Drance: As Canucks finally win one, ‘a lot of relief’ — and a lot of trouble lurking

SEATTLE — The oldies blared from the visiting room at Climate Pledge Arena.

First, it was “No Rain”, a classic ’90s one-hit-wonder from the band Blind Melon. It was followed up by David Bowie.

Intermittently, you could hear some hooting, followed closely by some hollering. There was even a touch of carrying on.

Some words were said and cheering followed. Bruce Boudreau was congratulated for winning his 600th game. There was joy, at last, in Mudville.

The unfamiliar sounds of hockey celebration that emanated from the Vancouver Canucks’ locker room Thursday night were welcome. Unremitting misery, escalating pressure and the dour atmosphere that hangs in the air during a losing streak have defined this season so far.

“Finally, I can breathe,” Canucks defender Luke Schenn joked as we strolled by him in the locker room.

As Vancouver won its first game of the season, a sloppy, ugly, memorable 5-4 regulation win over the Seattle Kraken, the relief flooded in, as if a crushing weight was lifted off of the entire group.

“A lot, yeah,” said Canucks captain Bo Horvat, laughing, of the sense of relief he felt as the clock struck zero. “There was a lot of relief, and then they scored that goal on the power play even it felt like ‘Here we go again’ …”

Yes, this wasn’t an easy one. Thanks to a pair of fortunate Ilya Mikheyev goals and a couple of moments of absolute brilliance from Elias Pettersson, the Canucks led on three occasions, only for the Kraken to level the score twice. With the third lead, however, the Canucks fought through and held. Finally.

After seeming to put the game away with a late Conor Garland empty-netter, Vancouver took a penalty, because of course it did, and permitted the Kraken to again make it a one-score margin with just under 30 seconds to play.

The Kraken pressed furiously as the clock raced to zero. Nothing felt secure, or safe, until the final buzzer sounded.

And it did, just after Andre Burakovsky — one of the hardest shooters in the league — golfed a howitzer shot straight into J.T. Miller’s ankle.

“I didn’t even hear the buzzer,” Miller said of his reaction to the win. “I was in some discomfort there.”

Miller was helped off of the ice by his teammates but spoke with the media afterward while still wearing his skates, which isn’t common. He was grimacing occasionally still from the heavy shot he blocked late but was in good spirits and happy to chat. The pain he felt was a price he’d pay 10 times over for the two points his club secured and the relief that came with them.

“Good times,” Miller said of blocking the shot. “I’ve been fortunate enough this year that mostly I’ve been hit in the shin pads and stuff. This one just hit me in a weird spot, but it’ll go away at some point.”

Even as the Canucks put this game away, earning two points and the right to feel good about themselves, if only for one night before they face the motivated Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday evening at Rogers Arena, there was a contrast in the result and their form.

Vancouver didn’t play very well Thursday night, even if it won and fought hard to do so.

Right off of the hop, the club was looking to drop the gloves. Tanner Pearson stood up for Sheldon Dries after he was tagged hard by Adam Larsson. Miller was so fired up by Pearson’s fight that he fought Carson Soucy shortly thereafter, the cameras catching him laughing and enjoying himself on the way to the penalty box.

“I was just following Pearse’s lead,” Miller said with a laugh. “He got me fired up.”

Then Horvat tried to fight a third Kraken defender, who declined, only for Ilya Mikheyev to open the scoring on an ensuing rush.

“We were all ready to go, we wanted to come and do it tonight,” Horvat said of what got into the group Thursday night. “He already had two D-men in the box, so that’s why he said no and I respect that you still have to play hockey, too.”

There was some tactical nous in that approach. It was different, if nothing else.

Credit where it’s due: Vancouver’s players showed some heart and refused to slip again in Seattle on Thursday evening.

Zooming out though, if you’re thinking about where this team is and where it’s going, this game provided ample cause for continuing concern. The team struggled to put away an opponent it should beat, relinquishing leads repeatedly. Although Schenn had two points, the defense once again struggled to move the puck. That was particularly true of Vancouver’s top pair, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Tyler Myers.

In many ways, this game had the feel of the uninspiring losses that Vancouver has suffered through repeatedly over the first eight games. It just had more fisticuffs and a far more agreeable result.

Vancouver struggled to deal with Seattle’s speed and structure in a sloppy game in which neither team looked likely to have the juice to crash the Pacific Division playoff picture. You’re happy for the players and the coaching staff, who deserved some relief from the horror of constant losing in the NHL, but this result didn’t look like a signal that the Canucks are poised for bigger and better things, at least not without significant changes.

Some changes came just before puck drop Thursday night, of course, as the Canucks made a small swap, acquiring right-handed forward Jack Studnicka from the Boston Bruins in exchange for unsigned 2021 fifth-round pick Jonathan Myrenberg and malcontent goaltender Mike DiPietro — only three years removed from being one of the club’s top prospects — who had requested a trade this offseason.

It’s a deal that many fans see as a signal that this club is still looking far too intently toward the immediate future, prioritizing some near-term upside for the longer-term lottery ticket Myrenberg represents.

Studnicka is probably the most talented player in the deal, however, and by far the most likely of the three players in the exchange to play actual NHL games. The 23-year-old also plays with a direct relentlessness that is likely to quiet critics of the trade in short order.

When Studnicka was a rookie in the American League, there was a moment when talent evaluators around the league were drooling over his tenacity and work rate. He seemed a sure bet to crack a deep Bruins forward group quickly.

#Canucks GM Allvin describes Studnicka as a player he’s admired since his draft year. Short-term considerations – Studnicka is a RH centremen and the club will be without Curtis Lazar for a few weeks – were secondary to chasing upside on a 23-year-old in need of an opportunity.

— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) October 28, 2022

In the years since, however, Studnicka’s development has flat-lined. He has joined a long list of skilled Providence Bruins players — Jakob Forsbaka Karlsson, Peter Cehlarik, Anders Bjork, Danton Heinen, Alexander Khokhlachev — to dominate in the American League, then struggle to find their footing at the NHL level in the Boston organization.

By adding Studnicka, the Canucks are prioritizing his overall upside rather than his short-term utility as a replacement for Curtis Lazar and an upgrade over Sheldon Dries. Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin was clear about that when he spoke briefly with the media Thursday evening.

So although fans see the club dealing its top right-handed defensive prospect in Myrenberg and wonder how it can continue to jettison even the thin hope of adding a cost-controlled blueliner down the line, the fact is that the organization’s long-term needs at centre are just as dire.

It also says far more about the state of Vancouver’s prospect pipeline than it does about Myrenberg’s actual value that he qualified as the organization’s best right-handed defenseman prospect.

In light of the low acquisition cost, seeing if there’s anything in Studnicka worth tapping into is probably worthwhile. The value is right, in isolation, for the Canucks to roll the dice on this.

And yet when you consider that this month alone the Canucks have sent out Jason Dickinson, a 2024 second-round pick, Myrenberg and DiPietro, while returning Riley Stillman and Studnicka, it’s hard to avoid the sense that this club is simply rearranging the deck chairs as it inevitably crashes headlong into an iceberg.

On Thursday night, for a fleeting moment, the Canucks battled to give their fans a glimmer of hope.

Whatever the final score Thursday night in Seattle, the overall sinking remains in progress, however, and the moves required to stay afloat are far more dramatic than anything this organization has shown the willingness or inclination to even consider.

(Photo of Nils Höglander and goaltender Thatcher Demko: Steven Bisig / USA Today)