Playing for a new team in a familiar building worked out just fine for Vancouver’s Elias Lindholm on Tuesday night. Lindholm scored two power-play goals in similar fashion in his debut with the Canucks and J.T. Miller provided the winning goal in a 3-2 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night. “It’s crazy how it all worked out,” Lindholm said.
In the aftermath of the 2023 NHL All-Star skills competition that was confusing, disjointed and went off poorly in the arena and on television, Gary Bettman asked Connor McDavid for his thoughts. Several conversations with McDavid and other stars later, this All-Star Weekend features the return of some past traditions with the hope of putting some fun back into it. Back was the popular player draft, which took place Thursday night with captains McDavid, Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon and brothers Quinn and Jack Hughes picking their teams for the All-Star 3-on-3 tournament Saturday.
‘We both know where each other stands, we both know we want to get something done and we’re both comfortable with how it’s going. It’s not distracting me by any means. I think when you’re trying to build something like we’re trying to in Florida, some things take time.’
Jack Hughes will not participate in the skills competition or 3-on-3 tournament at the upcoming NHL All-Star Weekend because of injury. New Jersey Devils teammate Jesper Bratt was added to the All-Star roster on Wednesday as a last-minute replacement for Hughes. Mathew Barzal of the New York Islanders will replace Hughes as one of the 12 players doing the skills competition Friday.
Elias Pettersson got his second goal of the night 4 minutes into overtime, Brock Boeser had three goals and an assist, and the Vancouver Canucks rallied from three goals down in the third period to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-4 on Saturday night. J.T. Miller and Quinn Hughes each had three assists, Pius Suter had two, and Pettersson also had one to help Vancouver improve to 9-0-2 in its last 11 games.