There is a silver lining to the Vancouver Canucks losing their fifth-straight game to start the season — they didn’t give up a multi-goal lead this time.
Instead, they gave up multiple one-goal leads, which somehow feels like an improvement.
The Canucks are now the only team in the NHL that has yet to win a game. And yet, incredibly, they’re among the league leaders in time spent with the lead. The Canucks have played 306 minutes and 23 seconds of hockey this season; they’ve had the lead for 152 minutes and 15 seconds of that time — nearly half.
Unfortunately, none of those minutes or seconds have been at the end of the game when the final horn sounds.
Their season-opening five-game road trip ends with an 0-3-2 record, with the Canucks picking up two of a possible ten points. At this point, what kind of reception will the Canucks get at their home opener, having already lost five games?
Of course, there’s still plenty of time for the Canucks to turn everything around. They have 77 games left, after all, and they could easily bounce back from this five-game losing streak with a five-game winning streak, erasing all concerns.
But there’s an old cliché in hockey: the games in October count just as much in the standings as the games in April. It may seem silly to be thinking about the standings five games into the season but for a team like the Canucks, who are more likely to be on the playoff bubble than the top of the division, every point counts.
The hole the Canucks are currently digging isn’t too deep just yet. They could climb out of it pretty easily — maybe Tyler Myers could give Conor Garland a boost. But if they keep digging, pretty soon the only way out will be for them to dig their way out. No, no, dig up, stupid.
Digging their way out is, of course, a metaphor for tanking for Connor Bedard. No, no, I won't start thinking about the Canucks tanking, even after I watched this game.
- There’s no getting around it — J.T. Miller was awful in this game. Even though he wasn’t in a match-up role against the Wild’s top line, Miller got destroyed in terms of puck possession. Shot attempts were 14-to-6 for the Wild when Miller was on the ice at 5-on-5 and shots on goal were 8-to-2. At least he wasn’t on the ice for any goals against during regulation…but this game didn’t end in regulation.
- To add insult to injury, this was the Minnesota Wild’s first win of the season. Worse, this was the first time the Wild even took a lead this season, opening the scoring in the first five minutes of the game. It might have been better for the Canucks if they were facing a more complacent team with several wins under their belt already instead of one as desperate as they were for their first win.
- The primary blame for the 1-0 goal can be placed on Riley Stillman, who chased Ryan Hartman into the corner when Kyle Burroughs was already on his way. Both defencemen checking one player in the corner is a recipe for disaster — Hartman was able to swing the puck off the boards to a wide-open Mats Zuccarello in front, right where Stillman should have been, and Zuccarello roofed it.
- Like Steven Seagal, the Canucks were under siege — the shots were 9-0 for the Wild after seven minutes — but a strong shift by Elias Pettersson’s line with Vasily Podkolzin and Andrei Kuzmenko shifted the momentum, then Bo Horvat and Tanner Pearson capitalized on the next shift. Horvat sent Pearson into the offensive zone with speed, then drove to the net past Matt Dumba to finish Pearson’s fantastic return pass to tie the game.
- At some point, Bruce Boudreau has to realize that whatever line Pettersson is on is the first line, right? Even though Pettersson was held off the scoreboard, his line was the Canucks’ best, holding the puck in the offensive zone for long stretches and creating chance after chance. Pettersson had a team-high eight shot attempts and hit the crossbar on a second-period power play.
- A surprisingly close second behind the Pettersson line in this game was the fourth line of Dakota Joshua, Nils Åman, and Curtis Lazar, who frequently hemmed the Wild into their own zone — the Canucks out-attempted the Wild 11-to-3 when that line was on the ice together at 5-on-5. There were many people, myself included, who thought that Joshua should be scratched after a lacklustre performance in the first four games. Instead, Nils Höglander was sent to the pressbox and Joshua responded with a two-point game.
- Joshua set up Åman’s first career NHL goal after a great stretch pass by Quinn Hughes. Joshua backed into the offensive zone, protecting the puck from Alex Goligoski, then spotted Åman streaking down the right wing with speed. Åman took the pass, drove to the net, and put the puck just inside the post after a quick move to the forehand.
