The 2023-2024 season for the Vancouver Canucks is the exact opposite of what it was last season. British Columbia’s team is one of the best in the Bettman circuit thanks to a devastating offense.
Elias Pettersson, JT Miller and Quinn Hughes are all among the top scorers in the National Hockey League (NHL). Hughes was also the most productive with 31 points heading into Friday’s games.
But striker Brock Boeser also contributed with 22 points, including 13 goals, in 20 games. He’s also getting closer to his 18-goal haul in 2022-2023. Here’s a player who knew how to get back on track.
“The last few years have been really difficult,” Boeser, who lost his father in May 2022, told the NHL website. I wasn’t home much, except in the summer. I think I was angry at hockey. Playing hockey wasn’t fun.
“But I really had to fulfill the dream I had as a kid, which was to play in the NHL.”
Against big trios
Boeser plays on a line with Miller and Phillip Di Giuseppe, often facing the opposition’s best players. And Boeser doesn’t hate that feeling.
“I’m really motivated when our team plays against the best opposing lines and tries to neutralize them and be better than them,” continued the man who is the NHL’s third-leading scorer this season.
“I began to find this motivation at the behest of [Rick Tocchet] and being in that role at the end of last season. I felt good again as an ice hockey player. I felt like myself and that’s when it clicked.”
And that’s good for the Canucks, who dominate all other NHL teams with 80 goals in 2023-2024.
In addition, they are in fourth place in the overall Bettman Circuit standings with 27 points. That’s a nice turnaround for a team that put up 83 points in 82 games in 2022-2023.