It almost seemed like a guarantee that Brock Boeser’s Vancouver Canucks tenure had come to a close.
Even he thought it had. But as we say in the business, one phone call can change everything. And that’s exactly what happened here.
“It was a roller coaster,” Boeser said of the long road to get to this point. “My head was definitely spinning a lot during this time, but, at the end of the day, it’s a business, and you got to understand that. I definitely didn’t think that this was going to happen. I think the phone call in the last hour changed everything. And, you know, I’m just happy that we could find common ground and work something out.”
“In my head, I think I was fully set on going somewhere else. And so I had kind of a list of teams in my head that I thought maybe would be good fits and and then I just still was kind of uneasy about everything. And then they called, and, you know, at the end of the day, I think my heart was still at Vancouver. I have so much faith in our team and the pieces that we have. And, you know, I think Adam Foote too. I think he’s going to be a great head coach. So I think everything just lined up well. And I’m just super stoked to be back.”
Boeser, who signed a seven-year deal with the Canucks not long into free agency opening on Tuesday, says he was at the gym when Allvin called his agent Ben Hankinson.
“I was actually at the gym. I don’t know why, I thought I’d be able to maybe train and work out. I ended up not even working out, and had to leave because I was on the phone the whole time. But, yeah, we were sitting there. We were talking, and I was talking to Ben, just kind of going over everything…And then he said, Patrik was calling him, and that kind of raised my eyebrows. I was like, ‘Okay, maybe we can figure something out here.’ And then they kind of went back and forth a little bit, and we found some common ground.
“It was hard. I really mentally tried to throw scenarios in my head on different teams I could possibly see myself being on, and tried to envision it. But that can only get you so far. Just thinking about it, I just felt like in my stomach, I still had a weird feeling about everything. When they called back, I kind of lit up. Even after everything that’s happened, I still kind of had that feeling in my stomach. I just listened to it and it felt right when I started talking and trying to figure out a deal, I just started getting excited. And, you know, I just knew it’s meant to be.
“It felt like the door shut a couple of times there [with the Canucks]. So I really had to wrap my head around moving on, and then obviously, trying to get a sense in my head what might be a good fit and all that. So there’s so many things going through my head, and that’s why I said my head was spinning a lot, and it was hard to kind of grasp, and you know, that phone call kind of came out of nowhere. So it was definitely a shock to me. But you know, the way I felt when that phone call came is, like, I told my agent. I was like, ‘get a deal done’, and then we made something work. I didn’t even know if Patrik was calling to get a deal done. He was just calling Hank, I was just assuming that was it. So, you know, I’m really happy that he did.”
Allvin wasn’t the only Canuck who made a call in an effort to bring Boeser back to Vancouver.
“I had other guys in my ears, like Gar [Conor Garland] and Demmer [Thatcher Demko] and all those guys kind of pushing my buttons to come back too,” Boeser said. “So it obviously plays a big part to have such good friends and have belief in the guys in the room.”
