VANCOUVER — Growing up in Boston, Conor Garland said one of his favourite athletes was Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez.
“He used to say, whenever they needed to win, he could find a way to just bring his game,” Garland, the Vancouver Canucks winger, explained late Saturday. “And Huggy is the same way — he has that sense when we need to win. You don’t want to call a game in January a must-win, but we needed this one tonight. He just finds a way to bring his best.”
Huggy is what Quinn Hughes has been called by Canuck teammates since he arrived in Vancouver for his rookie season 5 ½ years ago.
It’s short for Huggy Bear. But the defenceman has become more like a Spirit Bear for the Canucks — the rare white bear that is sacred in First Nations culture on the West Coast and, according to legend, was created to remind everyone that the world was once covered in ice.
There has never been such a creature on ice for the Vancouver Canucks.
As most around him have failed this season, Hughes has been even better than he was last year when he brought the Norris Trophy to the Canucks’ curio cabinet for the first time.
Head coach Rick Tocchet has said several times recently that he worries that Hughes, the Canucks’ captain, has taken too much on himself during the team’s disappointing season.
“I feel responsible that we’ve had the turmoil that we’ve had,” Hughes told Sportsnet late Saturday. “And I want to, you know, be the reason that we can get out of this and be successful. It’s embarrassing to lose some of the games we’ve lost the last couple weeks.”
Like 6-2 Thursday in Edmonton. And 3-2 the game before that against Buffalo. And 5-1 and 6-1 the week before that against Los Angeles and Winnipeg.
But on Saturday, with the Canucks just trying to survive the tumult of the last two months and somehow stay in the National Hockey League playoff race, Hughes went out and delivered a win, scoring both goals as Vancouver edged the powerful Washington Capitals 2-1 on one of the few really good nights at Rogers Arena this season.
For a change, Hughes had a lot of help Saturday from teammates, and especially defence partner Filip Hronek, goalie Kevin Lankinen and beleaguered centre J.T. Miller. But Huggy was still Pedro.
“It’s just impressive when, you know, he knew we needed one tonight,” Garland continued. “And he went out there and delivered, and that’s what the best players do. We had some conversations the last two days, just about, you know, it’s a grinding part of the season, guys are tired, and it seems like everything is crammed. It’s a challenge to your body. But just how dialled he is on that, it’s inspiring for the rest of our group.
“I FaceTimed him yesterday on my walk, and he’s getting treatment (on a day off) and in his house recovering. So, it’s a good lesson for young guys coming in and maybe the guys that aren’t playing as consistent as they want, what it takes to do this each and every night.”
“He’s probably one of the best players in the league right now,” Lankinen said. “Not just defencemen, but players in general, and there’s a lot of good players in this league. So it’s just really cool to witness what he’s doing on a daily basis. You know, game after game, he’s leading us on the ice and taking over games. No matter what’s going on (with the team), he can still bring his A-game, which is really impressive.”
It’s impressive, also, that Lankinen is so impressed by Hughes because the goalie spent the last two seasons playing behind defenceman Roman Josi in Nashville.
Lankinen left the Predators for a chance to play more somewhere else, and has certainly found that opportunity in Vancouver.
In his 31st game of the season, seven more than he played all of last year, Team Finland’s 4 Nations goalie stopped 32 of 33 Washington shots, and blanked the Capitals until Lankinen had the puck jammed out from under him and Pierre-Luc Dubois swept it into an open net with 7:29 remaining.
Lankinen made a point-blank save on Dubois a minute later, and got a key last-minute block from Miller on Jakob Chychrun’s one-timer.
“Obviously the result (was important), but I thought, especially in the second period there, we really took it to them,” Hughes said. “We played with a lot of pace. We stuck to our staples. At times, we were simple. I mean, we grinded out a win against a really good team.”
But performances like this one also make the Canucks’ many duds even more mystifying.
Hughes has been the one consistent positive, driving play and doing everything in his power to rescue his team.
As usual, the defenceman created his own space and shot angles on both goals Saturday.
Nils Hoglander got the puck to Hughes at the point on the first goal, and Brock Boeser on the second. And, importantly, the Canucks had net-front traffic for both. But still, the goals were largely Hughes being Hughes, making something from nothing.
After a rough opening 10 minutes for Vancouver, the American snatched a 1-0 lead for his team at 12:23 of the first period, bursting past Capitals forward Brandon Duhaime at the point and attacking the slot at an angle before lifting a backhand past Linus Karlsson’s screen and into the top corner behind Washington goalie Charlie Lindgren.
Hughes’ second goal — and 14th in 44 games — didn’t require as many of his physical gifts but just as much brain power. The Vancouver captain walked the blue line with the puck until a shooting lane opened beside Dubois, which is when Hughes zipped a wrist shot past Lindgren after Canucks Elias Pettersson and Pius Suter took Capitals Tom Wilson and Matt Roy to the front of the net.
In an otherwise evenly-contested, intense, structured game, Hughes was the X-factor. He was the difference.
“He was really good last year, but I think he got better over the summer,” Hronek said. “Actually, we want to help him more. He’s trying so hard, he brings his best every night, so we need to help him.”
Maybe this game can be a turning point for Vancouver, but we’ve been wrong about that a few times already. The Canucks beat the Oilers 3-2 last Saturday and, seven days before that, shut out the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-0 on Hockey Night in Canada.
But these are the only three wins the Canucks have generated since Jan. 2.
What we can guarantee is that Hughes will be world class again when the Canucks, with trade winds howling, play a three-game road trip in St. Louis, Nashville and Dallas, starting Monday.
“Some of the best I’ve played in my career,” Hughes said. “But just saying that, it’s a really hard league, a humbling league. So for me, I’m just trying to really focus every single day. I try to keep my body healthy and try to be at my best, be a good leader and see where that goes.”
He just needs the Canucks to follow.
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