Canucks beat Avalanche after playoff elimination: ‘Every game means something’
DENVER – For young Elias Pettersson, the fight is just starting. Goalie Kevin Lankinen is trying to finish his breakthrough season strongly, and Dakota Joshua and Nils Hoglander are still trying to upgrade their years. Kiefer Sherwood and Conor Garland are chasing 20 goals. Meanwhile, a handful of young players – Aatu Raty, Linus Karlsson, Max Sasson, Vittorio Mancini and Pettersson – are auditioning for places in the National Hockey League next fall. It may be over for the Vancouver Canucks, who were eliminated Wednesday from the Stanley Cup Playoffs race, but it’s not over for anyone on the team. That was obvious on Thursday when the Canucks wholly earned a 4-1 victory over the powerful Colorado Avalanche, giving Vancouver an impressive two-game road sweep that began with Tuesday’s historic last-minute comeback in a 6-5 win over the championship-calibre Dallas Stars. The Canucks have three games remaining, all at Rogers Arena, starting Saturday at home against the Minnesota Wild. Think Vancouver players won’t be pumped up to beat the Wild team that eliminated them from the wild-card race by beating the San Jose Sharks 8-7 on Wednesday? /* if ( "1" == true && 'undefined' !== typeof window.getIndexAds ) { var so = {preroll:{1:{1:{siteID:191888},2:{siteID:191889}}}}; adServerUrl = window.getIndexAds( 'http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=640x360&cust_params=domain%3Dsportsnet.ca&iu=%2F7326%2Fen.sportsnet.web%2FVideo&ciu_szs=300x250&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&env=vp&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&ad_rule=1&vid=6371339848112&cmsid=384', so, permalink); } else { adServerUrl = "http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=640x360&cust_params=domain%3Dsportsnet.ca&iu=%2F7326%2Fen.sportsnet.web%2FVideo&ciu_szs=300x250&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&env=vp&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&ad_rule=1&vid=6371339848112&cmsid=384"; } */ adServerUrl = "http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ads?sz=640x360&cust_params=domain%3Dsportsnet.ca&iu=%2F7326%2Fen.sportsnet.web%2FVideo&ciu_szs=300x250&impl=s&gdfp_req=1&env=vp&output=vast&unviewed_position_start=1&ad_rule=1&vid=6371339848112&cmsid=384"; var adServerUrl_result = adServerUrl.includes("cust_params"); var queryString=''; if(adServerUrl_result){ var gettheDUFI = false; if (localStorage.getItem("consent") !== null && localStorage.getItem("consent-targeting") !== null) gettheDUFI = localStorage.getItem("theRED_loc"); if(gettheDUFI){ queryString += "dufiid=" + gettheDUFI + '&'; queryString += "ppid=" + gettheDUFI + '&'; var ppid = "ppid=" + gettheDUFI + '&'; } var DUFI_IP = false; if (localStorage.getItem("consent") !== null && localStorage.getItem("consent-targeting") !== null) DUFI_IP = sessionStorage.getItem("DUFI_IP"); if(DUFI_IP){ queryString += "dufiip=" + DUFI_IP + '&'; } adServerUrl = adServerUrl.replace(/cust_params=/, ppid + 'cust_params=' + encodeURIComponent(queryString) ); } $el.after( unescape("%3Cscript src=\"" + (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js\" %3E%3C/script%3E") ); $( document ).one( 'ready', function() { $( "#video_container-355619" ).SNPlayer( { bc_account_id: "1704050871", bc_player_id: "JCdte3tMv", //autoplay: true, //is_has_autoplay_switch: false, bc_videos: 6371339848112, is_has_continuous_play: "false", adserverurl: adServerUrl, section: "", thumbnail: "https://www.sportsnet.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/6371339848112-1024x576.jpg", direct_url: "https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/video/joshua-says-canucks-will-compete-until-the-end-despite-missing-playoffs/" }); }); “My attitude is: You work your whole life to get to the NHL, so every game means something,” Sherwood said after scoring his 19th goal of the season in a first-star performance against the Avalanche. “You’re still the kid that grew up grinding to try to get here. So I don’t care – we don’t care – if it’s garbage time or not. Obviously, it sucks (missing the playoffs). I think there’s a lesson there moving forward that we can’t rely on anyone else to make the playoffs. We still owe it to our team, our staff, our fans and the city to give our best foot forward and continue to try to build.” “We’re playing for a lot,” veteran defenceman Marcus Pettersson said. “We’re all pros in here and we go out to play hockey to win. That’s why we play. We play because we love the game, and we love to win. Sure, we’re all disappointed, but
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DENVER – For young Elias Pettersson, the fight is just starting.
Goalie Kevin Lankinen is trying to finish his breakthrough season strongly, and Dakota Joshua and Nils Hoglander are still trying to upgrade their years. Kiefer Sherwood and Conor Garland are chasing 20 goals.
