‘Just not good enough’: Canucks’ fragility continues to prove costly
Posted January 7, 2025 6:32 am.
Last Updated January 7, 2025 10:22 am.
Yes, sure, winning is hard in the National Hockey League. But the Vancouver Canucks are making it look almost impossible.
Nothing should be this hard.
Monday’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens was another example of the ordeal the Canucks have made out of trying to win.
They had a dominant, physical four-point game from J.T. Miller, whose two goals were the beleaguered centre’s first since his 10-game leave of absence ended four weeks ago, and his first against a goaltender since Oct. 26.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!The Canucks’ best player, team captain Quinn Hughes, returned from injury and contributed a pair of assists in 26:15 of ice time. Rookie call-up Jonathan Lekkerimaki impressively sniped one goal and set up another in his sixth NHL game. The Vancouver power play went 1-for-3, and the Canucks seized control of the game early in the second period and built a 3-1 lead. Goalie Kevin Lankinen made another handful of five-star saves.
And with all that, still the Canucks lost.
Any couple of those positive occurrences would have been enough for Vancouver to win last season, when the confident team simply put opponents to sleep in the third period. The Canucks were 42-1-4 when leading after 40 minutes.
This season, no lead is safe. Monday was the sixth time in 19 games this season the Canucks lost — albeit, all six defeats with loser points — after taking a lead into the third period.
In five games since Christmas, they’ve blown final-period leads of 4-1, 3-1 and, on Monday, 3-2.
How are they ever to win with this kind of fragility?
“It seemed last year we were a lot more comfortable protecting the lead,” Miller said after his best game in two months. “(We) still played aggressive, didn’t just sit back. Right now, it seems like we’re getting overwhelmed with the lead a little bit and, I don’t know, obviously. . . we’ve done it a handful of times now.
“You’ve got to want to be out there. I think whenever it starts to go against you, you start to maybe double guess and squeeze a little tighter, and that goes for the whole team. So we’ve got to find a way, when we get a lead, to bear down on our battles and keep being aggressive.”
Checking centre Teddy Blueger said: “We’re probably sitting back too much. You know, we’ve got scored on a couple times, so I think we’re probably trying to be too cautious. Then you’re just inviting pressure. And when they pressure. . . mistakes are inevitable. I think we need to do a better job of kind of staying on the front foot, possessing the puck a little bit better and not just trying to dump it in and change.”
Or, as Rick Tocchet has preached since he became the Canucks’ coach almost two years ago: meet pressure with pressure.
His team is meeting pressure with fear.
“I think there’s confidence,” Tocchet said. “I think there’s moments when you need a guy to make a play. It seems like when a team puts pressure on us, sometimes we just start slapping pucks around. You should want the puck. Sometimes there’s going to be some contact where you’re going to have to go to an area and have contact to get it out. I think sometimes we’re a little shy going to that area. But, you know, we’re working on it. We’ll continue to work on it.”
Like the long-standing default sentiment in their market, the Canucks are playing these days with a sense of doom. Even with the lead, they are skittish and act like bad things are going to happen. Again.
“I don’t know an answer for what’s different this year from last year,” winger Conor Garland said. “Just not good enough.”
The Canucks should have been able to win Monday with the good things they did.
After Lekkerimaki fired a laser on a two-on-one at 3:41 of the second period, 20 seconds after his duffed breakaway shot was followed up by Miller for a rebound goal, the Canucks suddenly led 3-1 and had the speedy Canadiens utterly stalled.
But Montreal snatched a goal back at 10:35 when Kaiden Guhle’s screened wrister from the point eluded Lankinen after a couple of mistakes by Vancouver defenceman Carson Soucy. And at 2:01 of the third period — and untouched at the top of the Canucks’ crease — Canadien Kirby Dach had time to locate a rebound, spin and hook a shot under Lankinen to tie it 3-3 on a power play.
Canadiens rookie Lane Hutson then bounced a centring pass in off his NHL template, Hughes, to put Montreal ahead 4-3 at 6:54, before Jake DeBrusk tied it for the Canucks with a backside wrist shot after a nice pass by Miller on a power play.
A couple of huge saves by Lankinen protected one point for the Canucks, who surrendered any reasonable chance of two when Nils Hoglander lost his stick and then his head in the final minute and started bowling over Canadiens.
His reckless interference penalty at 19:24 led to Nick Suzuki’s overtime winner 48 seconds into the four-on-three.
The Canucks have been so fragile with leads and suspect defensively that they have only one win since November when scoring fewer than four goals. They are also 7-4-6 (10 losses in 17 games) this season when scoring first after going 38-11-4 with 1-0 leads a year ago.
“You know, we’re really good at times throughout a game,” Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers said. “And then we slip a little bit. We get away from our details within our system, and we’ve got to clean that part up.
“A lot of good things, but we’re not doing good things consistently enough.”
They shouldn’t need this many good things to win.
ICE CHIPS — Recalled Monday to replace injured winger Dakota Joshua, Lekkerimaki was run over by the Canadiens’ Guhle on his first shift, shortly before Cole Caufield found space above Canucks defenceman Vincent Desharnais to make it 1-0 for Montreal. On the lack of an immediate response by the Canucks, Tocchet said: “It’s not even about, you know, the fighting. You’ve just got to do something hard. Whatever the next shift is, do something hard. That’s what you should do.”. . . Hughes played with a heavily-braced hand after missing the last four games. Elias Pettersson is expected to return from his upper-body injury Wednesday in Washington.
