The Vancouver Canucks’ night in Detroit turned into a slog almost from the opening faceoff, and by the end of it the scoreboard showed a 5-2 Red Wings win and a ninth straight loss for Vancouver.
The most jarring stretch came when the Canucks went nearly 40 minutes without a shot on goal. Vancouver finished with just 13 shots in the game, and Elias Pettersson and Jonathan Lekkerimäki accounted for the only two that beat Detroit goaltending. Kevin Lankinen took the loss after stopping 26 of 31 shots.
Detroit set the tone early by scoring twice in the first 6:04. Lucas Raymond opened the scoring at 4:18, and William Wallinder made it 2-0 less than two minutes later. It was the fourth time this season Vancouver gave up the first two goals of a game, and it also marked the second straight outing in which that happened after the Canucks did the same against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night.
Vancouver did get on the board on the power play at 7:02 of the first period after Anton Johansson was whistled for sending the puck over the glass. Pettersson finished the chance after working through a couple of looks from the dot, and the goal moved him into sole possession of two more franchise marks: 10th all-time in power-play goals and eighth all-time in power-play points.
Even with that response, the Canucks never settled into the game. Detroit added another before the end of the period on Raymond’s second goal of the night, and the second period was even rougher for Vancouver. Michael Rasmussen scored at 14:58, while the Canucks spent most of the frame stuck in their own end and failed to record a shot on goal in the period.
“We’re not playing nearly aggressive enough,” Drew O’Connor said post-game. “I think, as forwards, we have to do a much better job of getting on the forecheck and getting pucks back to our D cleanly, so they can deliver pucks.
When we get the pucks to them, they can put it on net for us. So it starts with that.”
The long drought finally ended about eight minutes into the third period, nearly 40 minutes after Vancouver’s previous shot on goal. By then, Detroit had already gone to rookie Michal Postava in net. The Canucks put three shots on goal in one shift during that sequence, but the late push didn’t change the feel of the night.
What drew the loudest reaction from the crowd was the timing of that first shot after the drought. Rogers Arena answered with sarcastic cheers, and the players noticed.
“It’s embarrassing,” said Brock Boeser. “We are a way better hockey team than we’re playing, and to consistently show up to the rink and be disconnected out there [...] We showed that we were a better team last year than [how] we’re playing right now.”
Vancouver did score again shortly after that. Marco Rossi, back after missing two games because of illness, carried the puck into the Detroit zone after taking a pass from Zeev Buium and slid a net-front feed to Lekkerimäki, who tapped it in to make it 5-2.
That was as close as the Canucks got. Detroit had already added a fourth goal through Emmitt Finnie at 4:00 of the third period, and Vancouver’s comeback never got off the ground.
Afterward, head coach Manny Malhotra pointed to the things that never showed up consistently enough in his team’s game.
“For the most part, it was inability to sustain momentum, come up with pucks, win puck battles, kill plays in the D-zone. It’s just a lot of effort-based things that just weren’t there.
“If you look at the mistakes, a lot of them are effort-based. And as much as we want to talk about structure and being in the right place at the right time, when you don’t win battles and you don’t box people out, and you allow the opposition to get to the paint, a lot of bad stuff’s going to happen. So we can talk about knowing or not knowing the systems, but until there’s an adequate effort put forth, the systems don’t really matter.”
A few other numbers underscored how rough the night was for Vancouver: the Canucks surrendered the first two goals for the fourth time this season, went 39:14 of game time without a shot on goal, and Marco Rossi logged a team-low 9:38 in his return. Filip Chytil was the only natural centre to finish above 50 percent in faceoffs, at 63.6%.
Vancouver’s next chance to break the skid comes October 25 against the Minnesota Wild at 7:00 pm PT.
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