Meanwhile, a handful of young players – Aatu Raty, Linus Karlsson, Max Sasson, Vittorio Mancini and Pettersson – are auditioning for places in the National Hockey League next fall.
It may be over for the Vancouver Canucks, who were eliminated Wednesday from the Stanley Cup Playoffs race, but it’s not over for anyone on the team.
That was obvious on Thursday when the Canucks wholly earned a 4-1 victory over the powerful Colorado Avalanche, giving Vancouver an impressive two-game road sweep that began with Tuesday’s historic last-minute comeback in a 6-5 win over the championship-calibre Dallas Stars.
The Canucks have three games remaining, all at Rogers Arena, starting Saturday at home against the Minnesota Wild.
Think Vancouver players won’t be pumped up to beat the Wild team that eliminated them from the wild-card race by beating the San Jose Sharks 8-7 on Wednesday?
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“My attitude is: You work your whole life to get to the NHL, so every game means something,” Sherwood said after scoring his 19th goal of the season in a first-star performance against the Avalanche. “You’re still the kid that grew up grinding to try to get here. So I don’t care – we don’t care – if it’s garbage time or not. Obviously, it sucks (missing the playoffs). I think there’s a lesson there moving forward that we can’t rely on anyone else to make the playoffs. We still owe it to our team, our staff, our fans and the city to give our best foot forward and continue to try to build.”
“We’re playing for a lot,” veteran defenceman Marcus Pettersson said. “We’re all pros in here and we go out to play hockey to win. That’s why we play. We play because we love the game, and we love to win. Sure, we’re all disappointed, but I think these games mean a lot now that we know that we’re out. It means a lot for next year and setting a tone and keep establishing that culture that we’re talking about.
“No matter what, we’ve still got to have that standard in here. We expect a lot of each other and we hold each other accountable. You need that. You need that tough love. We’re still a young team; we’re trying to build up that standard.”
Ironically, one of the most productive, culture-building weeks of the Canucks’ season is the week when the critical mass of challenges, which began last summer, finally drowned them in the standings.
On Thursday, the younger Pettersson, “Junior,” played a robust game and had the first fight of his rookie NHL season – or ever – when he tussled enthusiastically with Colorado’s Logan O’Connor in the third period.
“Last game when I played him at home, I had a couple of battles with him,” Pettersson explained.
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The Swede was almost sheepish talking about his fight – “I don’t know, I’ve got to watch the video” – but it certainly fired up the Canuck bench.
Had he ever had a fight at any level of hockey?
“Just with gloves on,” he said. “Never dropped them.”
“He handled himself very well,” coach Rick Tocchet, who had nearly 3,000 penalty minutes as an NHL player, told reporters. “When a guy can do that every once in a while, people will keep their head up. He’s a big man. So, yeah, really impressed with that.”
The 21-year-old’s combativeness was indicative of the Canucks’ engagement, as they significantly outplayed the Nathan-MacKinnon-less Avalanche in the second period, then clinched it with a clutch goal by Joshua in the third.
Joshua, whose season began with surgery for testicular cancer, scored just his seventh goal of the year at 6:14 by getting position on Colorado defenceman Devon Toews and slinging in the rebound from Marcus Pettersson’s point shot.
Hoglander, another Canuck who has found traction late in the season after struggling for most of it, scored into an empty net for his eighth goal in 69 games.
Sherwood beautifully set up Jake DeBrusk’s redirect to make it 1-0 at 4:50 of the second period, before lasering a shot over Mackenzie Blackwood’s shoulder to double the lead on a three-on-two rush at 7:51.
Toews was the only Avalanche player to beat Lankinen, deflecting the puck past him at 16:36 of the middle frame. Lankinen stopped 31 of 32 shots, including a couple of point-blank stunners on O’Connor early in the final period when it was still a one-goal game.
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“I think it was a really good effort,” Tocchet said. “A lot of good stuff for some of our individuals, I thought. The team played really well. I liked our game.
“The message is, we can’t get into what-ifs and what happened (in the season). That’s for another discussion. I keep saying there’s a lot of people watching us. You know, the effort’s there. Continue to give the effort. There’s guys that play well (and) I think they deserve to keep playing, too. There’s some guys that can get 20 goals, which is nice. You’ve got to still play the right way, and I thought we’re playing the right way.”
Sherwood said: “The competitive side is hurting that we’re not in the playoffs. So I think if we use that sting and that sourness . . . it’ll be an advantage and give us a bigger chip on our shoulder next year. We’ve had a ton of adversity, a lot of injuries, we’ve had drama and whatnot. And we’ve been trying to claw back in that playoff race without our top two centers. Obviously, guys have stepped up. We’ve just had a lot of adversity. At the end of the day, I think there’s a lot to learn from.”
