Vancouver Canucks: Time to panic after the road trip

Well, that wasn’t very fun. The Vancouver Canucks finished their six-game road trip with a terrible 6-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild. You can’t help but wonder if this could begin the unraveling of the 2018-19 season.

The Vancouver Canucks were sitting pretty before they hit the road for a six-game trip away from home ice, leaving the west coast with a 9-6-1 record.

Vancouver blew a 2-0 lead and fell 3-2 in a shootout to the Detroit Red Wings last Tuesday. They followed it up with an 8-5 road win against the Boston Bruins — a victory that made the Canucks look more like a legitimate playoff team.

Then there was that awful meltdown on Saturday against the Buffalo Sabres, where they blew a late 3-1 lead and fell in a shootout. Vancouver followed it up with two lackluster efforts in the Big Apple, falling to the New York Rangers and New York Islanders 2-1 and 5-2, respectively.

The Canucks hoped to finish the trip on a high note when they visited the Minnesota Wild on Thursday, but that was a pipe dream. In what may have been their worst performance of the season, Vancouver fell 6-2 — losing five of six on the road trip.

Now listen, it’s never fun to start jumping to conclusions this early in the season. But the Canucks had prime opportunities to pick up some more points and maintain the No. 1 spot in the Pacific Division.

More from The Canuck Way

• Which team won the Bo Horvat trade?
• What to expect from newcomers Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Räty
• Back to the future: How the skate uniforms became a regular Canucks’ feature night
• Canucks kick off 2023 with disappointing 6-2 loss to Islanders
• 2nd period penalty trouble sinks Canucks in 4-2 loss against Winnipeg

They couldn’t do that, and you can’t help but wonder if this will be the start of their annual winter unraveling.

Consider that the Canucks stood at 14-10-4 on Dec. 5 last year, only to pick up just two (!) wins in their next 15 games.

We’ve seen this story before, and the Canucks don’t have two great leaders in the Sedin twins to help them get out of this slump.

Rather, these 2018-19 Canucks are filled with young players that still have a lot to learn.

With productive playmakers and/or leaders such as Brock Boeser, Alexander Edler, Brandon Sutter and Sven Baertschi out, the Canucks are struggling everywhere.

This is just the reality of being a rebuilding team. Vancouver doesn’t have enough veteran talent or leadership in its lineup to get by when the injuries pile up. You can’t ask rookie Elias Pettersson and Bo Horvat to carry the offence every night. The Canucks need more players to step up, and it’s simply not happening.

And all of these flaws were exposed during the six-game road trip. If the first line wasn’t producing offence, the Canucks weren’t scoring much. If the struggling group of defencemen didn’t play mistake-free hockey, Jacob Markstrom (and in Thursday’s case, Richard Bachman), the goalie wasn’t going to steal the game.

The slumping Canucks now have to figure out ways to stop a surging Montreal Canadiens team tomorrow night, followed by an appointment against the powerhouse Winnipeg Jets on Monday. Good luck with that.

That first month of the season was filled with dazzling performances by the likes of Horvat and Petterson — and some thrilling victories to go with it. But the Canucks were embarrassed aplenty on this five-game road trip, and there’s reason to worry that this could lead to another long-term slump in winter.