Rick Tocchet pleased with Canucks' performance following first win of the 2024-25 season

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Cooper Godin
October 18, 2024 (9:15)

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Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet was pleased with his team following their first win of the 2024-25 season.

The Vancouver Canucks continued their three-game road trip on Thursday evening as they took on the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers - who were without Matthew Tkachuk (illness) and Aleksander Barkov (lower-body injury).

It was a back-and-forth affair between the two teams as the game was tied 1-1 after the first period, 2-2 after the middle frame and with the game still knotted up at two goals a piece when the buzzer sounded at the end of the third, the game headed to overtime.

In overtime, Canucks forward J.T. Miller took charge, receiving a pass from Quinn Hughes in the neutral zone, he charged into the Panthers' end, made his way around Anton Lundell and fired home a shot blocker-side on Sergei Bobrovsky to give Vancouver their first win of the 2024-25 campaign. In his second start of the season, Kevin Lankinen was strong, once again, making 26 saves on 28 shots.

Afterwards, Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet met with reporters and said that while there's still some aspects of their game they need to work on, overall he was pleased with the team's effort in pulling out the win in overtime.

"Like I said, we've got some work to do, but I thought there was some good stuff in there. There was some times where we had good possession time, had some chances, but that's a championship team there and they're missing some key guys, so it was a good fought, hard fought win for us and to win it in overtime is nice because that's out third overtime." Tocchet said.

When asked about the aggression he wanted to see from his team, Tocchet added, "Yeah, I mean like I said there was a lot of good stuff, playing north. We've still got to clean some things up. When the other team makes a push, I think we need to play a little more simpler, but for the most part, hell of a goal by Millsy in overtime, so it's a big win for us."

The Canucks will now head up to Tocchet's old stomping groups, Philadelphia - a team he spent part of 11 seasons with and even captained in 1991-92 before being traded to their state rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. Puck drop for tomorrow's game against Matvei Michkov and the Philadelphia Flyers is set for 4 pm PT/7 pm ET on Hockey Night in Canada.