VANCOUVER – With 70 games remaining in the Vancouver Canucks’ season, the election desk got awfully close to calling it Saturday for the opposition.
Of course, polling is spectacularly unreliable these days and maybe the Canucks will prove this early close call to be alarmist and premature. But had they come away with nothing against the Nashville Predators, after leading by three goals early and two goals in the third period, it’s impossible to see how the Canucks could have recovered.
It’s not that the single point salvaged from Saturday’s 4-3 shootout loss will save them in the standings. But it might save them psychologically, allow them to maintain at least some residue of confidence and give them just enough hope to save their season on a five-game road trip that begins next Tuesday against the Ottawa Senators.
The loser point still did not disguise the harsh, almost inconceivable, reality that the Canucks have now lost five times this season when leading by two or more goals. They’ve played only 12 games.
.acf-block-preview .br-snippet {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: 200px 1fr;
gap: 20px;
width: 100%;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 16px;
border: 1px solid #CECECE;
background-color: #FFF;
border-radius: 4px;
}
.acf-block-preview .br-snippet-info a {
text-decoration: none;
}
.acf-block-preview .br-snippet-info .br-snippet-title {
color: #343434;
font-family: ‘roboto’;
font-size: 20px;
font-weight: 600;
line-height: 22px;
margin-bottom: 10px;
top: -3px;
}
.acf-block-preview .br-snippet-info .br-snippet-body {
color: #343434;
font-family: ‘urw-din’;
font-size: 16px;
line-height: 20px;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}
.acf-block-preview .br-snippet-info .br-snippet-link-title {
display: inline-block;
font-family: ‘urw-din’;
font-size: 16px;
list-style-type: none;
width: auto;
}
.acf-block-preview .br-snippet-info .br-snippet-link-title:not(:last-child):after {
content: ‘ | ‘;
color: #343434;
}
“It doesn’t feel good by any means,” defenceman Quinn Hughes said. “It’s like, you know, what do we need to do at this point? But we still got a point; we’ve got to keep things in (perspective). We have a really important road trip. If you don’t do well on this road trip, you’ll be in big trouble. We’re just going to have to fight it out.”
The Canucks play the Senators, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres over a span of eight nights. Really, they probably need to win at least three to keep plausible the organization’s trumpeted goal of returning to the National Hockey League playoffs next spring.
The last team to make the Stanley Cup playoffs after a start as bad as Vancouver’s was the 2015-16 Anaheim Ducks, also coached by Bruce Boudreau. They built a 103-point season from a 1-7-2 start. Boudreau’s Canucks are 3-6-3, and have kicked away a small pile of points in the first four weeks of the season.
The Ducks were 5-8-4 through 17 games, which means the Canucks will need to go .500 over the next five road games to match it.
“It sucks to come out and play a good 40 minutes, set ourselves up (to win),” Canuck winger J.T. Miller said. “Obviously, at this point in time, we’re tired of getting teams coming back on us. But, you know, it’s not all bad. I think we’re a lot closer than people think. It’s going to be easy to turn this (result) negative, but we’ve got an important road trip.”
.acf-block-preview .instagram-twitter-container {
width: 340px;
margin: 0 auto;
}
“It’s not as far off as it seems,” defenceman Tyler Myers said, following up Miller’s theme. “Obviously, we don’t want to be giving up leads like this. We’ve got to find the right way to play, whether you’re up two (goals) going into the final 20 or you’re down two. They got a quick one there early in the third and we have to have the mental stability to push back as soon as that happens.
“We did a lot of good tonight. We know it can get better. We know some things we need to clean up. We can’t let that keep happening; we’ve got to keep pushing forward and get better as a group.”
The Canucks dominated the opening 40 minutes, outshooting the Predators 30-11. Heck, even Vancouver’s last-ranked penalty kill was working.
Nashville goalie Juuse Saros, who stopped Miller twice on breakaways – “He had my number, for sure,” the Canuck said – was the only reason the Predators were still in the game, down 3-1.
But Vancouver couldn’t defend a lost defensive-zone faceoff two shifts into the third period when Jordan Gross snaked a point shot through traffic at 1:06. And just 1:35 later, the game was tied when Nino Niederreiter scored on his own close-range rebound after Nashville defenceman Mattias Ekholm beat Vancouver winger Conor Garland wide a few seconds after the Predators won another faceoff – this one outside the Canuck blueline.
Ilya Mikheyev caught the Predators on a change and beat Saros from 30 feet to open scoring just 1:56 into the game, and Miller whacked a rebound through traffic to make it 2-0 at 3:41 after a turnover by Gross.
Andrei Kuzmenko capped an outstanding opening period for the Canucks – shots were 13-3 – when he tapped in Miller’s pass on a power play to make it 3-0 at 17:32.
On Nashville’s fourth power play, the Predators generated their fourth shot three minutes into the middle period, cutting the deficit to 3-1 on Gross’s fly-by deflection over Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko’s shoulder.
Demko allowed the only goal of the shootout when Matt Duchene scored through his pads. Saros finished with 42 saves.
“I think that first five minutes in the third set the tone,” Demko said.
“You can see where our game is going. In our last five games, it hasn’t been so bad. So, big road trip here and try to get some points out East.”
We can all see where the Canucks are going unless things change soon.
.acf-block-preview .br-related-links-wrapper {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(2, 1fr);
gap: 20px;
}
.acf-block-preview .br-related-links-wrapper a {
pointer-events: none;
cursor: default;
text-decoration: none;
color: black;
}
