VANCOUVER — There are always things to work on, but here are a couple of fundamental objectives when your team has been eliminated from the playoff race: don’t quit, and don’t get anyone else injured.
It wasn’t just that the Vancouver Canucks went only one-for-two that infuriated them on Saturday night, but how veteran defenceman Derek Forbort was needlessly injured in the third period of the Minnesota Wild’s 3-2 overtime win at Rogers Arena.
And it wasn’t even that Forbort was hurt in a fight. It was that he was injured because the Wild’s Yakov Trenin, who had played a total of 6:03 for Minnesota coach John Hynes, pile-drived Forbort in the face with a punch when the Canuck was lying defenceless on his back after the players had fallen to the ice.
Bloodied, Forbort immediately clutched his head, had to be helped to the medical room and did not return after the fight at 4:12 of the third period.
Trenin compounded his act by whirling back towards Canuck players as he was being escorted off the ice from the penalty box after receiving a game misconduct in addition to his fighting major and instigator minor penalties.
“I don’t know what he was doing with the circus act after getting kicked out,” Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes said. “I think, obviously, there’s got to be a level of respect.”
Trenin’s extra two minutes for instigating the fight were offset by an interference penalty to Canuck Teddy Blueger, who poked at Trenin with his stick from the bench when the ugly incident occurred right in front of the Vancouver team.
The Canucks’ mood only got worse when Marcus Foligno scored for the Wild to tie the game with 6:46 remaining and fully erase Vancouver’s 2-0 lead, and Mats Zuccarello won it for Minnesota on a breakaway at 2:47 of overtime after Nils Hoglander lost his check.
“I mean, that’s one of the dirtiest plays I remember in a long time,” Blueger said. “Obviously, my reaction wasn’t great there. But it was just a quick reaction when I saw that right in front of my face. You know, Forby was down and he was defenceless, and (Trenin) just pounded him like that. I mean, you hate to see that.”
Trenin’s punch is something you see in MMA, not typically the National Hockey League, where everyone understands you don’t drill someone in the face when they’re lying flat on their back.
“I can’t even remember seeing that,” Blueger said. “Usually guys let up, you know, when another guy’s defenceless. So, yeah, very dirty.”
Canuck winger Jake DeBrusk, whose television analyst dad, Louie, was an NHL enforcer as a player, told reporters: “Scary. Honestly, you know, I hate that. I’ve always hated that. My dad’s a tough guy and he hated when guys did that. (Forbort) is probably one of my best buddies on this team, and he’s gone through so much this year. It was scary.
“You kind of hope the linesmen get in there a little earlier. But at the same point, it’s so fast. You see blood. . . and you see the replay, and it just looks ugly.”
The linesmen were Bevan Mills and Kiel Murchison, both from Metro Vancouver. Murchison, regarded as one of the best in the NHL, was in the process of putting his body between Forbort and Trenin to shield the Canuck when Trenin threw his gravity-aided straight right punch.
Forbort, who lost his dad to illness in October and then missed six weeks with a knee injury, is from Minnesota.
Canuck coach Rick Tocchet, himself notoriously tough as a player, offered no medical update post-game on the 33-year-old and said little about the incident except to concur with Vancouver defenceman Marcus Pettersson’s assessment that it was “one of the dirtiest plays” he has seen.
Pettersson had raised the temperature of the game in the second period when he crushed Minnesota defenceman Declan Chisholm with a hit in the corner.
The Wild, trying to cling to the final playoff spot in the Western Conference, played like a team desperately trying to maintain self-determination as the Calgary Flames chase them into the final week of the regular season.
The Canucks’ recognized that desperation; they displayed it Tuesday in Dallas when they extended their playoff race by one day by rallying from a three-goal deficit to beat the Stars 6-5 in overtime.
Coincidentally, it was the Wild who officially eliminated the Canucks the next day by beating the San Jose Sharks 8-7 in overtime after blowing a three-goal lead of their own.
Vancouver took a 2-0 lead halfway through Saturday’s game on goals by Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk. But Brock Faber finally put a puck past Canucks goalie Kevin Lankinen 22 seconds into the third period, before Foligno tied it by skating hard to the net to convert Ryan Hartman’s pass after Pettersson’s defensive-zone clearance was knocked down by the Wild.
There were a couple of stick smashes at the Canucks’ bench as players left the ice, and a couple of expletives in the dressing room afterwards.
“You’re competing,” Blueger said. “It’s a way different feeling to win than to lose. It kind of ruins your mood. You know, we’ve had quite a few losses, and overtime hasn’t been great for us. So yeah, just an overwhelming feeling of disappointment.”
The Wild outshot the Canucks 33-14, including 14-4 over the third period and OT.
“It’s obviously a team fighting for their lives,” DeBrusk said. “And, you know, they showed character, they showed heart. They did what they had to do to get back in the game. I thought that we didn’t really generate much towards the second half. And, you know, kind of the story of our year: we get it to overtime and just don’t find that extra one.”
The Canucks are 6-12 this season in games decided in overtime. The Wild are 8-4. If those success rates were reversed, Vancouver would be three points ahead of Minnesota in the standings instead of seven points behind.
Zuccarello scored the winner after skating away from Hoglander, who had played only three minutes of overtime all season.
“Hoggy missed his man, poor guy,” Tocchet said. “He’s not out (in OT often) and he missed his man. That’s it. Overtimes are about individual mistakes. So that’s what happens. He’s playing good hockey, and he missed his man. You move on.”
The Canucks play Game 81 on Monday against the visiting Sharks before closing their season Wednesday against the Vegas Golden Knights.
