With Toffoli leaving, it's back to the future for Canucks' second line
T
The Province Hockey
Summary: This is a summary of an article originally published by The Province Hockey. Read the full original article here →
The Vancouver Canucks head into the 2020-21 NHL season with basically the same uneven quality of forwards The “financial” decision to let Tyler Toffoli leave as a free agent this past fall has the Vancouver Canucks back to where they were a year ago in trying to set their forward groupings: debating what to do with the likes of Jake Virtanen and, yes, Loui Eriksson. Toffoli was a good fit on the first line with J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. This put the Canucks’ coaches in a position where they could play Brock Boeser with Bo Horvat or even with Adam Gaudette, giving the team some forward depth even if in both cases the fits have both looked a bit awkward.
Anyway, with Toffoli now out of the picture, it would be foolish not to have Boeser back in a top-six role. Putting him back with Pettersson is the most logical choice, simply because he was a nice fit with Pettersson and Miller.
In just over 426 minutes of five-on-five ice time together, the Canucks took 58.4 per cent of the total shot attempts while they were on the ice and scored two-thirds of the goals.
Basically, whoever plays with Pettersson is the least of head coach Travis Green’s worries when training camp for the 2020-21 NHL season opens this Sunday.
Anyway, with Toffoli now out of the picture, it would be foolish not to have Boeser back in a top-six role. Putting him back with Pettersson is the most logical choice, simply because he was a nice fit with Pettersson and Miller.
In just over 426 minutes of five-on-five ice time together, the Canucks took 58.4 per cent of the total shot attempts while they were on the ice and scored two-thirds of the goals.
Basically, whoever plays with Pettersson is the least of head coach Travis Green’s worries when training camp for the 2020-21 NHL season opens this Sunday.