Canucks' Brock Boeser ready to be veteran pillar in rebuild: 'I’m better mentally'

VANCOUVER — Brock Boeser has a new baby.

It’s a puppy named Winnie, a rescue dog he and his fiancée, Bella, adopted in Minnesota and brought to their new home on Vancouver’s west side in December. Brock and Bella have been together for several years but the couple got engaged during the National Hockey League’s Olympic break.

The puppy fills the void caused by the sudden loss in October of Coolie, the dog Boeser adopted as a 20-year-old rookie while attending the 2018 NHL All-Star Game in Tampa. 

“She's kind of like the one we lost, Australian cattle dog, with pitbull, which caught us off guard, border collie, German shepherd,” Boeser explained. “She’s going to be a medium-sized dog, but she's got a lot of energy and she's fast. 

“Like, I'm a big rescue (dog) guy. Because I love dogs so much, I feel like it's my duty to get another dog and take another dog off the streets or whatever. But it took me a good month and a half to start loving the dog, because I felt guilty. But we love her now.” 

A vet discovered widespread cancer in Coolie during the Canucks’ first long road trip this season, and Boeser took a two-game leave of absence to fly home to say goodbye to the dog that had helped him through agonizing times that included the death of his father, Duke Boeser, in 2022 and a grief-filled season that followed in which Brock demanded a trade before rescinding the request.

But this isn’t a story about one dog lost and another found. 

It’s about a player getting back to a happier place, mentally and physically, so that he can get his game back, too.

Boeser’s problems this season go beyond Coolie. The 29-year-old winger struggled for weeks to play through a winter injury that was never disclosed, and generally just underperformed as most Canuck veterans have in a season that collapsed soon after it began, causing the franchise’s first rebuild this century and months of uncertainty about which players that would affect.

Two years ago, during the Canucks’ 109-point season that now feels like a dream, Boeser scored a career-high 40 goals. His production last year plummeted to 25 goals, and with 18 games remaining this season Boeser is on pace to finish with 20.

But the longest-serving Canuck has scored five of his 15 goals in the last 10 games, and Boeser is lately playing with noticeably more pace and even some physicality, for which he is not known. 

There was a play in Monday’s 2-0 loss to Ottawa in which Boeser made up a half-step on Thomas Chabot as the fleet defenceman was streaking with the puck behind the Vancouver net, then angled him into the boards to separate the Senator from the puck. 

In a game last week against Carolina, Boeser was credited with a career-high seven hits, which prompted him to message former teammate Kiefer Sherwood, the San Jose Shark who is the NHL record-holder for hits in a season.

“I said, ‘I'm trying to play like you,’” Boeser said after Wednesday’s practice at Rogers Arena. “He just laughed. 

“I'm trying to play the right way, and I think part of winning hockey is you’ve got to take the body. But I don't think I had seven hits that game. I think they might have given me a couple extra there.”

But three games after surviving Friday’s trade deadline in a season that long ago became hopeless for the Canucks, Boeser is playing with more speed and overt competitiveness than we’ve seen in a long time.

“I'm better mentally,” he explained. “I mean, most people know I lost my dog out of left field. In a way, that was as hard as losing my dad. I think we all know that I'm not great when I have something personal going on, trying to separate that (from hockey) and be good on the ice. But I don't want to make excuses; I still need to show up and do the best I can. I’m doing a lot better now.”

Is he faster?

“I feel like I am, yeah,” he said. “I feel like I've been working really hard in the gym and I feel like I always work hard in practices when we go out on the ice. I've been really trying to do more morning skates lately, just get my feet moving in the morning. I've been really working hard in the gym with Mark (Cesari, the Canucks’ strength coach), working on quick feet and jumping and all that stuff that can help me be quicker on the ice. I do feel like I'm moving better.”

Boeser was among the veteran Canucks reported last week to be open to a trade, although he said Wednesday that management never approached him about the no-movement clause in the seven-year, $51-million contract he signed on July 1, and he hasn’t asked for a trade.

“I committed to signing here for that long, and I'm not just going to bail on the guys,” he told Sportsnet. “I'm not going to go ask for a trade; that's not who I am as a person. You know, maybe, we see how things are in the summer — obviously, everyone has their meetings — and talk it over and make sure you fit in where they want. There's a lot of things to talk about and figure out, but I committed to being here and that's my goal.

“I've always expressed how much I love it here and how supportive everyone's been — the fans, you guys, just everyone. If you ever do think about (leaving), it definitely crosses your mind how much you love it and just that the people have been so great. But I'm not even thinking about that; I'm just happy to be here. You know, we’ve got a house now, and I've talked about how nice that is. And I think we’ve got a great group. They’ve got some learning to do. . . but we’re getting there.”

At 29, Boeser is going through his first rebuild, but not his first dark age with the Canucks. In 2015, the Minnesotan was one of the first foundational pieces drafted by Jim Benning when the former general manager tried to retool the team by surrounding a few prospects with older players acquired by trade or free agency.

“There were way more older guys then. . . where now it's like there's very few old guys and we’ve got a lot of young guys,” Boeser said. “I feel like that's how it's way different. You can see the talent level of these young guys. We didn’t have that (when I arrived). What was it, just me and Bo (Horvat) maybe and that was it? So it's way different. They were trying to build a team back then with older guys, where now it's like we're trying to get young. We're trying to see the talent level of these guys and teach them the right way.”

If Boeser stays in Vancouver beyond this season, he should be a candidate to captain the team although the Canucks, with so many under-25 players developing in the NHL or on their way to it, could defer naming a replacement for Quinn Hughes.

“This is who Brock is,” coach Adam Foote said. “He's gets it, he understands it, he's a pro and he wants to lead the right way by example. He understands what's going on and he understands that, you know. . . young guys need support, and how he carries himself goes a long way to where the direction the young guys are going to go.”

“I feel like I'm really trying to focus on trying to set a culture,” Boeser said. “Like, we're restarting again. We talked about (culture) two years ago, and I thought we did a good job. And then last year was chaos. And now we're resetting again. Us older guys had talks once the trade deadline passed, and we're really focused in on that. I feel like we've set some good stuff to build off right now.”

The Nashville Predators visit Rogers Arena on Thursday.