VANCOUVER – Not much about this season has gone Elias Lindholm’s way.
Yet.
But as Rick Tocchet is the first to point out, the only thing that really matters is how he moves forward.
“This is why we acquired him, for this part of the season,” said the Canucks coach before his club’s 4-1 win over the visiting Flames on Tuesday.
Lindholm’s outing against his former club was a step in the right direction for the embattled centre.
On the ice for two of his club’s four goals, Lindholm got a taste of the type of evening he’s hoping for his as Canucks enter the playoffs.
He had an assist on the game-opening, short-handed goal and was a perfect decoy on a second-period, two-on-one buried by linemate Dakota Joshua.
While the Flames were packing up in the dressing room, Lindholm and his Canucks teammates were still on the ice as part of fan appreciation night being feted for clinching the Pacific Division title.
It was a refreshing punctuation to an otherwise trying season.
“Yeah, it was tough,” said Lindholm of the first half of his season in Calgary.
“It just didn’t work out in Calgary business-wise, and that’s life. We knew early on (a trade) would happen. It felt that way, and we didn’t talk much.
“You try to prepare yourself for what’s coming and where you’ll go.”
Speaking to Calgary media for the first time since his Feb. 1 trade to the Canucks, when Lindholm was asked if the uncertainty contributed to his uncharacteristically slow start in Calgary, he shrugged.
“Yeah, a little bit, of course,” said Lindholm, who had nine goals and 32 points in 49 games as a Flame this season.
“It’s kind of in the back on your mind the whole time.
“Thinking back, I probably thought I’d be traded closer to the deadline, but Vancouver was interested. It was tough to know for that long you’re going somewhere but you don’t know where.”
While he knew the trade just before the All-Star Game to the division-leading Canucks would give him a better shot at a playoff run, things didn’t unfold the way he’d hoped.
Unable to find chemistry early, the former Flames’ first-line centre was moved as low as the third line, where he now resides between Joshua and Conor Garland.
“Early on, in all fairness to him, I bounced him on the wing and a couple lines,” said Tocchet, blessed with so much depth that he plays Lindholm almost four minutes less than the Flames did earlier this season.
“I ping-ponged him around a little, and then he had an injury, a nagging injury.
“He’s been in a tough spot.”
It hasn’t helped that one of the men he was traded for, Andrei Kuzmenko, has been lighting it up.
But that’s of no concern to Lindholm or the Canucks, as Saturday marks the start of the most important measuring stick possible: the playoffs.
“I have a chance to do something good here,” said the 29-year-old Swede, who has five goals and 11 points in 25 games on the coast.
“I’m glad it worked out. Now we’re healthy and everyone is back so we know where everyone is probably going to play in the playoffs.
“We were banged up. Hopefully we can keep playing this way in the playoffs and build chemistry.”
He’s hoping so, as his summertime fate as an unrestricted free agent depends on him reasserting himself as one of the league’s top two-way centres, as he was a few years ago in Calgary.
“I loved my time in Calgary – my son was born there, and I played with a lot of good players,” said Lindholm, who had 42 goals, 82 points and was plus-61 while playing between Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau two years ago.
“Amazing people and the organization was great.
“It will always be a special place for me and my family.”
They just couldn’t make the money work, despite reports the Flames offered an eight-year contract in the neighbourhood of $64 million.
Pretty safe to say he won’t be signing for anywhere near that much unless he has a banner spring.
“For me, his two-way game, the penalty kill, him in there has helped me spread out the minutes and he helps me spread out the lines,” said Tocchet.
“That line did a great job against (Leon) Draisaitl the other night, so I think they’ll be good together.”
There’s a lot counting on it.