DeSmith

Casey DeSmith stopped all 26 shots he faced,  backstopping the Canucks to a 2-0 victory over the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Arena.

He’s 5-2-1 on the season and the win against the Wild was his first home victory and first shutout of the season.

The Canucks had some trouble exiting their own zone in the first period, giving DeSmith the opportunity to get to work early between the pipes. 

“I haven’t played in a while, it was nice to get some action early on, get in the flow of the game and then the team took over from there. I thought our second two periods were really good, better than the first and that’s a great way to finish it out the way we did,” DeSmith said.

He takes pride in being able to be called upon when he’s needed and emphasizes treating practice like a game is important for his role as a backup. The shots he faced in the first period against the Wild were things he had been focusing on in practice over the last couple of weeks.

“Clarky and I have been working on some stuff, some down low stuff, post stuff, cleaning up some movement, especially down in tight which in the first period I saw a lot of,” he said.

Head coach Rick Tocchet is comfortable with DeSmith’s track record of being reliable when he hasn’t had a lot of ice time and he wasn’t surprised with his performance.

“That’s what Casey does. He’s done that in his career where he’d had inactivity. He was solid tonight for us,” Tocchet said.

Tocchet thought the first period was just ok, but that the second and third periods the team played their game.

“It was our neutral zone [play]. We were backing up or something in the first and we’re guessing instead of marking your guy and going through guys, sometimes we get in that habit. And when we start doing that – being a little sticky on people and then obviously gap it up...and that’s the difference how you control the game,” he said.

Game Recap

In the first period Tyler Myers had a takeaway in the defensive zone, flipping it to Brock Boeser who found Nils Höglander. The speedy Swedish winger fired a shot with confidence from the top of the faceoff circles, notching his ninth goal of the season as Nikita Zadorov provided a screen during a three-on-two rush. 

“I think they came out pretty hard in the first, I don’t think that was our best first period, but I think it was a big goal. Our line scored so we got some energy from that and we kept going,” Höglander said.

In the third, Teddy Blueger deked Filip Gustavsson and found the back of the net on a nice forehand finish. It was Blueger’s second goal of the season with assists going to Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua.

The Canucks take on the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday, December 9th at 7 p.m. PT.