VANCOUVER — Quinn Hughes stood slumped against a wall in the dressing room.
The Vancouver Canucks captain said few words, but his body position spoke volumes.
“It’s frustrating for sure,” Hughes said about a Canucks season that started with high expectations then crashed in disappointment.
“It’s been a disappointing year. There’s not even anything to look ahead to.”
Pavel Dorofeyev scored his team-leading 35th goal of the season to snap a 1-1 tie early in the third period as the Vegas Golden Knights defeated Vancouver 4-1 in the regular-season finale for both teams Wednesday.
Jack Eichel also scored for Vegas in his first game back after missing four with an upper-body injury.
Victor Olofsson had a goal and an assist for the Knights (50-22-10), who’ve clinched the second seed in the Western Conference and will play the Minnesota Wild in the opening round of the playoffs.
Cole Schwindt scored his first NHL goal into an empty net late in the third period. Defenceman Ben Hutton had two assists against his former team.
Schwindt joked that when he tells the story of his first goal, he might delete the empty-net part.
“It’s something so surreal to me,” he said. “It’s something I’ve dream of ever since I was a kid.”
Pius Suter scored for the Canucks, who were eliminated from playoff contention last week.
Golden Knight goaltender Akira Schmid, making his fifth appearance of the season, stopped 16 shots.
Goaltender Kevin Lankinen played the first two periods for Vancouver stopping 19-of-20 shots before leaving the game with an injury. He was replaced in the third by Nikita Tolopilo, who stopped seven-of-nine shots.
Canuck head coach Rick Tocchet looked to have all the answers last season when he was named coach of the year after guiding Vancouver to first in the Pacific Division with 109 points and 50 wins. The Canucks then took the Edmonton Oilers to Game 7 in the second round of the playoffs.
This off-season Tocchet is facing a lot of questions after Vancouver struggled to a 38-30-14 record and finished fifth in the Pacific Division and 10th in the Western Conference. It’s the eighth time in 10 years the Canucks have missed the playoffs.
“It sucks, right,” Tocchet told reporters. “I don’t want to play the what-if game. You’ve got to reflect on the year, what can you do in different situations.
“I’m not going to use excuses. I know you guys know what’s happened this year, but you’ve got to deal with that stuff. Could we have dealt with it better? We talked about embracing the hard at the start of the year and maybe we weren’t ready for it.”
The Canucks struggled through injuries and dressing-room discord. Goaltender Thatcher Demko, Hughes, last year’s Norris Trophy winner, and defenceman Filip Hronek all dealt with injuries.
Centre Elias Pettersson missed six games in December and January with an injury, then the final 12 of the season. A 34-goal scorer last year he had just 15 in 64 games this year.
Hard-nosed forward J.T. Miller, who had 103 points and 37 goals last year, missed 10 games early in the year due to personal reasons. He also was involved in a reported dressing-room rift with Pettersson, then was traded to the New York Rangers.
If adversity was a university course the Canucks would have earned a degree.
“We dealt with a lot of stuff this year,” said forward Kiefer Sherwood, who set an NHL record with 462 hits this season. “We learned a lot of lessons.
“I think our chip on our shoulder for next year grows even bigger. We’ve got something to prove and something to work for.”
Hughes ended the season winning six of the Canucks individual awards, including MVP, best defenceman, most exciting player, leading scorer (76 points from 16 goals and 60 assists), most three stars and for his work in the community.
He also finished tied with Alex Edler for the most points by a defenceman in franchise history with 409. He will have to wait until next year to break the record.
“Coming into the year I knew the number I needed to get to,” he said. “I tried my best.
“It’s been a long year. It would have been a nice milestone. As far as some of the other things that happened here, I think there’s more in mind that’s upsetting other than that record.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Month Date, 20XX.
Jim Morris, The Canadian Press
