The Vancouver Canucks were handed their first loss in five games on Monday night when the Carolina Hurricanes put together a complete effort and left Vancouver with two points after a 4-3 overtime victory.

The home side was no doubt lucky to come away with one point for the OT loss, and they have Kevin Lankinen to thank for that. Lankinen made 28 saves on 32 Hurricanes shots and made more than a few five-alarm saves to keep his team within striking distance all night long.

The players in front of Lankinen were sloppy, and aside from a ten minute stretch where they mounted their comeback and forced overtime, the Canucks were outclassed by a sharper and faster Carolina squad.

Unsurprisingly, Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet had a LOT to say post game. Here are some highlights.

On the overall game:

“Yeah, the last 10 minutes were great, but before that, we had to learn. I don’t think we were ready to play, Carolina was. They believed in what they were doing. Beat us to pucks. And we had a lot of guys early on not moving their feet, not winning battles. And then we decided to do the things, and we made a game of it. So take the positives out, getting the point, but I still think there’s lessons to be learned.

“You’re playing a team that’s man-on-man. So when the puck goes somewhere, you can’t watch the puck. You got to find your man to get body position. I’m a big body position guy, and we’re not understanding (that) you can’t let people jump by you. And that’s what happens. That’s why Carolina in the first period was all over us.

“It’s early in the season, but we need some guys to take the information we give them, and apply it. And we knew they flip a lot of pucks. As soon as they get it they punt the ball, right? So you can’t dive in. You have to be above their guy. But (the) frustrating (thing) for the staff is we explained (that) to them for the last two days when they play this team, so I felt that a couple guys were diving in. That’s why they got those odd man rushes. “Can’t happen anytime, but especially against Carolina, because they’re very good at it.”

On changing up Pettersson’s line and the power play:

Question: The line with Pettersson, Garland, and Höglander got separated, it seemed, as the game went on, and even before that, was sort of the low line usage wise at five on five through 40 minutes. Just your commentary on sort of why you decided to approach your deployment that way, and what you saw from that line tonight.

Tocchet: “Obviously when you change it, you don’t like it, right? So I didn’t like a couple things there. Didn’t like Hoggy at all. Petey… you know, listen, I’m not gonna pick on that line. “I just felt that I wanted to make a couple changes.”

Question: What did you see out of your power play tonight?

Tocchet: “We’re going to have to make some changes. Not working hard enough. Very lackadaisical. That’s a high pressure team. We had the odd time when we had a couple of looks. Actually, the game plan worked when Hughes threw it at the net, we had Millsy, he almost scored in front. That’s the key against this pressure PKs, being able to make one or two plays then get it to the net. Thought a couple of guys were playing slowly. You can’t play slow against a high pressure PK, you just can’t. So we’re gonna have to make a few… I think I’m gonna make a couple of changes. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

The Canucks are set to practice at noon today, and we will have a full practice report with more quotes from Tocchet up this afternoon right here at CanucksArmy.

Read last night’s edition of The Stanchies — our post game recap by award-winning journalist Wyatt Arndt — by clicking here!