Canucks Fireplug
Before I was banned for completely unknown reasons from the press box at Rogers Arena and from interviewing Canucks players in that building three seasons ago, I did have a delightful one-0n-one chat with Vancouver forward Conor Garland.
I’ve also since spoken to his teammates and his agent Judd Moldaver.
The lasting impression: The 29-year-old Massachusetts native loves hockey. He eats, sleeps, and breathes it.
“I try to come back each and every year as a better player and in a year or two I want to be better than I am right now as well,” Garland said after signing his new six-year contract with the Canucks on July 1st. “It starts with us. Everybody plays better, everybody makes more plays, bury your chances, pucks are gonna go in.”
Garland arrived under the regime of Vancouver general manager Jim Benning in a trade along with Oliver Ekman-Larsson in July of 2021. He struggled a bit to find his footing, particularly in his second season here. Naturally the local media expressed their desire to get rid of him. A season later the same experts were in love with the shit disturber after he reached the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career and proved, pound-for-pound, to be the club’s toughest player.
That’s right, 5-foot-9, 165-pounds and afraid of no one. A catalyst on the forecheck, along the walls everywhere, and not afraid to fire pucks from anywhere with his awkwardly short stick. A length he chose on purpose so he could manoeuvre more easily in difficult places, as in the proverbial “stickhandle in a phone booth”.
“I’m definitely more of a versatile player than I was when I got there, I credit that a lot to our coaches, our management that we have there to help work with me, but as a player I just think I’ve grown in that sense.”
Garland is excited the Canucks recently added a player with genuine toughness, hometown winger Evander Kane. Known for being a bit ornery while bringing size and skill to the equation, Kane could end up on Garland’s line. That would be fun to watch.
“He’ll create a lot of space up front, he makes our group up front a lot tougher, just in a sense that he’s there, he adds a lot of toughness to the guys around us,” Garland said. “We have some tough guys, guys who stick up for teammates, but he definitely helps in that sense.”
Garland has averaged just under 19 goals and a little less than 49 points per season since arriving in Vancouver. Are those $6-million for six years numbers? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s proof that his value runs much deeper than the math. This is a heart and soul player who agitates.
He’s just as happy to be here as Vancouver is to have him.
“I was fortunate, it (the deal) got done pretty quickly, but I’ve been there for awhile now, I’ve got some great relationships with people, on the team, on the staff,” Garland stated, “I’m just fortunate to be able to work with them for many more years ahead.”
He was particularly pleased that his good friend Brock Boeser signed and returned to the Canucks at about the same time.
“How I kind of talked about it with Brock, he signed for seven years, we’re with that group for a long time, we’re going to have a lot of fun, we’re gonna try to win with that group and that’s something special,” he said. “To be on the same team with the same guys at the same team for an extended period of time, it’s just, we’re really excited about sticking with one another.”
Earlier Canucks:
— Boeser’s Canucks Signing Still A Shocker
