The Vancouver Canucks are right back at it Sunday afternoon, stepping into the second half of a back-to-back when they face the New York Rangers at 3:00 p.m. PT at Madison Square Garden. It’s also the third stop on a six-game road trip, and the focus in the Canucks’ room is pretty clear: clean up the penalty kill before it costs them again.
After Saturday’s loss, Brock Boeser didn’t sugarcoat it. “Five-on-five, I thought wasn’t that bad, quite all right, just the special teams. That’s a couple of games in a row where our PK, we got to bear down and get those kills, and we got to stay out of the box, myself included,” said Boeser following Saturday’s loss.
Manny Malhotra echoed that message, saying the kill doesn’t become elite overnight, but the effort has to show up immediately when the Canucks are shorthanded. “There’s just a lot of tough reads right now.
The pairs have been switched quite a bit. It’s a work in progress.
It’ll take time, but just from a work ethic standpoint, [it] just needs to be much more difficult for teams to recover pucks and get to their sets,” said Malhotra.
Malhotra also pointed to the bigger picture, noting that special teams can swing games every night and that the current rate of goals against isn’t something a team can live with.
The Rangers arrive with their own bit of upheaval after getting bad news Saturday morning: starting goalie Igor Shesterkin is done for the season because of a lower-body injury. That puts 24-year-old Dylan Garand in line for a heavier workload unless New York goes shopping for another goalie.
Even with the injury hit, the Rangers have opened the season 4-2-0 and have given up only 11 goals in six games. Their special teams have also come out flying, with the power play at 23.5% and the penalty kill at 89.5%.
Alexis Lafreniere leads New York with four goals and six points in six games. Pavel Dorofeyev, a newcomer to the Rangers this season, has a team-high 19 shots on net. William Cuylle leads the club with 22 hits, while Adam Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov have handled the heavy lifting on the blue line, logging 21:29 and 21:22 respectively.
One bright spot for Vancouver has been Jake DeBrusk, who has come back from illness looking dangerous. He missed last weekend’s games, then returned Thursday in Carolina and scored twice. On Saturday against the Devils, he added an assist and kept piling up chances, with 11 shots and 11 scoring chances over his last two games.
His line with Elias Pettersson and Jonathan Lekkerimäki has also clicked. The trio has played 37:19 together at five-on-five and has a 3-0 edge in goals during that stretch.
In Other News...
Canucks Send A Clear Message With Surprising Blue Line Decision
The Canucks made a noticeable change on the blue line against the Rangers, sitting Jamie Oleksiak and giving Guillaume Brisebois his first game of the season. It was the kind of lineup decision that says as much about the coaching staffs expectations as it does about the player getting the nod, especially with Manny Malhotra looking to manage both development and performance on the back end.
Brisebois got into the action quickly, finishing with two shots, two hits, a blocked shot and a penalty in 12:44 of ice time. Malhotra framed Oleksiaks night off as a chance to reset and simplify, with the emphasis on being more physical and cleaner in the breakout game, a clear reminder that the Canucks still see a specific role they want him to return to. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Suddenly Have An Early Problem Fans Cant Ignore
A four-game skid has quickly turned an encouraging start into a more uneasy conversation around Vancouver, and the trouble has shown up in a few familiar places. The Canucks have not been able to get steady work in goal, their defense has given up too many quality looks, and the penalty kill has been a drag instead of a backstop, leaving the team chasing games more often than not.
Kevin Lankinen has had a rough stretch in net, which has only sharpened the focus on how exposed the club has looked when shifts break down in its own end. Even so, there have been a couple of small bright spots to hang onto, including Jonathan Lekkerimaki and a young defenseman who have stood out while the rest of the group searches for a cleaner response. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Road Trip Is Suddenly Exposing A Bigger Problem
The Canucks six-game road trip hit another rough patch at Madison Square Garden, where Vancouver fell 6-2 to the Rangers and saw familiar issues resurface in a hurry. Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson provided the only offense, with Pettersson even chipping in a shorthanded goal, but it was not enough to offset a night when the game tilted heavily the other way.
Kevin Lankinen was left to absorb most of the damage after allowing six goals on 25 shots, and the result only deepened the concern around how this trip is unfolding. Through the first three games, Vancouver has been outscored 17-5, a stretch that is starting to make the road trip feel less like a rough patch and more like a warning sign. [Read more 🡒]