VANCOUVER – Not much about this season has gone by yet Elias Lindholmway of.
Not yet.
But as Rick Tocchet was the first to point out, the only thing that really matters is how he moves forward.
“This is why we got him, this part of the season,” the Canucks coach said before his club's 4-1 win over the visiting Flames on Tuesday.
Lindholm's outing against his former club was a step in the right direction for the beleaguered centre.
On the ice to score two of his club's four goals, Lindholm enjoyed the kind of evening he was looking forward to as the Canucks entered the playoffs.
He had an assist on the short-handed goal that opened the match and was a perfect decoy in the second half, two-for-one buried by teammate Dakota Joshua.
While the Flames were packing up in the locker room, Lindholm and his Canucks teammates remained on the ice as part of a night of appreciation to fans for winning the Pacific Division championship.
It was a refreshing punctuation to a challenging season.
“Yeah, it was tough,” Lindholm said of the first half of his season in Calgary.
“It's not working out in Calgary in terms of business, and that's life. We knew early on (a trade) was going to happen. It felt like that and we didn't talk much.
“You try to prepare for what's coming next and where you're going.”
Speaking to Calgary media for the first time since being traded to the Canucks on Feb. 1, Lindholm was asked if uncertainty contributed to his uncharacteristically slow start in Calgary, he shrugged.
“Yeah, a little bit of course,” said Lindholm, who has nine goals and 32 points in 49 games as a Flame this season.
“It just lingers in your mind the whole time.
“In retrospect, I probably thought I would be traded closer to the deadline, but Vancouver was interested. It's hard to know you're going somewhere for a long time but not know where.”
Even though he knew a trade just before the All-Star Game to the league-leading Canucks would give him a better playoff chance, things didn't go as he expected.
Unable to find early chemistry, the former Flames first-line center was moved down to the third line, where he now resides between Joshua and Conor Garland.
“At the beginning, to be fair to him, I knocked him off the wing and a few passes,” said Tocchet, blessed with such depth that he played Lindholm almost four minutes less than the Flames did back then. earlier this season.
“I played table tennis with him a little bit and then he got an injury, a nagging injury.
“He's in a difficult situation.”
It didn't help that one of the guys he was traded for, Andrei Kuzmenko, brought it up.
But that shouldn't be a concern for Lindholm or the Canucks, as Saturday marks the beginning of the most important metric possible: the playoffs.
“I have a chance to do something good here,” said the 29-year-old Swede, who has five goals and 11 points in 25 games on the coast.
“I'm glad it worked. Now we're healthy and everyone's back so we know where everyone's probably going to play in the playoffs.
“We were attacked. Hopefully we can continue to play this way in the playoffs and build chemistry.”
He hopes so, as his summer fate as an unrestricted free agent depends on him re-establishing himself as one of the league's top two-way centers fight, as he did in Calgary a few years ago.
“I loved my time in Calgary – my son was born there and I played with a lot of good players,” said Lindholm, who scored 42 goals, 82 points and was plus-61 playing between Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau two years, said before.
“Great people and great organization.
“It will always be a special place for me and my family.”
They couldn't come up with the money, although the Flames reportedly offered an eight-year deal worth around $64 million.
It's pretty safe to say he won't sign anywhere near that unless he has a banner spring.
“For me, his two-way game, the penalty kill, him being there helped me spread the minutes and he helped me spread the rims,” Tocchet said.
“That line played really well against (Leon) Draisaitl the other night, so I think they'll work together.”
There's a lot to rely on.
