VANCOUVER – Time, injuries and reality have finally caught up to the Vancouver Canucks.
After sprinting for two months under Rick Tocchet, eager to impress the new coach and be part of the National Hockey League team’s transformation, a lineup of players thinned by injuries struggled Sunday to generate chances against the Los Angeles Kings. They were officially eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoff race with a 4-1 loss at Rogers Arena.
It was the third straight game the Canucks looked a significantly lesser team than the one that went 13-4-1 over the previous six weeks while allowing more than three goals only three times in 18 games.
Suddenly with three straight losses, albeit the previous two in overtime, the Canucks have allowed 15 goals to the Kings, St. Louis Blues and Calgary Flames, whose 5-4 win Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks was the mathematical breaking point for Vancouver in the wild-card standings.
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Their elimination from the playoffs for the seventh time in eight seasons was decided long before Tocchet replaced Bruce Boudreau on Jan. 22, when he inherited a 27th-place team that was seven games under .500. The surprising part was how far the team rebounded – in structure and performance – the last two months, which makes the last three games disappointing.
“We didn’t really compete that hard to outplay that team,” Canuck centre J.T. Miller lamented after the Kings scored the game’s final four goals, including an empty-netter. “It wasn’t going to come easy and we had some looks (offensively). But it just feels like it’s a little too soft right now. It doesn’t feel like we’re that hard to play against sometimes.
“I don’t know for some reason why we feel like that’s OK as a group. I know I’m being a little harsh right now, but I don’t like not playing the right way and not being assertive. We have a million reasons to be playing hard right now. It just seems like other teams are having their way with us a little bit.”
Asked if his team looked soft, Tocchet said: “Yeah, we’ve got to address that. Whether that’s personnel or whatever, we have to address it. We’re a little bit light in battle situations. And that to me is like body position, technique. When the pressure hits, we lose our technique. That’s why we’ve got to … develop some of those guys, and we’ve got to find out who can do that for us.”
The Canucks have six games remaining, the first three of those this week at home, starting Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken.
“I think, obviously, it’s been a tough year in general,” goalie Thatcher Demko said when informed of the mathematical elimination from the playoff race. “I think we all kind of knew what was coming. We’re trying to make sure these last six games count for something. We’ve been trying to make this stretch, this last month or so, count for something in the big picture.”
DEMKO DID WHAT HE COULD
After starting 14 of 17 games since returning from a serious groin injury on Feb. 27 to re-assert himself as a premier NHL starter, Demko will see his workload lighten. Tocchet said before Sunday’s game that he plans to use backup Collin Delia at least three times in the Canucks’ remaining schedule.
“It’s been a good window of time for me,” Demko said of the last five weeks. “Not too short, where I’m still trying to find it. It feels like I’ve been back for a bit now and have a good idea where my game’s at, and it will give me a good opportunity to really pinpoint what I need to work on in the offseason and have a really good summer.”
THE SOS ON D
Five days after signing Minnesota State University-Mankato free agent Akito Hirose, the 23-year-old became the 15th defenceman to play for the Canucks this season when he made his NHL debut against the Kings.
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Tocchet had said he wanted to get Hirose “five or six” skates with the Canucks before putting him in the lineup. But the under-sized defenceman from Calgary was forced to play Sunday when Guillaume Brisbois, in-and-out of the lineup recently due to an undisclosed injury, was unable to go.
The Canucks have seven injured defencemen. Four of them, Oliver Ekman-Larsson (lower body), Tucker Poolman (migraine complications), Travis Dermott (concussion) and Filip Hronek (shoulder) have been shut down for the season. And Tocchet said Sunday defencemen Christian Wolanin and Noah Juulsen may not play any of the Canucks’ final six games as they recover from undisclosed injuries.
Hirose acquitted himself well in 14:01 of limited exposure, showing patience with the puck and awareness without it. He was not on the ice for any of the L.A. goals, although the Canucks were outshot 7-3 at five-on-five with Hirose.
“I thought he did a really nice job,” Tocchet said. “I thought he was really smart out there. For a guy that just jumped into his first NHL game unexpectedly because of all the injuries.
“I thought he did really well. He’s got a really good hockey IQ, which I like.”
Listed as six feet tall and 170 pounds, Hirose put up 68 points in 104 games during three seasons of college hockey and was signed by the Canucks for organizational depth. He is expected to start his professional career in the American Hockey League next season. Hirose turns 24 next weekend.
“It just felt like another game,” he said after his NHL debut. “It’s just bigger guys, more intent on doing specific things, a lot of detail stuff. I think it’s going to take a little bit of time to get used to but, yeah, I’ve got all the confidence in the world, especially after that game. Just get my legs underneath me.”
Canucks star Quinn Hughes, who made his NHL debut straight out of the University of Michigan four years ago, said: “It’s not easy coming in against teams that are gearing up for playoffs. I mean, (the Kings) are playing really good hockey right now. To go from college to a game like that, it’s not easy. But I thought he … showed patience with the puck, and he’s obviously got a big brain. Let’s see what he can do. Hopefully he gets, for his sake, a couple more games in here and then he needs a big summer (of training).”
Sunday’s group of blue-liners must have been one of the smallest in franchise history for the Canucks, especially if you exclude six-foot-seven veteran Tyler Myers. The average size of the other five defencemen was five-foot-11 and 183 pounds.
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