Times Colonist

Canucks put beat-down behind them

GAME DAY: VANCOUVER AT FLORIDA, 4 P.M.

- PATRICK JOHNSTON

SUNRISE, Florida — A day to chill and hang loose in Florida instead included a 45-minute practice for the Canucks.

But Vancouver coach Travis Green insisted Wednesday’s workout was not punishment for Tuesday’s 9-2 pasting against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Green and his staff figured players would be better off getting a skate in to get their minds off the meltdown at Amalie Arena against the Lightning, who have now won eight consecutiv­e games.

“Mentally, it was good to get them on the ice instead of sitting around the hotel and then coming in and doing a morning skate [today],” Green said after the practice at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, the home arena of the Florida Panthers that’s about 30 minutes west of Fort Lauderdale.

“We talked quickly about it,” he said of the setback that snapped the Canucks’ seven-game win streak. “It didn’t seem like it was huge breakdowns, it was just mistakes here and there, and that’s a team that can make you pay, who’ve got some real good shooters on their team.”

Tanner Pearson said in some ways it’s easier to get over a tight loss — at least you were in the game, maybe a bounce or two just didn’t go your way.

“When you get shellacked like that, you want to fix ’em pretty quick or else that can happen a lot. So it’s not in a good way but in a bad way, it’s kind of a good thing that happened, so we can nip those things in the bud pretty quick,” he said.

The mood in the dressing room during Tuesday’s second intermissi­on was “very down,” several players said. After the game, on the bus to the airport and then the short flight from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale, you could hear a pin drop, Troy Stecher said.

There are far worse things in life than what Stecher and his teammates get to do for a living, he added. That said, they know where they stand in the playoff chase. Mistakes can feel so much worse in this context.

But the team has a strong leadership group. They have voices to rely on to pick them up.

“There’s definitely a few individual­s who you can lean on. Eddy [Alex Edler] and Tanny [Tanner Pearson] have been around a long time. Rooster [Antoine Roussel]’s very vocal. Millsy [J.T. Miller] since he’s come in has been a really good leader for us since Day 1, and a lot of people might not know that Marky [Jacob Markstrom] talks a lot, very vocal,” he said. “There’s always guys kind of chipping in with their own little advice and you take the support and just try to be better.”

• Roussel on PP

Roussel said last season he was happy he hit 30 points on the year — he had 31 before a right-knee injury ended his campaign — but he had been aiming for 40.

He has seven points, including five goals, in 15 games this season.

Fifty points, he’s said, is a fever dream.

“If I ever get there, I’m taking the boys to Vegas,” he joked. “But you know, to get that many points, you need power-play time.”

Well, the Frenchman has found himself on the second power-play unit the last few games.

“It’s awesome. I’m trying to make the most of it. It hasn’t been a spot I’ve been used to but I embrace it, it’s fun.

“I touch some pucks, to try to help, recover some pucks. It’s a challenge to try to get better at it every day,” Roussel said after Wednesday’s practice.

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