite ready to hit the panic button.
That’s not to suggest everyone on the team is having an easy time staying positive around the rink.
It was on Monday morning that Canucks strength and conditioning coach, Roger Takahashi, fired off a tweet that may have suggested some of Vancouver’s players weren’t dealing all that well with the team’s current status.
“Memo to players who are always complaining: go a whole day [without] saying something negative; your [teammates] will enjoy the silence,” Takahashi’s tweet read.
When Sportsnet caught up with Canucks general manager Jim Benning on Tuesday, he said that he spoke with Takahashi for clarification on the tweet.
“That had nothing to do with any of our players,” said Benning. “He has that set up, and every day he tries to do some inspirational kind of tweet.”
https://twitter.com/TakahashiRoger/status/788134985211322368
A quick scroll of Takahashi’s Twitter feed confirms he has a keen interest in sharing some motivational wisdom on near-daily basis.
For example, it was during Vancouver’s last win, on Oct. 20, that Takahashi tweeted, “Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.”
But Benning will have to excuse Canucks fans for perceiving Monday’s quote as a bit of a departure from the other comments Takahashi normally makes on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/TakahashiRoger/status/785817446758264832
Canucks defenceman Ben Hutton said Tuesday, “Good for him for tweeting it out there. He doesn’t like negative energy and I’m the same way. But it’s understandable that guys are frustrated.”
It’s only natural that some of that frustration would bubble to the surface, with the team having only managed seven goals in its last five games and zero power-play markers in its last four.
But as Canucks assistant captain Daniel Sedin pointed out on Tuesday, the last thing you want when things aren’t going right is for negativity to become pervasive.
“Playing in a Canadian market, you have to stay even keeled,” said Sedin. “You have to focus on the right things.”
It’s a mentality that comes naturally to a player like Sedin, who’s lived with the pressure and dealt with the undying scrutiny of a hockey-mad society in Vancouver for 16 years. But it has to be harder to remain level-headed for at least some of the eight players on Vancouver’s roster who are under the age of 24 and have limited NHL experience.
“I know when I was younger, if you lost a game it felt like you were never going to win again. Ever,” said 36-year-old Canucks goaltender Ryan Miller. “To a certain degree, pressure becomes part of it and you kind of feel like you’re getting squeezed a bit.”
Dealing with that is just part of the process for all players — not just the young ones.
In addition to trying to remain upbeat, the other challenge the Canucks face during this drought is not breaking from the system in an effort to jump-start their offence.
“Last year, I think maybe getting out of our structure maybe helped us score in the odd game because we were cheating it a bit and we got lucky,” said Miller.
Those are habits the Canucks abandoned early this season.
Not deviating from the plan allowed Vancouver to prevail in its first four games despite trailing late in three of them. And the players believe sticking with the program will be especially important if they want to snap their losing skid when they step onto the ice at the Bell Centre Wednesday to face an 8-0-1 Montreal team that’s firing on all cylinders.
“We’re playing against the best team in the league,” said Sedin. “It’s the perfect opportunity for us to prove to each other we can play on that level.
“We want to make the playoffs. That’s our goal and it hasn’t changed,” he said. “We’re .500, and there are a lot of teams who have a worse record than us. We’re positive we can turn this around.”
