Rick Tocchet makes his feelings extremely clear about Canucks' top players not earning ice time in 4-1 loss to Stars

The Vancouver Canucks lost 4-1 to the Dallas Stars at Rogers Arena on Sunday. The Canucks offense looked weak and their top forwards received less ice time than usual. Jake DeBrusk, who averages 16:18 minutes this season, played only 12:45, whereas Elias Pettersson (18:29 avg. time) played 16:05 and Brock Boeser (17:32 avg. time) played 15:49.

When asked by the media, coach Rick Tocchet responded straightforwardly: players must earn their ice time.

"Ice time has to be earned. That’s how you win," Tocchet said. "You guys can stir it up all you want, but that’s the reality. I don’t care how long someone’s been here—you have to earn your minutes. That’s how you build a winning team, that’s how you win Stanley Cups."

Tocchet said Vancouver played well and held Dallas to 19 shots but needed more hunger in front of the net.

"I thought we played a good hockey game. A lot of guys played hard," Tocchet said. "We needed a little more from a couple of guys, but overall, I thought the team played well. That’s a good hockey team over there. We held them to (19) shots, so I wouldn’t say it got away from us.

"It was a 2-1 hockey game, and we had a power play, had some opportunities, hit the crossbar—just didn’t have enough."

Vancouver (29-23-11) are fifth in the Pacific Division with 69 points and their offense has struggled this season: 2.74 goals scored and 3.00 goals allowed per game. DeBrusk leads the team with 22 goals, and their captain, Quinn Hughes, has 46 assists and 60 points. The Canucks need better scoring depth and defense to improve.

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Canucks coach Rick Tocchet talks about need for players to step up

Mikael Granlund scored his first goal in 13 games, breaking a 1-1 tie late in the second period. Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson and Thomas Harley also scored for Dallas. Casey DeSmith made 22 saves against his former team.

Derek Forbort scored the Canucks's only goal and Kevin Lankinen made 15 saves. Talking about the need for someone to step up from Vancouver's camp, Tocchet said:

"Yeah, absolutely. We’re in the thick of the race, and we need some desperation—someone to grab a puck and make something happen. I liked a lot of the effort tonight, but when they scored 30 seconds into the third, that hurt us. Those moments matter."

The Vancouver Canucks, now 3-5-0 since the 4-Nations Face-Off break, are one point behind Calgary for the second wild-card spot.