- The 2-1 lead didn’t last long. On a Canucks line change, Kirill Kaprizov was able to build up speed through the neutral zone and drove past a flat-footed Kuzmenko. Kaprizov centred for Sam Steel, who was being given too much space by Hughes and Pettersson, who didn’t seem to communicate who was taking him. Steel made like his DC Comics namesake and hammered the puck in.
- Joshua gave the Canucks the lead again with a goal of his own in the second period. A strong shift by the fourth line hemmed in the Wild and left them scrambling in the defensive zone. Joshua got inside position on Kaprizov as Oliver Ekman-Larsson sent a shot on net, giving Joshua two attempts at the rebound, putting the second attempt upstairs where Millenials keep their parents.
- Stillman left the game in the second period. Already with a split open lip from a fight with Brandon Duhaime, Stillman took a shoulder to the chin from Joel Eriksson Ek. Boudreau had no update on Stillman after the game but there has to be concern about a potential concussion from that type of hit. I feel bad, having just asked what it would take for Jack Rathbone to get into the lineup — this isn't what I wanted!
- The Canucks once again entered the third period with a lead and, once again, they couldn’t keep it. Tanner Pearson took a costly penalty but the Canucks got a bit of a break — even though the Wild pulled Marc-Andre Fleury for the extra attacker, no extra attacker actually took the ice. Instead of the Wild getting some extra time with the man advantage, they just played 5-on-5 with no goaltender for a bit.
- The Wild power play was a disaster for the Canucks. Tyler Myers got his stick broken on a shot block, so Horvat gave him his stick, leaving the Canucks essentially defending a 5-on-3. They actually defended pretty well, with Pettersson dropping in deep in the slot to prevent any cross-seam passes, but Zuccarello made a brilliant deflection at the side of the net to tip in a Kaprizov pass on the short side past Demko.
- Zuccarello’s goal was a near carbon copy of a similar attempt on the power play by Kaprizov in the first period, just from a little bit tighter to the net. That’s something to keep an eye on when the Canucks face the Wild again — that might be a set play they’ve worked on with the power play.
- The Canucks and Wild both got their chances to win in regulation but couldn’t find the game-winning goal. You have to give the Canucks credit — they were playing their guts out trying to get that first win. Just look at Curtis Lazar throwing out his leg to make a kick save shot block late in the game, putting his body on the line.
- In overtime, however, one mistake led to a disastrous finish. During a long shift in the defensive zone, Miller had a chance to just get the puck out of the zone, as he raced to the puck on the far boards. Miller had already been on the ice for a minute-and-a-half and needed a line change — even an icing would have given him and his linemates a bit of respite and the potential for a timeout. Instead, he tried to protect the puck and play it back to Tyler Myers, only to end up in a board battle with Kaprizov that he lost.
- Possession is important in overtime and if Miller had been able to get the puck back to Myers with control, they would have been able to start a line change while Myers ragged the puck behind the net. But it was a risky move in that situation given how long they’d been on the ice and it didn’t pay off — a similarly-exhausted Myers sprawled to the ice to prevent a pass and ended up tripping Kaprizov.
- On the delayed penalty, the Wild took their time against the tired Canucks line, with Kaprizov eventually taking advantage of a scrambling Demko who got completely turned around, finally putting the puck over Demko and past Boeser, who was desperately trying to play road hockey goalie behind him.
- While Demko scrambled, Myers desperately sprawled towards Kaprizov, and Boeser tried to make a goal-line save, Miller stood in the slot and watched it all happen. In his defence, he was on the ice for a whopping 2:16 in ice time before the puck went in, but it’s still hard to watch.
- Am I being too hard on Miller? I don’t want to be. I would much prefer to be praising him for playing the type of strong, two-way hockey that he said he wanted to play before the start of the season. Heck, maybe staying in the slot was the right play, just in case Kaprizov sent a pass to a teammate instead of scoring himself. It’s just hard to ignore how poorly he’s played to start the season.
- “For the most part, I thought we were really good,” said Boudreau. “We’re not quitting. We keep plodding away. We didn’t get the wins, we got two points on the road on a tough road trip and now we get to go home in front of our fans and I think it’ll be a different story.”
