It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Vancouver Canucks were nowhere near good enough to defeat the Boston Bruins on Saturday night, and the 5-1 final score reflects that assessment. Based on Sunday's Canucks practice lines, it would appear that head coach Rick Tocchet agrees.
Featuring at least one change on every line or pairing from Saturday's loss to Boston, Tocchet has made sweeping changes to the Canucks' lineup, at least for a day. Whether these remain true come puck drop against the visiting Colorado Avalanche on Monday remains to be seen.
Most notable among these changes is the addition of rookie forward Max Sasson, who scored his first NHL goal against the Bruins on Saturday night, to the top-six. He now features on a line with star Canucks center Elias Pettersson and sniper Jake DeBrusk.
#Canucks lines at Sunday practice:
— Randip Janda (@RandipJanda) December 15, 2024
Garland-Miller-Boeser
DeBrusk-Pettersson-Sasson
Heinen-Suter-Sherwood
Joshua-Blueger-Hoglander
Hughes-Juulsen
Soucy-Myers
Forbort-Friedman
Brannstrom-Desharnais@Sportsnet650
New Canucks lines following loss to Boston Bruins
According to Randip Janda of Sportsnet, Sasson has now jumped up to Line 2 next to Pettersson and DeBrusk, while Conor Garland has moved all the way up to the top unit alongside J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser.
Kiefer Sherwood moves down two lines to join Pius Suter and Danton Heinen; the latter moves up from the fourth line at the expense of Dakota Joshua. That leaves the current fourth line as Joshua, Teddy Blueger, and the embattled Nils Hoglander.
On defense, Derek Forbort returns from his battle with the flu to make the third defense pairing with Mark Friedman. Tyler Myers and Noah Juulsen flip-flop, which puts Juulsen with Quinn Hughes and Myers back with Carson Soucy.
Tocchet and Co. must feel particularly strongly about the performances on defense, since Myers and Soucy had struggled big time when paired together previously.
In 281 minutes together at 5-on-5, the Myers and Soucy pairing has an expected goals percentage of 41.9% for the Canucks, which ranks 194th amongst the 246 defense pairings that have played at least 50 minutes together this season, per MoneyPuck.
It is notable, and perhaps unfortunate, that the unheralded Erik Brannstrom remains a healthy scratch on defense. He is poised to join Canucks trade candidate Vincent Desharnais in the press box once again.