Canucks mailbag: The early season Rick Tocchet vibes are good, however numerous work nonetheless to do

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The Vancouver Canucks, for as soon as, are having an excellent begin to their season.

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After back-to-back terrible begins to their season, the Canucks talked loads about realizing they needed to get their greatest foot ahead to begin the present marketing campaign.

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And that they did, profitable three of the 5 video games on the current street journey.

Is Canucks coach Rick Tocchet answerable for the about-face, followers are beginning to marvel?

Right here’s a few queries on that subject on this week’s mailbag:

“Love Tocchet. Assume he’s the distinction. My brother says it’s his attraction, however to me his attraction jogs my memory of the phrase: ‘All the things’s fantastic till somebody punches you within the face.’ “

Kerry D. by e mail

Tocchet completely loves his job.

He’s one of many first guys on the ice. On Thursday, for instance, he got here out early to assist director of goaltending Ian Clark work with Casey DeSmith.

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He then shifted to working with the primary few skaters on the ice, engaged on attacking-zone particulars.

He’s very, very engaged.

For his half, Ilya Mikheyev says he’s actually having fun with Tocchet’s method. He obtained a really brief dose of Tocchet final yr earlier than he had knee surgical procedure, so that is his first actual, day-to-day expertise with him.

And coming into the lineup later than everybody else means he does have some catching-up to do, however the quantity of data Tocchet and his employees are throwing on the gamers may be very welcome to the Russian veteran.

“It’s how we must always play. Extra techniques. And the whole lot,” Mikheyev mentioned. “Everyone understands what they should do. It’s extra simpler while you step in.”

Tocchet, it’s clear, cares loads concerning the studying surroundings his gamers are in. He has numerous coaches on the ice, prepared to present notes to the gamers. Off-ice that dialog continues.

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It’s a really engaged, very player-centred setup.

“I’ve at all times been a bit involved that Tocchet is just too defensive and making J.T. Miller and others play that means will trigger the offence to dry up. His previous Phoenix groups weren’t enjoyable to look at. I’d have gone for a youthful coach myself, however we’ll see.”

Nick by BlueSky

Tocchet actually has a popularity as a defensive coach, however apart from his early teaching stint in Tampa Bay — when his workforce performed a really uninteresting model, taking few dangers — that really hasn’t confirmed to be the case.

In his 4 years at Arizona, his Coyotes had been truly just about league-average for the standard of photographs taken on their internet and on the opponent’s internet.

The difficulty in Arizona was the general depth of expertise wasn’t that nice.

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That is nearly probably the most proficient workforce he’s ever coached, actually on the high with the forwards. Essentially the most factors in a season any of his gamers ever had was 65 for Clayton Keller in 2017-18. Within the COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 season, he had an growing old Phil Kessel, who posted 43 factors in 56 video games that yr.

Tocchet is in search of a excessive tempo from his present workforce, to press everywhere in the ice.

“Make the very best gamers on their workforce defend of their finish,” he mentioned Friday is the principle objective.

The guess right here is that his greatest gamers will be capable to ship. The highest gamers, the Elias Pettersson and Miller strains, have delivered up to now. However they’re additionally in a little bit of a scoring bubble — and it could be silly to count on that to proceed, nearly as good as these gamers are.

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The primary lesson in all this: the Canucks nonetheless want to enhance their play in all zones, they should enhance the standard of their offensive appears, retain possession extra and they should maintain refining their defensive form.

“Is there an official adjustment to the protocols if a participant has a seizure on the ice or cracks their cranium? Like levels of severity?”

BlogTrot by x, previously Twitter

That is about Vasily Podkolzin. The younger ahead is within the AHL; he hit his head on the ice throughout a sport Wednesday and was knocked unconscious for a short spell.

The excellent news is the early prognosis seems promising. He appears to really feel OK up to now, the Canucks say. The workforce desires him to be 48-hours’ symptom free earlier than slowly ramping-up his exercise.

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The usual return-to-play protocol requires the athlete to go symptom-free within the 24 hours after their first post-concussion exertion, after which they’ll begin doing extra.

There are a number of steps to clear, with the ultimate step being a full apply, for a participant to be able to play once more. And at every step, the participant should go symptom-free for the following 24 hours.

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