The only game this season in which he played less at five on five than on Thursday night was that home game vs. Nashville when he was benched.
Let’s just focus in on playing time. Forget everything else.
The only game this season he played less at five on five was the home game vs. Nashville on Nov. 17, when he was benched.
You want a statement about what the coach sees, about what’s working and not working with his team right now? It’s that.
The Sherwood/Blueger/Joshua line was dominant in their shifts and Tocchet rode them as a result, which is fair enough.
Miller is still posting points, too, which matters. And his game wasn’t particularly notable in any direction — other than the two penalties he took and you know his coach wouldn’t have been happy with them. He also didn’t have a single shot attempt on the Seattle goal.
Three times in his last five games he hasn’t had a single shot attempt on the opposition goal. There are just two other games this season where that’s happened: his first game back from his personal leave, and that game against Nashville where he was benched.
He’s supposed to be a horse. The Canucks need him to be one.
Big roster
Guillaume Brisebois drawing in Thursday for Erik Brännström made him the 29th player to dress for Vancouver this season — they dressed 29 players all of last season.
Brisebois didn’t play, as far as we know, because of injury, but many of the other roster choices have been about injury. And indirectly, Brisebois is only here because of injury, since he sits probably ninth on the team’s depth chart.
Both of those were challenges to the roster’s construction right off the top.
The depth has been tested in a way not really seen since the Jim Benning era.
Note to the current management team: if things don’t right themselves over the next few months, don’t blame injuries. We’ve heard that too many times in the last decade. Even if, in this case, it’s a fair an accurate claim.
“I want to get my joy back”
We feel you, Jimmy Butler, we feel you.
They want to get back to winning. To having a happy and healthy dressing room. To good health.
Butler, of course, wants to get paid and have fun. At 35, that may not be possible.
But one has to admire the ambition.