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The Vancouver Canucks managed to do something no other team in NHL history has accomplished last game.
They held Edmonton Oilers superstar — and the consensus best player in the world — Connor McDavid to zero shots in a playoff game.
“I think we’re just trying to contain him as a five-man unit and work together as a team. I think our structure has been tight,” said captain Quinn Hughes today about slowing down the star.
While he’s impossible to stop fully, given that McDavid still had an assist in the series opener, the Canucks have done a great job at making life hard for McDavid.
Head coach Rick Tocchet deployed J.T. Miller against McDavid in Game 1 to great success. The Canucks outshot the Oilers 4-1 and had just shy of 75% of the expected goals in the 10:58 five-on-five minutes the two players shared.
Keeping that success going comes down to two things for Miller: not turning the puck over and staying above McDavid on the ice.
“He’s one of the best players,” started Miller this morning before catching himself. “[He] is the best player. I think we understand he’s going to play a strong game today.”
“We don’t want to worry too much about him, but I think when we don’t turn the puck over and when they have it, you’ve got to be above him. It’s not super confusing for us.”
The Canucks have relied upon their tight defensive structure to win this season. They dismissed the Nashville Predators in the first round despite scoring just 13 goals in six games.
It’s the same structure which has helped slow McDavid.
“Vancouver should get a lot of credit for being a tight-checking team and not giving much space,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch when asked about McDavid’s Game 1 struggles. “You saw it in their previous series against Nashville; there weren’t a lot of shots.”
While the first round, and the first game of the second round, was an impressive display of defence from the Canucks, they know that McDavid presents a unique challenge.
The Oilers centre has just four points in four combined regular season and playoff games against the Canucks this season.
“Honestly, you never really feel comfortable when you’re playing him,” explained Miller. “I said I don’t want to look too much into the regular season, but I think we’ve had a little bit of success just because we’re sticking to the game plan.”
After recording zero shots and just one point in Game 1, everyone is expecting a massive performance from McDavid tonight.
The fact that they did a strong job on the Oilers centre for one game doesn’t mean anything when the puck drops tonight.
“He bounces back better than everybody, and we expect him to play a really strong game, so we have our hands full today. Honestly, we’ve got to turn the page from the last game,” finished Miller.
“It’s not easy,” said Hughes about limiting the best player in the world. “Obviously, for the last few years, he’s averaged 1.5, 1.6 points-per-game, so he’s getting his looks no matter what, but we’ll try our best.”
The puck drops tonight at 7 pm as the Canucks will try to limit McDavid and take a 2-0 series lead.