Canucks run tough practice; Hoglander benched?

Fresh off their disappointing home loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, Rick Tocchet and the Vancouver Canucks made their frustrations known in Friday's practice.

The Canucks had actually dominated large swathes of play on Thursday night, but were unable to supply the finishing touches on a multitude of scoring chances. At the other end, the Flyers scored three times in just 2:06 at the end of the second period. Teddy Blueger got one back very early in the third, but the Canucks then immediately gave away a cheap short-handed goal to set that momentum on fire.

In all, it was an extremely incomplete effort by the Canucks, and Tocchet likely didn't think twice about a heavy practice in response to that. Per Sportsnet's Brendan Batchelor, the Canucks did have a brief bag skate, in addition to some intense drills that prompted a lot of physicality from the players - particularly in 2-on-2 drills.

In terms of lines, things mostly remained the same except for the second line. Nils Hoglander skated as the extra forward on Friday, and Phil Di Giuseppe replaced him on the line with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser. As well as he had played lately, it seems like the 23-year-old is destined for some time in the press box in the near future.

In some other noteworthy news, Carson Soucy practiced with Mark Friedman on Friday, making the team's de facto fourth defense pairing. Soucy is approaching a return from LTIR, and it would seem as though we're not too far off from that. The 29-year-old defenseman was ruled out for two months back on Nov. 15, and has been out since Nov. 12 with a lower-body injury.

Soucy also had a knee injury early in October, so the Canucks would love to see one of their marquee free agent signings return with a clean bill of health on the turn of the New Year.