That was one of the most lifeless performances that we’ve ever seen from the Vancouver Canucks.
If a team of mannequins in Canucks jerseys had shown up to the game instead, it barely would have made a difference. It just would have made it easier for the Carolina Hurricanes to score a couple of goals so they could nurse the lead for the rest of the game.
It was particularly galling that the Canucks seemed barely there because the Canucks, as a team, were actually mostly there. Elias Pettersson and Thatcher Demko returned, giving the Canucks close to a full complement of players. They were only missing Dakota Joshua and Filip Hronek — important players, certainly, but not ones whose absence should completely cripple the Canucks as a team.
A game like this might be described as painful but that feels like the wrong word. “Painful” suggests that some sort of action was taken to cause the pain but the Canucks didn’t do anything. There was no action here. It was boring, numbing, and sleeping-inducing, sure, but not painful.
The Canucks finished the game with 14 shots on goal, a new season-low, beating out their 15-shot game against the Boston Bruins back in November. That game, at least, was a 2-0 win, with the Canucks’ limited shot totals stemming from desperately clinging to a lead.
They didn’t have that excuse on Friday night in Raleigh, as they were trailing by two goals for most of the game. Typically, teams that are trailing take more shots not fewer — a concept called “score effects” in the hockey analytics world — but it didn’t work out that way for the Canucks.
Well, that’s not entirely true. The Canucks had plenty of shot attempts; it’s just that few of those attempts were on goal.
It’s honestly shocking that the Canucks had 65 shot attempts, which is the sixth most shot attempts in game for the Canucks this season. It certainly didn’t feel like the Canucks fired a lot of pucks toward the net, perhaps because 30 of those shot attempts were blocked. That felt like a reflection of both the Hurricanes’ commitment to getting in front of pucks and the Canucks’ inability to create shooting lanes.
When the Canucks’ shots weren’t getting blocked, they were missing the net.
“I think we had 25 missed shots when we had attempts at the net,” said head coach Rick Tocchet (Editor’s note: they had 20 missed shots). “You’ve gotta hit the net. That’s the frustrating part. We had a lot of O-zone time but we’re just missing opportunities.”
That’s what stuck in Tocchet’s craw the most: the chances to get the puck on net that were wasted.
“You guys look at shot clock, I look at missed opportunities: the 2-on-1 where we tried to pass and missed,” said Tocchet. “These are crucial things, you’ve got to throw pucks at the net — hit the net with people going. Little frustrated with the overpassing or missing the net…You miss the net or you don’t shoot on 2-on-1s, it’s hard to win.”
It’s been hard for the Canucks to win for a little while now. The Canucks have lost nine of their last 11 games. They’re dead last in the NHL in shots on goal. By points percentage, they’re below the playoff bar in the Western Conference.
To quote Whoopi Goldberg, “You in danger, girl.”
With the help of copious amounts of caffeine, I watched this game.
- The lack of shots on goal was particularly egregious considering the Canucks were facing an AHL journeyman in Dustin Tokarsky in the Hurricanes net. No shade to Tokarski, who looked sharp in the Hurricanes net aside from the partially scratched off Chicago Wolves graphics on his mask, but the Canucks made his night pretty easy by only forcing him to make 14 saves for a shutout.
- I was fooled into thinking this was going to be a much more entertaining game when even the Canucks’ fourth line was buzzing around the offensive zone early in the first period. Like Stephen A. Smith, I was hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok, and flat-out deceived.
- The Hurricanes scored the only goal they needed with about five minutes left in the first. After a penalty kill, Tocchet loaded up a line with Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, and Jake DeBrusk for an offensive zone faceoff. It backfired badly, as the Hurricanes gained possession, pushed up ice, and the three unfamiliar linemates botched their coverage after a Miller turnover in the defensive zone. Loading up a line is supposed to put an opponent on their heels but the Hurricanes must have been wearing Heelys with the way they zoomed up the ice.
