When were the Vancouver Canucks eliminated from the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs?
Mathematically, it was on Sunday in the midst of the Canucks’ game against the Los Angeles Kings. While the Canucks and Kings were still in the second period, the Winnipeg Jets completed their 6-1 dismantling of the New Jersey Devils. That ensured that even if the Canucks beat the Kings and ran the table to finish of the season, they couldn’t catch the Jets for the final wild card spot in the Western Conference.
But realistically, the Canucks were eliminated from playoff contention much sooner than that.
Perhaps it was as recently as March 17, when the Canucks’ longest winning streak of the year ended at five games, nipped in the bud when they couldn’t beat the Arizona Coyotes. That ended the dream of a miraculous 21-game winning streak to get to 95 points — a relatively realistic point total for making the playoffs.
Maybe it was January 30, when the Canucks traded Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders, signalling that they were selling at the trade deadline — even if they ended up buying instead when they acquired Filip Hronek.
Or it was a few days earlier, when the Canucks shut down Ilya Mikheyev for the season, essentially admitting to themselves and the fans that they knew the season was over.
Or a few days before that on January 22, when the Canucks fired Bruce Boudreau and replaced him with Rick Tocchet. That came after a string of losing 10 of 12 games after getting above .500 for the first time all season. Pick a date within that 12-game set and you could make an argument that’s when the Canucks were eliminated.
If you’re pessimistic, you might think the season was over way back on October 24, when they lost their seventh-straight game to start the season. They managed just 16 shots on goal against the Carolina Hurricanes that night and simply did not look like a team that was even close to competing with the best teams in the NHL.
All that said, this season is ending with hope for a better one — much the way last season ended — as the Canucks have played better under a new head coach. But missing the playoffs for the eighth time in the last nine seasons still stings.
Tocchet tried to put a positive spin on it, however.
“Obviously, four months off sucks. But, use it to your advantage. The other teams are gonna play late. We’re not. So, what are you going to do with these next four months?” said Tocchet. “That’s the positive, if there is a positive of not making the playoffs. There’s no excuse not coming to camp in shape. If you come into camp not in shape, there will be a problem, put it that way.”
I started planning my summer workout regimen after I watched this game.
- Akito Hirose made his surprise NHL debut when Guillaume Brisebois joined the long list of injured Canucks defencemen. Hirose was the 15th defenceman to play for the Canucks this season; the last time the Canucks made the playoffs in 2019-20, they used a total of eight defencemen during the regular season and one of them was Ashton Sautner, who only played 2:49 in ice time in one game.
- “I thought he did a really nice job,” said Tocchet of Hirose. “I thought he was really smart out there. For a guy that just jumped in his first NHL game unexpectedly because of all the injuries and hasn’t practiced a lot, I thought he did really well. He’s got a really good hockey IQ, which I like.”
- Hirose looked completely calm and poised for his first NHL game. He kept it simple, escaping from the Kings’ forechecking pressure with smart passes without a trace of panic. He really made just one mistake, when a bouncing puck slipped under his glove at the blue line, leading to a scramble in the defensive zone. Otherwise, he held his own in his 14 minutes of ice time and was one of only five Canucks who were not on the ice for a goal against.
- “I was just trying to play a mistake-free game and just help as positively as I could,” said Hirose, who seemed completely unfazed by the moment. “I mean, seeing a couple of the other guys like [Anze] Kopitar and [Drew] Doughty, that was pretty cool, but, I don’t know, it’s just another game at the end of the day. I feel like I’ve played some big games in my college career, so I don’t think it was anything different than those.”
- The line of Aidan McDonough, Sheldon Dries, and Jack Studnicka got worked over by the Kings. The Canucks didn’t manage even a single shot on goal when those three were on the ice and shot attempts were 12-to-1 for the Kings. They didn’t get scored on but that seemed more a function of Demko than anything they were doing.
- “We’ve got to get more from the bottom-six and more forechecking from those guys,” said Tocchet. “I don’t think we’re getting enough from those guys right now to wear the other team down. You’ve got to have the depth guys be able to wear people down and win battles, keep pucks alive in the other end. We haven’t done that the last three games.”
- The Canucks’ best line was easily Phil Di Giuseppe, J.T. Miller, and Brock Boeser. The Canucks out-shot the Kings 11-to-2 when that trio was on the ice at 5-on-5, which is great. Unfortunately, the Canucks were out-shot 17-to-7 when that trio was not on the ice at 5-on-5. Like Tsar Paul I, that was significantly less great.
- That line combined to open the scoring. The Kings couldn’t get the puck deep to facilitate a full line change and the Canucks quickly regrouped to take advantage. Boeser gained the zone, then dropped the puck to Quinn Hughes, who found Di Giuseppe down low. He kicked the puck back up to Miller, who shot low and hard for a rebound and Boeser made like a Canada Goose to out-battle Alex “Eagle” Edler to jam it home.
- A couple of penalties led to a 4-on-4 situation and Anze Kopitar setting up an Alex Iafollo goal. Off a defensive zone faceoff, Nils Åman got his wires crossed with Ethan Bear. Bear thought Åman was the fellow to follow Iafallo, but Åman thought his man-ze was Anze. “I alone-o,” Iafallo probably thought just before blasting the one-timer past Demko.
- Iafallo didn’t lie fallow for long after his goal, scoring another on the power play early in the second. Tyler Myers came up way, way too high in the zone to chase after Kopitar, which left acres of space for Viktor Arvidsson to pick his spot. That spot was the post, which was an odd choice for Arvidsson, but Iafallo won the battle to put the rebound ever-so-gently over the goal line.
- I felt it was a bad sign when the Canucks, down 2-1, skated out for the third period to “Jump Around” by House of Pain, which has the opening lines, “Pack it up, pack it in.” Not really what you want the Canucks to do in that situation.
- The Canucks had some good chances to tie up the game, none better than Andrei Kuzmenko’s power play chance midway through the third period. With one penalty killer with a broken stick, the Canucks created a scramble in front and Kuzmenko had the top half of the net empty, only for Iafallo — who was very busy in this game — to get his stick in the way to deflect the puck up over the glass.
- The Kings extended the lead on a lucky bounce. Jack Rathbone did well to stay in the shooting lane against Artur Kaliyev on the rush, only to have his shot block ricochet right back to Kaliyev in the slot and he swatted the puck past Demko to make it 3-1. Are bad bounces more likely to happen when your team gets out-shot 8-to-2 when you’re on the ice? Sure, but it was still pretty unfortunate to see a good defensive play immediately backfire.
- The Canucks created a couple more chances, with Miller ringing the post on the power play, but they couldn’t muster up another goal. That means Elias Pettersson’s point streak ends at 14 games, one shy of tying the Canucks’ franchise record shared by Tony Tanti and Todd Bertuzzi. He’ll surely be making his mark in many other ways in his career but it’s a shame that won’t be one of them this season.
- Oh, the Kings also scored an empty-net goal to make the final score 4-1. This game stunk on ice. Moving on!
