By Canadian Press

Rookies key in Arizona Coyotes 4-2 pre-season win over Vancouver Canucks

Sep 28, 2019 | 10:42 PM

VANCOUVER — After a hectic week-and-a-half of pre-season play, Vancouver Canucks coach Travis Green is looking forward to finally getting some training in with his team.

“Our group needs some practice time, to be honest,” he said Thursday after the Canucks dropped a 4-2 decision to the Arizona Coyotes in their final exhibition game of the year.

The loss marked Vancouver’s eighth match up in 11 days, including a pair of split squad games. The Canucks finished the pre-season with an even four wins and four losses.

Now it’s time to get some work in before the regular season begins next week, Green said.

“I’ve seen it right from day one here — our group needs to skate and handle the puck and make plays, especially at this time of the year,” he said. “It’ll be good to have some practices. We need it.”

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Many of the Canucks are looking forward to playing games that count.

“Exhibition’s always good to get your speed up. I think it takes a few games for any player to get up to speed,” said defenceman Tyler Myers. 

“I thought for the most part we had a pretty good pre-season as a group and we want to make sure we have a good next five days here getting ready for game one.”

Even losses like the one the Canucks suffered on Thursday night give the team something to build on, he added.

“(Arizona) came hard tonight,” Myers said. “It was good for our group to experience that a bit, have guys on us quick, force us to move the puck quick. It’s a good last game before going in.”

Some young talents stepped up for Arizona in the Coyotes’ win.

Rookies Lane Pederson, Barrett Hayton and Victor Soderstrom each put away goals, and veteran Carl Soderberg added an empty-net strike with less than 30 seconds on the clock.

Micheal Ferland scored for the Canucks 1:20 into Thursday’s game, and Zack MacEwen added another tally before the end of the first period.

Coyotes netminder Adin Hill had 17 saves and Jacob Markstrom stopped 31-of-34 shots for Vancouver.

MacEwen’s goal came off a nice play by centre Adam Gaudette who, under pressure, took the puck in behind the Coyotes’ net before making a back-handed pass to MacEwen at the top of the crease.

The 23-year-old forward sent a stunning one-timer past Hill for his first goal of the pre-season.

Despite the early lead, Vancouver struggled to generate chances, registering just 11 shots through the first two periods.

“I think we’ve got to do a better job of getting pucks to the net,” said Ferland, who scored his first goal in a Canucks jersey on Thursday. “But give (Arizona) credit, they don’t give you many options there. Forwards are on top of you, (defencemen) are on top of you also. So you’re not getting a lot of looks.”

Gaudette saw similarities between his squad and the Coyotes.

“They’re a quick team. They play the same style as us, they’re hard on pucks. We lost a few foot races out there and we weren’t as sharp as we have been,” he said.

“It’s been a long camp and guts are definitely tired but you’ve got to fight through that and not let that affect you.”

Gaudette, who tallied 12 points in 56 games with the Canucks last season, has been a star through Vancouver’s pre-season, making plays and putting up six points.

The 22-year-old native of Braintree, Mass., said he trusts himself to step up in big moments right now. But he still isn’t sure whether he’s done enough to solidify his spot on Vancouver’s roster.

“I think I threw my best at them, I gave them all I had,” he said. “I hope it was enough and we’ll see what happens.”

Green has repeatedly said that he likes the way Gaudette has played not only through the first few weeks of this year, but last season as well.

Still, he said there are a number of factors that will weigh into whether or not he’s with the Canucks come opening night, including line combinations and contract considerations.

“We’ve got an important decision to make and whatever we do, we have to make sure we’re thinking about him and our team. And he’s made it hard on us. And that’s a good thing,” the coach said.

“Quite honestly, I wish other players made it harder on us as well. We’ve got some tough decisions to make and we’ve got a few days to make them still.”

The Canucks will kick off regular season play on the road against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday. Arizona will head to Anaheim to battle the Ducks in one last exhibition game on Saturday.  

NOTES: Alex Edler led the Canucks in pre-season points with one goal and six assists. Elias Pettersson (three goals, three assists) and Gaudette (four goals, two assists) were close behind. … The Coyotes were without a number of their big-name players on Thursday, including Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Phil Kessel and Niklas Hjalmarsson.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2019.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press