Canuck Conor Garland’s need for speed drives NHL success

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Height was once a big talking point in the NHL.

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As in, “is it big enough?”

But to look at the 2021-22 Vancouver Canucks, you don’t necessarily see that question anymore.

His best defense, Quinn Hughes, is not great. Two of their most exciting forwards, Conor Garland and Nils Höglander, aren’t great either.

Yes, the game has changed. Great players still have great appeal, but above all they have to know how to skate.

Little players always had a chance if they were quick, Canucks head coach Travis Green said Friday after practice at Rogers Arena when asked about Garland’s success as a short winger.

“It’s a fast game now and you probably didn’t see that many smaller players playing 15 years ago. I think you see a lot more now, ”Green said of Garland, who is third on the team to score with seven goals and 18 points in the 24 games the team has played this season. But he is a competitive player. I think he probably could have played at any time.

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“We knew we were getting a crafty player who can create an offense out of thin air, and especially when he drops the puck in the offensive zone, he is dangerous. I think it has come as advertised. “

After his 2018-19 NHL rookie season, in which he scored 13 goals in 47 games for the Arizona Coyotes, Garland knew he had to improve his skating if he was going to stay with Arizona and avoid a return to the affiliate team. American Hockey League team. .

Garland, a high-scoring player in junior, had worked hard for two full seasons with the Coyotes farm team in Tucson, Arizona.

“After my freshman year (NHL) I met with our player development coach in Arizona, Steve Sullivan, one of the smartest hockey people in the world. I remember him telling me – we had played the Islanders – “Look (Matt) Barzal and how well he skates,” Garland said. “To be my height and if I can be an everyday NHL player, what we were talking about at the time, I have to improve my skating. I spent the entire summer working on my skating, working on my edges, trimmings, with my skating coach Mike Botticelli at home (in Boston).

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“(Skating) was something I would say I never really focused on, and then after that conversation, I really took it seriously and started working on it, and still do.”

Sullivan was a small player who carved out a 17-season NHL career, largely before the call was the dead puck before the 2004-05 lockout, when defenders like then-Dallas Stars captain Derian Hatcher, were allowed to grasp and grasp willpower, making up for their lack of skating prowess with sheer physical strength.

Sullivan played with speed and courage along with skill, but short players like him were a relative rarity in his career.

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Things turned around in 2005-06, when the NHL had its officials crack down on interference and obstruction, ending the reign of big, burly defenders like Hatcher and opening the door for more players like Sullivan to emerge.

Sullivan scored 747 points in 1,011 regular-season games in a career that ended in 2012-13, a testament to his perseverance.

“I was lucky to have (Sullivan) as a development coach,” Garland said. “A kind of player similar (to me). He wasn’t the fastest, he didn’t have a strong shot, but you know he played tenaciously, he always competed, and he was one of the best little players to ever play the game. So I was lucky to have him to lean on for the five years there in Arizona. “

As for the here and now, Garland recognized the great task facing the Canucks, but they are not dwelling on it.

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Vancouver has 58 games left in its season and needs about 38 wins to reach the playoffs, a .638 winning percentage. That would be an extraordinary pace to maintain.

“I mean it’s a cliché, but I think it’s easy enough: you just worry about tomorrow,” Garland said. “I never try to think too much about the future. I don’t think about the past. You wake up, if you have practice, you practice and parts of there. I think it’s pretty easy, especially with our schedule, with how many games, you only care about what’s next.

But I understand we dug a hole in ourselves and I know what you’re saying. It’s hard not to think how much we need a win … but I mean, if you don’t win tomorrow, then you’re digging one more hole, so worry about tomorrow, try to go out there and get a win, play. good and move on. “

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The Canucks obviously need to put together a great winning streak, but it doesn’t make sense to focus on such an overwhelming challenge, Green said.

“Let’s worry about the next game,” he said. “Let’s not worry about the need to go on a roll. Let’s worry about playing the next game well. I don’t think you’re going to start talking, like you said, of winning three, four or five in a row.

“Let’s put our best foot forward in the next game.”

TEMPLATE MOVEMENT : Travis Hamonic, who missed the most recent road trip because he was not fully vaccinated against COVID-19, was briefly removed Friday morning from AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks, to which he had been assigned prior to the trip. He participated in practice on Friday, but was later loaned out again to Abbotsford. Hamonic, who has had both of his COVID shots, is expected to adapt in at least one of the AHL team’s two games this weekend against San Jose Barracuda and then be recalled on Monday. He last played on November 21 against Chicago and did not dress for Abbotsford last weekend.

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