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With the game over, Troy Stecher was leaving the ice, having just been named first star.

His brother was draped over a rail, hovering over the Canucks tunnel to the locker-room, a spot he had raced down to when the game had wrapped up. With his phone, he was filming Stecher’s exit.

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“He was screaming how proud he was,” Stecher said.

It was an emotional moment, and a wonderful one for a kid who grew up here.

But if Stecher’s goal is to make this team, and it is, it really meant nothing. Unless he can do it again. And again. And again.

Yes, Ben Hutton did the implausible last year, hiking from camp nowhere to the Canucks top six on opening night.

But the odds remain incredibly long. A year ago, it took four pre-season games before head coach Willie Desjardins started believing Hutton was going to make it.

Photo by Darryl Dyck / PNG

“I’d say that’s rare,” Desjardins said. “I think it was after his third pre-season game, because I thought he was our best defenceman in every one of those games.