The Vancouver Canucks hit a new low on Thursday night, and it wasn’t just the 5-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings. It was the way the game unraveled.
For the first time since Jan. 26, 2017, the Canucks went an entire period without recording a shot. This time it came in the second period at The Rog, which made the drought feel even stranger because Vancouver actually opened the frame with a couple of strong shifts.
Then the night just stopped.
There were a few rushes here and there, but nothing that turned into anything real. Late in the period, Drew O’Connor drove down the left wing with Elias Pettersson, the forward, heading hard to the net. Instead of turning the play into a scramble, O’Connor carried the puck into the corner and the moment evaporated.
That was the kind of night it was. The Canucks didn’t get another shot until 6:16 of the third period, when Jake DeBrusk finally put one on goal.
That shot drew sarcastic cheers from the crowd, and so did the ones that followed. O’Connor said the reaction was fair.
“It’s well deserved,” he said. “We didn’t give them enough to cheer about.”
The bigger problem is that Vancouver doesn’t just look stuck - it looks drained. The team that started the year with energy and work rate now seems hesitant to do anything risky, hesitant to force the issue, hesitant to make a mess in front of the net. Right now, it feels like every possession is being played with the handbrake on.
Linus Karlsson pointed to the second period as a stretch where the Canucks lost their poise. With the scoreless stretch growing and the pressure building, he felt the group began forcing bad looks.
“You can’t just shoot it just because we don’t have any shots on net,” he said. “Like we can’t just shoot it.
I think that’s a little bit what happened. Like we just shot the puck just to shoot it.
Sometimes you need some poise, make another play, and sometimes you need to shoot the puck. You have to find the confidence.
The confidence to make to make yeah to make plays and find the best shooting lanes.”
He also made it clear the answer has to come from inside the room, not from waiting for something to magically change.
“It’s so many games left, and we can’t be just laying down and die,” he said. “It’s gonna be hard.
That’s where the compete starts and then bring it to the games and be ready for a start. I mean, we let in two goals before five minute mark.
It’s not good enough.”
Pettersson’s first-period goal at least gave Vancouver a pulse after it fell behind 2-0 early. It was a clean power-play one-timer, set up nicely by Filip Hronek. Pettersson also had some life in his game for stretches, pushing the puck up ice and trying to drive play.
But by the end of the night, that effort was buried under the Canucks’ overall dysfunction.
Kevin Lankinen’s night had its own share of trouble. He wasn’t to blame for the third goal, with the damage coming after a lost battle in front on the penalty kill.
But he lost his net on Lucas Raymond’s opening tip goal, and then got caught swimming on William Wallinder’s second goal. The fifth goal was the ugliest of all, with Lankinen falling over in a moment that summed up the evening.
“When you’re in a situation like this, you gotta take ownership both individually and collectively reflect and. try to get better,” Lankinen said.
“I can just focus on my own position, my own department. Not trying to save the world.
The only thing I can do is do my best and stop the puck. And if there’s anything I can do to get better, for sure I’ll obviously do everything I can to help the team win.”
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