Canucks 4, Flames 3 (OT): Not all veterans were in cruise control in pre-season thriller

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ABBOTSFORD — Elias Pettersson was asked to put the NHL pre-season in perspective and his response was the perfect summation of an imperfect passage to the regular season.

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“Pre-season is good to get your reps in and get ready for the season. Not the most fun to play but they’re important,” the Vancouver Canucks centre said Wednesday morning following the morning game-day skate.

So how many games does Pettersson need to hit the ground running when the Canucks start playing for keeps?

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “We’ll see. I don’t have a number.”

That’s because the Canucks’ veteran core players know their place in the roster pecking order. They will methodically prepare for the regular season as opposed to those pushing to make the team.

It’s why Aatu Raty, Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Sammy Blais faced the Calgary Flames after playing Tuesday in a 3-1 win over the Seattle Kraken.

The Canucks were unsure how they would respond Wednesday in a 4-3 overtime triumph. Lekkerimaki and Raty weren’t as prominent and that’s part of the learning curve. On Tuesday, Lekkerimaki had two assists, unleashed heavy shots and Raty was a beast in the faceoff circle.

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“It’s hard and to play back-to-back you have to give them credit for hanging in there and they didn’t look out of place,” Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet said of the Wednesday efforts. “It’s a lot of hockey they’ve played in the last two nights and a lot of hard practices. That’s the mental toughness you’re looking for.”

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However, the seasoned veteran mantra doesn’t apply to everyone in the pre-season. Newcomers want to fit in as soon as possible and Jake DeBrusk and Kiefer Sherwood were noticeable. DeBrusk established position down low and his deft deflection of a Vincent Deharhais point shot at 19:26 of the second period gave the Canucks a 2-1 lead.

The issue was settled when DeBrusk struck again at 58 seconds into the extra session off a nice play by Pettersson. DeBrusk was also positioned at the top of the crease late in the first period in case a spin-and-shoot sequence by Max Sasson came his way instead of finding the net to open scoring.

“It wasn’t pretty and some rust and a couple of breakdowns and the game kind of slowed down in the third,” sassed DeBrusk. “It was nice to keep coming back and when we need to bear down, we were in their zone. My first goal was kind of lucky and the second one was all Petey,.

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“You want to get on a roll as fast as possible.”

It was a similar situation for newcomer Kiefer Sherwood to show some creativity and hustle before DeBrusk scored.

Pencilled in as a bump-and-grind fourth liner, Sherwood played the puck off the boards in his own zone and quickly corralled it to speed away for a shorthanded scoring chance while being hounded from behind. He almost beat Dustin Wolf with a one-handed drag that caught the goalie’s pad. Sherwood then ripped a wrister off the mask of Wolf in attempting to snap a 2-2 draw.

“I saw the puck was coming up and just tried to get a stick on it and tried to use my speed,” said Sherwood. “I knew the D was on me and I tried to shield the puck and going one-handed is not in my arsenal. Probably better off shooting next time.”

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Newcomer Daniel Sprong then want one better in dramatic fashion with Patera pulled. He went end to end for a deke with 14.3 remaining to force overtime.

Sprong’s dash was a highlight-reel effort which got the proper response from its author.

“I felt like Quinn (Hughes) out there a little bit dancing,” said Sprong. “Time was running down and I had speed and made the move. That’s my game. Really aggressive off the rush. It feels good. It’s nice to start off this way but it’s only the preseason. You want them in the regular season and playoffs.”

As for the Hughes reference, it was hard for Sprong to not have his head on a swivel because the captain had lots of giddy-up.,

“I was out there a couple of times with him and I just kind of watched and he’s a Norris Trophy winner for a reason,” said Sprong. “He looked great.”

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“It’s good to have big-event guys,” said Tocchet. “At any time they can do something for us. But on the other side, we need to clean some stuff up. We played slow in some aspects of our game. To play fast you’ve got to come back fast. We were coasting. To play at this pace, you’ve got to be in shape.”

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Patera tries to proves point

Jiri Patera has become the forgotten goalie.

The free-agent acquisition was destined to work in a tandem with the towering Nikita Tolopilo in Abbotsford this AHL season because Thatcher Demko and Arturs Silovs would share the net with the parent club.

Then came Demko’s slow off-season rehab from a knee muscle injury and uncertainty as to when the Vezina Trophy finalist will return to his customary position. That forced the one-year signing of unrestricted free agent Kevin Lankinen to likely be the guy to share NHL games with Silovs.

However, when Demko does return, Patera might be the fifth goalie.

Patera, 25, has only played NHL games with the Vegas Golden Knights, but he looked solid Wednesday until the Flames got to him. He held his ground when Dryden Hunt was sent in along after getting behind the Canucks’ defence.

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He then foiled Cole Schwindt down low but wasn’t beat until the second period when a Jake Bean power play wrister beat him to the far glove side to make it 1-1.

Patera then responded by going post to post to deny Matvei Griffin before Samuel Honzek neatly redirected a feed midway through the second period to make it 2-2. However, he was beaten on a deke by Hunt at 15:04.

Bumps in night get it right

Do three heavy hits on one shift sequence add up to anything of significance?

That’s worth pondering after winger Sammy Blais, playing his second pre-season game in as many nights on a professional tryout, threw two heavy cornerboards hits and one along the endboards in the opening period.

Fatigue was expected to be a factor, and to his credit, the winger did what has been asked of him to be a forechecker who gets noticed for the right reasons. Playing at pace has been a fitness problem but he got to where he needed to be to get noticed.

OVERTIME — The Canucks got a second-period scare when defenceman Jett Woo was struck in the face by a deflected puck. He returned for a late shift and played the this period.

bkuzma@postmedia.com

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