Vancouver Canucks
Top defenseman Quinn Hughes and No.1 center Elias Pettersson are unlikely to play for the Canucks against the Seattle Kraken on Saturday (4 p.m. ET; SNP, KONG, KING 5, KHN).
Neither player took part in practice Friday.
“[Hughes] was getting evaluated today, and [Pettersson] has got something later today, so they’re pretty well doubtful for tomorrow,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “I don’t know if its day to day or weekly. That’s why they are going to go see their people.”
Hughes, who won the Norris Trophy as the League’s top defenseman last season, leads the Canucks in scoring and is second among NHL defensemen with 42 points (eight goals, 34 assists) in 34 games this season. He was listed as questionable for Vancouver’s most recent game Dec. 23 against the San Jose Sharks with an undisclosed injury but played 24:45 and finished with two assists in a 4-2 win.
Pettersson scored twice late in the second period against the Sharks, ending a six-game point drought, but only played one shift in the third. Tocchet said after the game he was “banged up” but didn’t “think it’s too bad.”
Pettersson is second on the Canucks with 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists) in 34 games.
“It’s hold the fort, next man mentality, that’s the way we have to think,” Tocchet said Friday. “Right now more than ever, and I know we’ve talked about it, it’s our staples. We have to play as a team, and we need five percent more from everybody. That’s really what it comes down to.”
The game against San Jose was Hughes’ 399th in the NHL; he has 51 goals and 324 career assists, the third-most assists in NHL history before 400 games for a defenseman behind Bobby Orr (358) and Paul Coffey (326).
Defenseman Erik Brannstrom, a healthy scratch the previous three games, enters the lineup for Hughes, but Tocchet doesn’t want him to do too much.
“You’re not going to replace Quinn Hughes, and I don’t need him trying to do things that press the envelope,” Tocchet said. “He’s just got to play a simple game, to be honest. Go back for a puck, if you see the guy, give it to him, if there’s a chance to join the rest, join it, walking the blue line, a guy like him, I want him to shoot the puck, he doesn’t have to try to create too much on the blue line.”
