Elias Pettersson and Pius Suter power the Vancouver Canucks past the Ottawa Senators 6-3

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- — Elias Pettersson and Pius Suter each scored twice, and the Vancouver Canucks used a fast start to beat the Ottawa Senators 6-3 on Tuesday night.

J.T. Miller and Ian Cole also scored for Vancouver (24-10-3), which led 5-0 after one. Thatcher Demko stopped 35 shots.

“It was a good first. Couple of lucky bounces went our way,” J.T. Miller said after his Canucks coasted to victory on the back of the first-period offensive outburst.

Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet reiterated that message.

“Great period. Probably one of our best periods in about a month. It was awesome,” he said. “Everybody was really connected.”

Vladimir Tarasenko scored two goals for Ottawa, and Claude Giroux had a goal and assist.

“We lost our staple, we didn’t go through people, we were backing up, we were pinching when we shouldn’t … those are the things I don’t like,” Tocchet said about his team’s final two periods.

The loss comes after the Senators (14-19-0) announced a new front office on Sunday. Ottawa appointed Steve Staios as the team’s general manager, removing an interim tag. Dave Poulin, who played for Philadelphia and Boston before joining Toronto's front office, was named the senior vice president of hockey operations.

Jacques Martin was named interim head coach, with Daniel Alfredsson joining as an assistant coach, in mid-December.

Martin was blunt about his team’s performance.

“It was to me a lesson learned about how hard you have to compete, how hard you have to play. We just need to do things quicker. We need to be harder on pucks and it’s not one or two players,” he said.

Senators goaltender Anton Forsberg saved nine of 13 shots. Joonas Korpisalo replaced Forsberg in the second period and stopped 11 of 13 shots.

UP NEXT

Senators: At the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night.

Canucks: At the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.

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