Brock Boeser wasn’t interested in dressing it up after Thursday’s 5-2 loss to the Red Wings.
The Canucks are rebuilding, and plenty of fans have already signed up for that reality. The losses are part of the package.
What’s harder to swallow is the flatness. What friends I spoke with after the game, along with just about every Canucks fan I know, want to see something different: some edge, some pushback, some sign that somebody is willing to make a game difficult for the other side.
Against Detroit, that never really arrived.
As the Canucks drifted through a second period that seemed to drain whatever life they had, there was a basic question hanging over the night: who was going to step up and change the temperature? A heavy hit.
A hard shot. Something.
Nobody is asking for a fight, but a little fire would have gone a long way.
Instead, the Canucks looked passive again, and Boeser didn’t hide how much it bothered him.
“It’s the same stuff game after game. I don’t know where the disconnect is, if guys in here aren’t listening to what the coaches are preaching on our style of play, or some of our structure is not working, or what it is. But it’s embarrassing,” he said.
He wasn’t ready to give the group much credit for the previous four games, either, all of them losses. In those outings, at least, the Canucks had been tied or ahead after 40 minutes. This time, even that flimsy consolation was gone.
“Even in those games, the sum still feels off,” he replied. “We’re still not generating offence, not getting enough shots, so something’s not working.
And I don’t know if guys don’t listen or, like I said, structure, something in the structure we need to fix or what it is. But we definitely have a lot better in this room.”
The frustration boiled over after Detroit’s fourth goal, when Boeser was seen slamming his stick. Up to that point, Vancouver had had enough of the puck to imagine a path back. They were down 3-1, and since Elias Pettersson’s first-period power-play goal they had not put another shot on goal, but it still felt like one clean chance could have turned the game to 3-2.
That opening never came. The Canucks lost a couple of puck battles, failed to protect their space, and watched the Red Wings move the puck freely in their zone until Michael Rasmussen got a floating point shot tipped past Kevin Lankinen. Rasmussen had used his size to box out Canucks defender Victor Mancini.
For Boeser, the problem went beyond one sequence.
“We have some bad changes and we don’t set each other up and, you know, it’s small details,” Boeser said of what he was feeling in that moment of frustration. “All these things I’m talking about are little details of the game … you know, roll lines over and create momentum and stuff. I feel like we’re constantly just sitting back on our heels and they’re just coming down our throats.”
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Castagnas defensive commitment was sharpened at Cornell University, and it is showing up now in the way he handles the small responsibilities that can keep a young player in the NHL. Veteran center Ryan Strome has also been helping him navigate the first stages of his pro career, a useful presence as Castagna settles into a demanding stretch of adjustment. The bigger question now is whether that trust becomes enough to keep him in the conversation once the lineup gets tighter and the season starts asking for more. [Read more 🡒]