Heading into the Vancouver Canucks’ game against the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday, they had given up at least five goals in 16 of their 37 games.
Even the Anaheim Ducks and Columbus Blue Jackets, the only two teams who have averaged more goals against than the Canucks this season, haven’t had that many games with five goals against.
The Canucks made it 17 on Sunday, then went a step further, giving up seven goals against for the first time this season.
It would be easy to blame goaltending for the loss. After all, Collin Delia and Spencer Martin allowed seven goals combined on just 27 shots — a mirrored 4 goals on 13 shots for Delia and 3 goals on 14 shots for Martin.
But though the goaltending was definitely subpar, it was a similar story to the rest of the season: too many grade-A chances given up to top-tier goalscorers. The Canucks have given up the fourth-most goals against at 5-on-5 this season but they’ve also given up the fourth-most expected goals in the NHL according to Natural Stat Trick and that’s a statistic that doesn’t even fully capture how dangerous the chances have been for the Canucks’ opposition as it doesn’t include factors like pre-shot puck movement and screens.
Kyle Connor, who scored 47 goals last season, had a hat trick on a wide-open shot from 10 feet out after a cross-slot pass, a breakaway, and another wide-open shot from 20 feet out after a pass from below the goal line.
Nikolaj Ehlers was allowed to come out from behind the net completely unchecked for a scoring chance. Morgan Barron was left entirely alone at the top of the crease as Delia slid out of his net trying to stop an Adam Lowry breakaway. Axel Jonsson-Fjallby shot the puck right through the legs of Luke Schenn for a screen. No one came back on the backcheck to take Dylan Demelo as the trailer on a shorthanded 3-on-2.
Should Delia and Martin stopped a few of those chances? Sure. Delia clearly lost his angle on Ehlers’ goal and Martin should have been able to pick up Jonsson-Fjallby’s shot even through Schenn’s legs. Maybe one of both goaltenders could have come up with a big save on one of the other chances too.
That’s the kind of goaltending the Canucks were used to prior to this season, repeatedly bailing out their defensive miscues. They haven’t gotten that goaltending this season and it has exposed just how terrible they are defensively.
It’s not one or the other. It’s not that the Canucks have been solid defensively and are being let down by terrible goaltending and it’s not that the Canucks’ goaltenders have been incredible and are being let down by terrible defending. They’ve both been bad.
And they were both bad when I watched this game.
- While he has been skating again, Thatcher Demko has yet to practice with his team since he got injured on December 1. The goaltender is traveling with the Canucks on their road trip, however, and you really have to hope they don’t try to rush him back to save a season that already looks lost.
- There were 11 goals scored in this game, so there’s no time to waste dilly-dallying. Let’s jump in.
- Kyle Connor opened the scoring after some crisp passing off the rush by the Jets that picked apart the Canucks’ defence. J.T. Miller was caught puck-watching as Connor snuck in behind him and could only spin for a desperate attempt at a shot block when he couldn’t block the pass. Connor went upstairs faster than a pair of newlyweds to make it 1-0.
- The Canucks seemingly responded less than a minute later, with Ilya Mikheyev catching Dave Rittich off-guard with a low shot off the rush that slipped through his five-hole. The Jets challenged, however, and it was ruled that Bo Horvat entered the offensive zone ahead of the puck when he got tangled up with the Jets’ Karson Kuhlman, which sounds like the name of the popular boy antagonist in a Disney channel movie — “You named him ‘Cool Man’? Isn’t that a little on the nose?” “No no, we totally spelled it differently.”
- Instead of a tie game, the Jets doubled their lead when Oliver Ekman-Larsson got caught on a bad pinch and Connor burned past Tyler Myers to turn the subsequent 2-on-1 into a breakaway. Connor then copied Mikheyev’s whole flow and snapped a quick shot through Delia’s five-hole just like Mikheyev did a moment earlier.
- Elias Pettersson sparked the first of two two-goal comebacks with a brilliant play to create a goal for Miller. Pettersson made a slick spin move to gain the offensive zone, then Miller retrieved the rebound along the boards and moved the puck down low. Pettersson attacked the loose puck, lifting Dubois’ stick, then jammed the puck at the net before poking the rebound to a net-crashing Miller for the grimy goal. Compared to the zone entry, the finish was a piece of junk, but as Han Solo said, “She may not look like much but she’s got it where it counts.”
- The Canucks tied the game two minutes later. Curtis Lazar didn’t get a point on the goal but created the chance with a stiff check on Axel Jonsson-Fjallby for a turnover. Dakota Joshua fed the loose puck to Luke Schenn at the point and his shot was deftly tipped in by Jack Studnicka, skee-balling the puck into the 100 target.
- The strong second-half of the first period was undone early in the second period. Tyler Myers was tracking Nikolaj Ehlers when he went behind the net, then suddenly stopped at the post instead of following Ehlers and pressuring him. Ehlers had more space than a sitcom character in their apartment, and was able to pick his spot on Delia, who remained tight to the post instead of pushing out to challenge the shot.
- Two minutes later, Brenden Dillon sprung Adam Lowry on a breakaway between Myers and Travis Dermott with a long stretch pass. Lowry outwaited a sprawling Delia but got in too deep and could only jam the puck off the post. Fortunately for him, both Dermott and Myers were too busy staring at the puck to realize Morgan Barron was standing at the top of the crease just waiting for Lowry to centre the puck so he could bang it into the open net.
- That was the end of Delia’s night, with Spencer Martin coming into the game in relief. That seemed to be a wakeup call for the Canucks, who mounted their second two-goal comeback of the game.
- A lot of Bo Horvat’s increased goalscoring has come from tips and deflections, as well as power play one-timers, but he proved he can snipe with the best of them. Miller tipped an Ethan Bear stretch pass to Horvat on the right wing and he ripped a rocket from the top of the right faceoff circle, giving the puck a case of the zoomies like a cat in the middle of the night. It was a perfect bar-down shot for his 29th goal of the season.
- A mix of the Canucks’ first and second power-play unit tied the game. Miller retrieved a missed shot by Conor Garland, then put the puck right on Sheldon Dries’ tape for a superb tip inside the far post. Full credit to Miller for the three-point game after the early defensive error, making it 4-4 halfway through the game.
- Jonsson-Fjallby gave the Jets back the lead with a shot just over the shoulder of Martin. The hyphenated one shot the puck right through Luke Schenn’s legs, making it tough for Martin to pick up. It looked like it hit Martin in the mask, so it might have been tougher to stop than it initially looked, buzzing the tower like Maverick.
- The Canucks managed comebacks in the first and second periods, but couldn’t manage a third. On a golden opportunity to do so on the power play, they instead gave up their league-leading ninth shorthanded goal against. Garland missed the puck on a pinch and the Jets broke out 3-on-2. Garland and Mikheyev took too long to start on the backcheck and Andrei Kuzmenko couldn’t catch Dylan DeMelo while starting from behind the Jets’ net, so DeMelo was able to pick his spot off the drop pass.
- The Jets made it 7-4 after Pettersson lost the puck to the Jets’ forecheck. Dubois arguably got away with a hold but he was also double-teamed, with little support. Ehlers took the puck and fed Connor, who was more open than Freeport’s L.L. Bean, and he completed the hat trick — the second hat trick the Canucks have given up to Jets in as many games.
- “We gave up seven goals without an empty-netter,” said Miller. “We’re just not defending hard enough. We just seem to be giving up a lot of big chances, it seems like, and they’re just capitalizing on their looks.”
- That’s one way to summarize the game. Here’s another:
