Enter the saviour, Brock Boeser
After his spectacular NHL debut, the expectations placed on the Canucks rookie have skyrocketed
ST. PAUL, Minn. — If it were the 18th century, poets would be composing several stanzas to help us all remember the occasion.
If it were the 1960s, there’d be a folksong about it.
Statues will be built. Stories will be told. Streets will be renamed.
It was the day Brock Boeser arrived. And, boy, what a day it was.
What ended in a 4-2 Canucks win, began with an early-morning flight home. Boeser grew up just 20 minutes from where the Minnesota Wild play. It’s why he played his first NHL game in the afternoon just hours after his North Dakota team’s season ended in a double overtime heartbreaker in Fargo.
Boeser was juiced with both adrenalin and emotion.
His eyes filled with tears minutes before he would take the opening shift of his first game with the Sedin twins.
In an unprecedented move, head coach Willie Desjardins invited Boeser’s parents into the locker-room to read out the starting lineup. Boeser nearly broke down in tears.
“It meant a ton to them,” Boeser said. “I had tears in my eyes. I’m so thankful for everything they’ve done.” Wait, it gets better. On a line with Sven Baertschi and Bo Horvat, Boeser had instantaneous chemistry. In his first period, he set both of his linemates up for nearly glorious scoring chances. In his second period, he scored. To get to this point, the Canucks had to sign Boeser in the morning to an NHL contract, which instantly “burned” the first of his three-year entry-level deal. This, by the way, is what the Canucks wanted to happen, and not something Boeser had to negotiate to get.
The Canucks felt it important to give their fans an up-close view of one of their top prospects. He did not disappoint them. Boeser led the team with four shots on net. He was second with three hits.
This will not temper already impossible expectations. On some level, it seems odd Desjardins played him. All season, he’s talked about young players “earning it” and Boeser easily could have been physically spent after losing Friday. But the coach had no reservations. “Not because of the circumstance,” Desjardins said. “He was going to be excited. You can play on adrenalin for one game, for sure.
“He came in and it was great to see him get a goal.”
In a season thick with sourness, the Canucks were in desperate need a winning hand late in the season and drew a full house in Boeser’s debut.
What’s next isn’t clear. If he plays against the Winnipeg Jets Sunday, it would be three games in three days — and that does seem like a lot to ask, even if you think he’s the saviour.
He will be with the Canucks for the rest of the season and by rule cannot play with Utica, in their regular season or their playoffs.
It’s believed the Canucks plan all along was to play him with the team to the end of this season and start him in the AHL in the fall.
But if he has many more games like Saturday’s you can consider that plan scrapped.
“I had a lot of nerves before the game, but everyone said just go play and work hard and have fun,” Boeser said. He did do that. And for the first time in a long time, Canucks fans had some fun, too.