SUTTER SPUTTER
Zero points in three pre-season games isn’t supposed to be the start Brandon Sutter had to his Canucks career, but the team’s big off-season acquisition isn’t worried yet
The theory goes something like this: While wide-eyed prospects push for roster spots like they’ve been shot out of a cannon, a more methodical approach by veterans is predictable and an NHL preseason staple.
There is the removal of offseason rust, acclimating to new teammates and systems, while trying to ensure they don’t get hurt and are ready for the regular-season opener.
They look at Chris Higgins and applaud his shot-blocking bravado, but who wants to be sidelined for at least a month with a foot fracture? It’s only human nature.
Run all this by Willie Desjardins and you get a long pause before the Vancouver Canucks coach cuts to the chase.
“For me, I always want to win, and I judge guys every night in how hard they play, and it doesn’t matter if they’re a veteran or whatever,” Desjardins said Tuesday after watching those not playing in San Jose being put through the paces at Rogers Arena.
“A lot of our veterans haven’t played the way they need to play, and I want to see them playing great so I can relax when I go home.
“And if I don’t see that, I’m going to have some concerns. But in saying all that, I know guys have played in big games and I know they’ll play that way again, I know they will.”
You don’t put up 101 points or ice the second-ranked penalty kill and ninth-rated power play by accident.
The Canucks still have eight players from the 2011 run to the Stanley Cup final, so any measure of angst should be tempered by a degree of confidence.
However, when the six goals in the first five pre-season games come from prospects Jared McCann, Alex Friesen, Brendan Gaunce and Jake Virtanen, along with sophomore Bo Horvat and the well-travelled Adam Cracknell, it does raise eyebrows. So does Ben Hutton leading team scoring with four assists, and Brandon Sutter having no points and little to show for three pre-season outings.
Sutter is supposed to be the straw that stirs the second-line drink, aids the power play, kills penalties, wins key faceoffs and can match up against tough Pacific Division centres.
He was acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins for a reason and is considered an upgrade on Nick Bonino, who went the other way in the swap. But with just six shots through three games and a minus-2 rating, he hasn’t excited the coach — not yet, anyway.
“I haven’t seen him play his best,” said Desjardins. “I see a guy who’s big and a good skater and who understands the game real well, but just hasn’t got that involved. It’s not a slight on him. In the end, you have to know as a coach what guys will give you when you need them.
“I know he’ll be there and I totally believe that. But l just want to see him harder on pucks, go harder to the net, and get involved.”
Sutter was on a four-forward power-play alignment at practice Tuesday with Henrik and Daniel Sedin and Radim Vrbata, while Alex Edler manned the point.
As a right-shot centre, he’s expected to find open ice to accept passes, get to the net to set screens, be a presence and retrieve pucks.
“Those are things he can do and when he’s hungry and on top of his game,” added Desjardins.
“But whenever you’re thinking too much, you don’t react. And when you don’t react, you hesitate and you’re in trouble.”
Sutter understands the scrutiny in a hockey-mad market, but believes he’ll be comfortable by the season opener on Oct. 7 in Calgary. Even in his third game on Monday — a 1-0 win over Arizona in which he managed three shots, but won just six of 21 draws — he was still asking players and coaches about positioning.
“It takes a few games,” said Sutter, 26, who matched a career high with 21 goals last season and was second in the NHL with four short-handed goals.
“The first two games this year, I was excited and ready to go, and you go out there and it’s like you forgot how to play hockey. After the third, you start to feel it. Right now, you don’t expect to feel great, but the goal is to feel 100 per cent by that first game.
“You want to have a fast start and come flying out of the gates, and not just statistically. You want to feel like you’re doing a lot of things right. It’s getting the puck up well and helping the defence break out.
“A couple more games and hopefully it will come together, but we’ll see where we’re at the first week or two weeks of the season, and then we’ll start drawing judgment. And with the X’s and O’s of it, it probably takes you 10 or 20 games to get that down pat.”
Canucks general manager Jim Benning called Sutter a foundation player and paid him like one, with a fiveyear extension for $21.875 million US that kicks in after this season. It includes a no-trade clause in Sutter’s expiring $3.3-million season, and a no-trade in the first three years of the extension, before a modified no trade in the final two years.
That can bring a heightened level of pressure to perform.
“I don’t think they signed me so I can be a completely different player than I’ve been in the past,” reasoned Sutter. “You’ve got to be yourself. I’ve never been worried about stats. They come together as you play. It’s about winning, and that’s why they got me here.”
“Right now, you don’t expect to feel great, but the goal is to feel 100 per cent by that first game.”
— Brandon Sutter