This was the Canucks' 3rd 4-0 loss in their last 7 games. They really took Willie Desjardins' "We have to stop losing close games" speech the wrong way.
But despite the lopsided score, I didn't think the Canucks didn’t play all that badly in this game. Up until halfway through the third period, this was a 1-goal game and it looked like the Canucks had a chance for a comeback.
The comeback never came, unfortunately, as comebacks generally require, like, at least one goal. At least.
I watched this game.
- The Canucks’ forwards are, at this point, the Sedins and everyone else, like a bad backing band for a phenomenal lead singer. There were exactly 5 Canucks above 50% in corsi in this game: the Sedins, Hansen, Edler, and Tanev. They had some dominant shifts in the offensive zone, but, despite their best efforts, they couldn’t get the puck over the goal line, except for that one time they totally did and had it called off on a hand pass.
- That’s not to say there weren’t some good performances from other Canucks. Radim Vrbata had a game-high 10 shot attempts, with 5 shots hitting the net or, rather, Corey Crawford. Vrbata thought Crawford was being quite rude stopping all his shots and was all like, “Do you mind?” and Crawford was, like, “Yeah, I do mind, I’m the netminder,” and then I slapped myself for that joke.
- Sven Baertschi, Bo Horvat, and Alex Burrows had some good shifts together as well, with Baertschi getting a couple great scoring chances. He just couldn’t beat Crawford, who was more lights out than a summer camp after 10:00 pm.
- The power play looked good as well. Like the stage directions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there was a lot of good puck movement. They created some good chances, forcing one of Crawford’s best saves, a lunging glove save on Yannick Weber, who has yet to score a goal this season after 11 in 65 games last season.
- At the other end of the ice, Ryan Miller was remarkable, despite the cheap last-minute goal that made it 4-0, keeping it close for most of the game and giving the Canucks a chance. He made some astounding saves off Artemi Panarin in particular, who had 5 shots on goal, all seemingly grade-A scoring chances. Miller’s best save came on a Panarin one-timer on the power play as he made like Waffle House’s Pinterest page and used his waffle board.
- Patrick Kane came into the game with a 25-game point streak and left with a 26-game point streak, as he was awarded a secondary assist on the Blackhawks’ first goal that could be described as generous. That assist should come with an asterisk, much like the Kurt Vonnegut asterisk that accompanies his entire life.
- Matt Bartkowski had a terrible game, losing puck battle after puck battle, but it was his decision-making on a Blackhawks’ 3-on-2 that led to the 2-0 goal. He went to the puck carrier, waved his stick at him and gave him a little shove, immediately leading to a 2-on-1 down low that Yannick Weber couldn’t contain. Thankfully, Dennis Rasmussen shoved the puck over the line even though it was already going in, sparing the Canucks the indignity of being scored on by Bryan Bickell.
- Let’s save some jeers on that goal for Brandon Prust, who coasted so much on the backcheck that it is actually an insult to backchecking to call it that. He’s so bad at backchecking that when one of the other Canucks called Prust over and said, “Hey, could you take a look at my back, I think I’ve got a weird growth on my back,” Prust said, “Your face looks fine.”
