Sedins have ‘perfect ending’ in emotional farewell game at Rogers Arena
VANCOUVER – All the fans at Rogers Arena wanted on Thursday night was one final moment of Sedin magic and they got everything they wanted and more.
Daniel Sedin scored two goals, including the game-winner in overtime, with his brother Henrik assisting on both goals to give the Vancouver Canucks a 4-3 win over the Arizona Coyotes.
“What can you say? You couldn’t have written it any better,” head coach Travis Green said after the game.
Daniel snapped a shot past Coyotes goaltender Antti Raanta at the 2:33 mark of overtime on a set-up from Henrik.
Early in the second period, Daniel scored on some picture-perfect passing from Alex Edler and Henrik.
It was Daniel’s 22nd goal of the season scored 33 seconds into the second period.
Rarely has a game between two teams heading to the NHL draft lottery been packed with so much emotion.
The Rogers Arena crowd cheered the twins every chance they got, giving them multiple standing ovations and chanting “Hall of Fame!” at the two Art Ross trophy winners who will no doubt be elected to the hall when they’re eligible.
“When the fans show up like that, you want to play well for them,” Daniel said. “We did tonight. I was real tired today, but the crowd was energizing. We fed off that.”
“It was the perfect ending,” Canucks goaltender Jacob Markstrom said. “In some way I’m not surprised…that’s usually what they do.”
The incredible buzz in the building hearkened back to the Sedins’ glory days when the twins were the driving force behind a team that was a perennial playoff contender.
Brandon Sutter said as he sat on the bench watching the twins flying on the ice during a shift late in the game, a teammate asked him, “What year is it? We were laughing. It looked like 2011 out there.”
WATCH: Fans thank Henrik and Daniel Sedin after remarkable careers in Vancouver.
Green hopes the atmosphere in the arena will inspire the team’s younger players.
“It felt like a playoff game,” he said.
“You want the players to see what the atmosphere can be like.”
Throughout the day fans wrote messages of thanks on a mural of the Sedins in the plaza outside the building.
Colleen Peters said she paid top dollar for tickets so she and her son Cohen could watch the twins take the ice at Rogers Arena one last time.
Twelve-year-old Cohen told Global News he has been a fan of the Sedins for as long as he can remember.
“He’s never seen a Canucks team without the Sedins,” Peters said.
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Cohen’s fandom was solidified when he met Henrik at Stanley Park a couple of years ago. Peters said Henrik was shooting a promo for Reebok but took the time to stop and chat.
“The thing I remember most was his smile,” she said. “He couldn’t have been nicer when, really, we were bothering him.”
While attendance has been lacklustre throughout the season, Rogers Arena was packed early as fans watched a video tribute to the Sedins and cheered wildly during player introductions.
In the third period, the twins received multiple standing ovations from adoring fans who didn’t want the night to end.
After the game, Green joked that “we may have to ask them to come back.”
But Daniel said there’s no chance of that happening.
“I saw our kids up on the jumbotron during the game and smiled. I knew we made the right decision,” he said.