By james art Canucks forward Connor Garland has talked about growing as a player since joining Vancouver in 2021.
In 2021, the Vancouver Canucks and Arizona Coyotes came together to complete a fairly significant deal in which the British Columbia-based club added defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and forward Connor Garland.
Garland is the only piece left in Vancouver from that deal, and since joining the Canucks this summer, his game has continued to grow, and while he’s still under contract until the end of the 2026-27 campaign, he’s certainly setting himself up for a big day on salary.
Garland recently spoke with Vancouver Is Awesome’s Daniel Wagner and detailed his rise from entering the National Hockey League with Arizona, where he spent three seasons under Rick Tocchet, to now as a top-six forward with the Vancouver Canucks.
Garland says it took a lot of hard work to get to this point, and he wanted to earn Rick Tocchett’s trust and worked with him to improve his game. He believes that once he was reunited with Tocchett in Vancouver, trust was built up pretty quickly and that helped him grow as a player.
He added: “It doesn’t take one weekend or a three-game homestand; 40, 50, 60 games are needed. I think after maybe that 49-game season in Arizona, I had his trust and then I was gone, but I thought I earned it pretty quickly here, and now I think I’m just a different player.”
The 28-year-old added that he wants to be a player that the coaching staff can rely on in any situation and when Tocchet has to make an important decision for the team, he wants to be the one who is involved and called upon.
“The coach is trying to make the best decision for the team and you want to be that decision,” Garland said. “You want him to say, ‘I’ve got to get him out there for us to win.’ But it’s not where I want to be yet. I want to get better and better at it.”
So far this season, Garland is on pace for a point per game, registering seven points (three goals, four assists), two penalty minutes and is a plus-one in seven games. With more opportunities this season, being in the top-six and seeing more time on the power play, Garland has a good chance to break his previous career high in points of 52, which he set during his first season in Vancouver.
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Previously on CanucksDaily