*Photo from The Rink Live*
A new era is off to a good start. Dakota Joshua scored, Andrei Kuzmenko had a two goal game, and the Vancouver Canucks defeated the Chicago Blackhawks with a 5-2 victory on Tuesday night in Vancouver.
Rick Tocchet was making his debut behind the bench as the head coach of the Canucks after replacing Bruce Boudreau on Sunday. Assistant coach Trent Cull was also fired with Boudreau, with Adam Foote becoming an assistant coach on Tocchet's staff, and Sergei Gonchar being hired as a defensive development coach.
Tocchet said that "The players kind of bought in. There's been some tough circumstances the last few days. There was a lot of emotions and heads spinning. I threw some stuff at them today; we had longer meetings than I like to. For them to take it in and play good, I commend the players."
For the Canucks, it was only their first 3rd win in 13 games, but it was a positive that they were able to win Tocchet's first game. Elias Pettersson and Luke Schenn each had two assists, while Kuzmenko scored a pair of goals.
Patrick Kane got the scoring started, giving the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead at the 17:49 mark of the first period. Kuzmenko tied the game 1-1 with his 19th goal of the season, coming 7:02 into period number two. Sam Lafferty scored for the Blackhawks to put them ahead 2-1 before Kuzmenko scored again to re-tie the game.
Joshua started the scoring 11:34 into the 3rd period, giving the Canucks a 3-2 lead on his 7th goal of the season. Just 34 seconds later, JT Miller and Conor Garland assisted on Sheldon Dries' 6th goal of the season. With 1:26 left on the clock, Bo Horvat scored on the empty net to wrap up the win for the Canucks.
Schenn said of the win that "We wanted to get that one off the hop. There's a lot going on here the last couple days, so I think we did a good job of preparing. They prepared us well too and we were able to relax and settle in a little bit."
Getting the start in goal for the Canucks was Collin Delia, who improved to 5-3-0 in 8 starts with a win. Delia made 12 saves on the only 14 shots the Blackhawks got on him, good for a .857 save percentage.
Starting opposite Delia was Petr Mrazek for the Blackhawks, who got peppered with a lot of shots all game. Mrazek stopped 43 out of the 47 shots on goal from the Canucks, recording a .915 save percentage as his record dropped to 5-12-1.
Lafferty said after the game that "We knew they were going to come out really hard, new coach and everything, so I thought we weathered it for a bit and had some pushback, just not quite enough in the third. There's a lot of excitement and everyone wants to prove themselves, so they obviously dictated the play for most of it. We had a chance, so credit to Mrazek for keeping us in."
The Canucks are back in action on Wednesday night to wrap up a back to back, with Spencer Martin getting the start against the Seattle Kraken. Mrazek is expected to start for the Blackhawks against the Calgary Flames on Thursday.
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