Updated on 08.53 | Published on 08.49
New York. No, the Vancouver Canucks’ impressive opening win over Edmonton was clearly no fluke.
Last night, they beat their Alberta neighbors again, away from home – not least thanks to the excellent Niels Hoglander.
– Yeah, I really liked Nils’ match tonight. “He saw video of the Sedin brothers the other day and I think that helped us,” coach Rick Touchette said after the 4-3 win.
When the Edmonton Stars were slightly stunned after defeating the Canucks 8-1 in Vancouver on Wednesday, most assumed they would be huddled for a harrowing home rematch at Rogers Arena tonight.
but not.
Sure, Connor McDavid & Co. played a much better game than last time, but it wasn’t enough.
They got the baton again – 4-3.
Despite the many opportunities in the world’s deadliest power game.
And so, for the first time in several years, the Canucks had a really good start to the regular season.
– We haven’t come all the way in our career yet, but this is of course a successful start to the season and we are happy about that, says coach Rick Tocchet.
Two assists for Elias
Elias Pettersson had another great evening with two assists, but he wasn’t the most prominent Swedish player on the Canucks.
It was Nils Hoglander.
The 22-year-old from Poktrask scored his first goal of the season on the stroke of half-time – and then drilled a genius diagonal pass to Sam Lafferty’s basket to make it 4-3 early in the third period.
-I really enjoyed Nils’ match tonight. He watched video game footage of the Sedin brothers the other day and I think that helped him.
-We sometimes talk about hockey IQ and he’s actually using his hockey IQ now.