Canucks Takeaways: Demko returns a winner, Hughes continues to dazzle

After waiting nearly three months to play a National Hockey League game, Thatcher Demko was forced by Vancouver Canuck teammates to stand around for another eight minutes on Monday night.

Then Jamie Benn beat Demko on a breakaway on the Dallas Stars’ second shot. Demko needn’t have worried about having so little to do because over the final 2 ½ periods, the Stars outshot the Canucks 36-12. High-danger chances were 18-3 for Dallas at five-on-five.

“I know I’m healthy,” Demko said when asked about the workload. “So, that’s the plus.”

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Not really. The plus is that the franchise goaltender made 34 saves, tracked the puck well and controlled his rebounds, and allowed his team to steal a game 5-4 in overtime with a lineup that included eight players who have been in the American Hockey League this season.

Demko did more than merely survive his first game since Dec. 1.

Anthony Beauvillier had his best game since coming to the Canucks from New York in the Bo Horvat trade a month ago, scoring twice and setting up a pretty game-winner for Andrei Kuzmenko. The first-year Russian won it with his sixth goal in five games by deftly redirecting Beauvillier’s centring pass past Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger 48 seconds into overtime.

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The goal survived a ponderously-long video review for offside. Fortunately for Kuzmenko, nobody in Tank Nation had input on the review.

Nobody is ever happier than Kuzmenko – anywhere, anytime – and he used the six-minute delay to schmooze and work the room. But nobody got more love from teammates when the cliffhanger verdict was finally announced than Demko, who returned a winner in his first game since badly injuring his groin on Dec. 1.

Hughed aviation

Play this game that way 10 times, and the Stars beat the Canucks in the nine of them. But one thing that was all skill and no luck was the virtuoso performance by Vancouver defenceman Quinn Hughes, who may be playing the best hockey of his life.

Despite the Stars’ dominance over the final 48 minutes, the Canucks outshot them 10-6 and outscored them 4-0 with Hughes on the ice at even strength. The 23-year-old had three assists — two critical stretch passes and an all-world spinarama in traffic to set up Beauvillier’s second goal – and now has 57 points in 56 games while going plus-12 on a 27^th-place team that has been outscored by 36 goals this season.

He has been one of the best pure passers and most elusive skaters almost since he entered the NHL, but new coach Rick Tocchet has Hughes digging in defensively, too, which is taking him to another level.

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The Miller Tale

The Canucks announced before the game that J.T. Miller is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury. After he did not make the trip to Dallas on Sunday, Twitter reacted the way it usually does when an Athletic reporter suggested Miller may be held out of the lineup by the Canucks for trade purposes due to interest in him from other teams. That is possible. 

But if the Canucks have been getting serious trade calls on Miller, it’s a sudden development. 

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Despite weeks of breathless conjecture ahead of last year’s trade deadline about competing bids for Miller (when he was having a career, 99-point season and had a year left on a bargain contract), the Canucks actually got few real offers for the centre. It would be surprising now if any team is eager to acquire him with Miller possessing a seven-year, $56-million IOU that starts next season when he will be 30 years old.

“I really don’t think I’m getting traded; that’s all I have to say,” Miller said last week. “It’s a little different than last year. I’ve been wrong before but I don’t think this is one of those times.”

Not stand pat

Of the six trades general manager Patrik Allvin has made for the Canucks since September, the quietest one also has the potential to be his most lopsided wins. It’s difficult to imagine him doing any worse than at least a tie by unloading depth defenceman Riley Stillman to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday for 19-year-old, second-tier prospect Josh Bloom.

Maybe Bloom, a six-foot-two winger from Oakville, Ont., who has been a point-per-game player in the Ontario Hockey League this season, plays in the NHL or maybe he doesn’t. The third-round pick from two years ago certainly will be given the chance by the Canucks to grow into a professional player.

But even if Bloom goes bust, shedding Stillman and his $1.35-million salary that has another year to run is a win. The Canucks should be able to replace Stillman with an equal or better player for about $500,000 less, and at least there is upside to Bloom.

Playing defence on the Canucks has not been easy for anyone this season given the structural chaos that led to Tocchet replacing Bruce Boudreau as head coach on Jan. 22. But Stillman never found a spot and in the 32 games he did play, Vancouver was outscored 31-17 at five-on-five while the defenceman built a goals-for percentage of just 44.2.

It’s a tiny sample, but experienced minor-leaguers Christian Wolanin and Guillaume Brisebois noticeably outperformed Stillman when they were called up last week to the NHL. Each is making $750,000, as is Canuck depth defenceman Kyle Burroughs, who competed with Stillman for ice time.

Tocchet immediately noticed Wolanin’s and Brisebois’ “structure,” which in hockey is a synonym for dependability and consistency, saying after Saturday’s 3-1 loss to the Boston Bruins: “I’ve got to give a lot of kudos to (Abbotsford Canucks coach) Jeremy Colliton down there because the guys we called up there, Brisebois and Wolanin, they’re system guys. And I think it starts from Abbotsford.”

Russian Roulette

A wild card in Sunday’s no-risk trade with the New York Rangers for 2018 ninth-overall draft pick Vitali Kravtsov is agent Dan Milstein, who helped facilitate the deal to Vancouver, where he also represents Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev.

Both Russians were brought to the Canucks by Milstein as free agents last summer, and each flourished as the organization made good on its commitment to provide ice time and prime roles for the wingers. When Kuzmenko signed a two-year, $11-million bridge deal in January, he told reporters: “I say to my agent, ‘I trust 100 per cent to you. When you say to me, Andrei, go to sign, I sign.’”

Milstein and Allvin have built a strong relationship. They trust each other.

Milstein will have made Kravtsov aware of the second chance he is getting with the Canucks after the 23-year-old bounced back and forth between the Rangers and the Kontinental Hockey League, managing only five goals in 48 games in the NHL during parts of two seasons.

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“I don’t play a lot this season,” Kravtsov told reporters in a Zoom call after Monday’s morning skate in Dallas. “But I hope I can play more. I’m so happy to be here. I have to show. . . something to deserve more minutes.

“My confidence right now, not as high as I want. But I’m going to try to build that in the games — win the battles, do the right stuff on the ice and I hope it’s going to grow every game, every day and every practice.”

Acquired for speedy but injury-prone depth forward Will Lockwood, a former third-round pick who has spent most of his three seasons in the minors, Kravtsov made his Canuck debut against the Stars on a line with Jack Studnicka and Brock Boeser. He had one shot on net in 8:53 of ice time and was not scored against.

Last stat

Canucks star Elias Pettersson, who is having a breakout season as an elite two-way centre, had a career-high six blocks. His 71 blocked shots this season are third most in the NHL among forwards

More from Sportsnet

Canucks trade defenceman Riley Stillman to Sabres for forward prospect

Canucks’ J.T. Miller week-to-week with lower-body injury

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