- After Miller’s breakout pass hit a Hurricanes’ skate, the puck came to Jordan Staal. DeBrusk alertly poked the puck away from Staal but then, less alertly, didn’t stay with Staal. Instead, both he and Miller went to Dmitry Orlov, with neither of them able to block his point shot. Vincent Desharnais managed to get in the way of the puck but that sent it ricocheting to a wide-open Staal, who wasn’t picked up by Pettersson in the high slot. Staal slid an off-speed shot through Thatcher Demko’s five-hole for the opening goal.
- The Hurricanes got a little insurance early in the second period when Andrei Svechnikov spun off an over-aggressive Carson Soucy in the corner and drove to the front of the net. Neither Miller nor Noah Juulsen could get a stick in to disrupt Svechnikov’s shot and he snapped it inside the far post to make it 2-0.
- It wasn’t enough that the Canucks lost. They also had another player suffer an apparent injury, as Conor Garland seemed to be in pain after an open-ice hit by Jalen Chatfield. He left the game briefly in the second period but returned for the third. Oddly, he got on the right side but seemed to be favouring his left arm. Hopefully, there will be no lasting effects from the hit but it’s worth keeping an eye on Garland.
- Halfway through the game, the Canucks had five shots on goal. The Canucks were down 2-0 for nearly eight full minutes before they even got a shot on goal in response. That is pathetic. There’s really no other word for it.
- As per usual, Quinn Hughes was the only Canucks defenceman who could reliably move the puck up ice. With the Hurricanes comfortable just holding the lead, the Canucks needed to be able to attack with speed and precision in transition but there’s nothing precise about the Canucks’ collection of long-shanked defencemen. My favourite example of this was Derek Forbort’s cross-ice pass to a non-existent winger in the second period.
- At one point, it seemed like Pettersson got sick and tired of his defencemen failing to move the puck up ice, so he made like Thanos and said, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” He picked up a puck behind his own net and could have reversed it to Soucy, but instead cut up the middle, picked up speed on a give-and-go with Garland, and cut to the front of the net to draw a tripping penalty on Jalen Chatfield.
- Pettersson did some good things in this game but he was also one of the culprits when it came to missing the net. On that power play he drew, Brock Boeser sent a cross-seam pass to Pettersson for one of the Canucks’ best scoring chances of the game. With Tokarski seemingly at his mercy, Pettersson flung the puck high over the net.
- “I think we had many looks that we didn’t hit the net,” said Pettersson. “Brock made a great pass to me on the power play and I tried to pick the corner instead of making sure to hit the net. Maybe I don’t score but maybe I create a rebound. Small details.”
- Pettersson drew another tripping penalty on Chatfield later in the third period but I don’t want to talk about that awful, godforsaken power play. For me, the grief is still too near.
- Here’s the 2-on-1 that upset Rick Tocchet so much he mentioned it three times in the postgame media scrum. While shorthanded, Tyler Myers sent the puck around the boards, where Kiefer Sherwood helped it get out of the zone, then took a neat drop pass from Danton Heinen to carry the puck in 2-on-1. Instead of taking the opportunity for the Canucks’ 13th shot of the game, Sherwood tried to give Heinen a tap-in goal at the back door. Shoot. The. Puck.
- “There’s opportunities to take the puck, hit the net, shoot,” said Tocchet when asked about the team’s lack of shots. “There’s not magic tic-tac-toe stuff.”
- The Canucks had one more great chance. With two minutes left, Boeser took a pass from Hughes in full flight, put the puck through Orlov’s legs with a nifty move, and then — most importantly — put the puck on net. Boeser’s shot created a big rebound right into the slot for Max Sasson, but he swatted the puck just wide on the backhand.
- That was an exciting moment, so I want to make sure I don’t mislead you: this was not an exciting game. This was a terrible game, the type of game that makes you wonder why you’re even watching Canucks games, which is a good way to get your fans to start checking out. The Canucks have already been struggling to get butts in seats after raising ticket prices for this season; the more the Canucks play this lethargic brand of hockey, the more seats are going to be empty.
- Or maybe this is just a rough patch — a really rough patch — and the Canucks will be okay. Pettersson thinks so: “They’re a good team, they made it hard for us, but we’re a good team too. Whatever we’re going through now, we’ll figure it out.”
