The NHL season is only three months old, but it’s taken a rather unpleasant turn for the Vancouver Canucks.
• Also read: “I questioned myself a lot”: Vincent Desharnais took time to acclimatize to the Canucks
From first in the Pacific Division last April, they moved to fourth position and are clinging, with difficulty, to the last place available for the playoffs in the Western Association.
Before facing the Canadian on Monday, the Vancouverites had a record of 3-4-3 in their last ten games. In the background, a schism that seems deep between the team’s two star centers, JT Miller and Elias Pettersson. But is it as bad as people say? Not according to Vincent Desharnais, who joined the Canucks last summer.
“It’s definitely exaggerated. It’s like in Montreal when there is something happening, the media will constantly amplify it. These are big hockey markets and it’s your job to amplify that so people read.
“Our job is to put on headphones and not listen too much [ce qui se dit]. They’re not the ones who go on the ice to play hockey.”
What to do?
So how can we turn things around so that this team becomes the hockey machine it was less than a year ago?
“We have to regroup,” maintains Desharnais. There are a few players who are used to it and we have had a few meetings to tell ourselves that the media can say what they want. We must focus on our group identity by playing a good, consistent 60 minutes in each match.
“We need consistency. I don’t think there is a miracle recipe. If I look at my example, I was focusing on the little details, I wanted to do everything so well that I wasn’t focusing on playing my game and having fun.
According to the Quebec defender, the Canucks must also find their identity. He knows what he’s talking about because he often faced them when he wore the Oilers colors.
“Last year, it wasn’t fun, playing against the Canucks. It’s not that they were the most talented, but they were tiring, they were in your face all the time on the forecheck and they were intense all the time, and that’s the identity of the Canucks. »
