The first two games have given the Canucks plenty of offense, but not nearly enough comfort in their own end.
That’s not exactly shocking, either. With a shortened pre-season, a new coach, and a new system, October has been asking Vancouver to do a lot of learning on the fly. For the veterans, Tuesday and Thursday weren’t really Game 1 and Game 2 so much as Game 3 and Game 4 - the kind of early-season reps that used to come later in the pre-season after a pile of practice time.
That helps explain why things have looked so wide open.
“We had a good third, I think, and we responded well,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s a good feeling leaving that game, even after the third period. I think that’s just a really bad start, and you know we don’t really want to be playing high-scoring games like that.”
Head coach Manny Malhotra saw it the same way.
And there’s been some real work behind the scenes trying to clean it up. O’Connor said sorting out what the team is supposed to be doing in its own zone “definitely takes a few games,” especially when that work would normally have been handled in pre-season. Still, he said the group is picking things up quickly.
“I think we have to learn it quickly, and I think we’ve seen that progress happen fast … I think there’s things obviously we have to do better, but at the same time there’s things we’ve learned quickly and gotten better at.
The schedule doesn’t give Vancouver much breathing room to keep sorting it out, either. Saturday night brings the first of two straight games against Calgary, with Sunday’s matchup coming against Vegas.
After that, the Canucks head out for a two-week road trip that runs through Carolina, the Big Apple and then Florida.
Malhotra wasn’t tipping his hand after Friday’s practice, even when asked about the possibility of two games in two days. He does, however, have three spare players who haven’t dressed in the first two games of the season.
In Other News...
Flames Loss In Vancouver Exposed A Familiar Problem Again
The Flames left Vancouver with another reminder of how thin the margin can be in a tight, physical game. The Canucks did not exactly light up the scoreboard, but they did enough in a patchy contest to keep Calgary chasing, with Vancouvers calm work in goal helping stabilize a game that never found much flow.
For Calgary, the frustration came from a familiar place: a game that was there to be grabbed, then slipped away as the tone turned heavier and the details got messier. Vancouver brought the kind of edge that can tilt a night like this, while the Canucks still had to survive through a power play that never really found its rhythm. [Read more 🡒]
Flames Send An Early Message With Lineup Changes After Ugly Opener
After a 6-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken to open the season, the Calgary Flames wasted little time making a point about accountability. On the road against the Vancouver Canucks, the club went with two lineup changes and handed season debuts to Brennan Othmann and Joel Hanley as part of an early response to a rough start.
Ryan Huska said the adjustment came down to puck management, a clear sign the staff is looking for cleaner decisions after the opener went sideways. The shuffle gives Calgary a chance to reset quickly, and it also sends an early message that the margins for error are going to be thin as the Flames try to get back on track. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Suddenly Have A Goalie Decision They Did Not Expect
Leevi Merilinen has given Vancouver something it did not necessarily expect this early in the season: a goalie who has looked poised in limited action. Claimed off waivers from the Ottawa Senators, the 23-year-old has stepped into two games and handled the assignment with a 1.32 goals-against average and a .943 save percentage, numbers that suggest the Canucks may have found more than just a stopgap while Thatcher Demko was out.
The bigger question now is what happens when Demko is ready to return. Vancouver will have to sort through its goalie picture at a time when Merilinen has made a strong early case to stay in the mix, and that kind of unexpected depth can quickly turn into a roster puzzle. For a team that had been watching him since the summer, the timing has only made the conversation more complicated. [Read more 🡒]