Canucks: 3 takeaways from 4-1 loss to the Calgary Flames

The Vancouver Canucks are the epitome of meaningless, uneventful hockey right now.

The team continued their final road trip of the season on Thursday night, squaring off against the Calgary Flames.

It’s been a disappointing year for both clubs, and each one find themselves on the outside looking in for the postseason.

The Flames, who many had pegged to make the playoffs at the beginning of the year, once again played well below their given expectations, thanks to consecutive, underwhelming performances from their star players.

The Canucks have also really taken a step back from their winning ways since the bubble last summer (ah yes, the good ol’ days of the bubble…), spiralling their way into the bottom of the division early on in the season. Factor in the plethora of nagging injuries and battles against COVID-19 recovery, as well as a compressed, unforgiving end-of-the-year schedule, and you can see why supporters from both fanbases are ready to skip ahead to the offseason.

The Flames ended up coming away with the victory in this contest, beating the Canucks by a score of 4-1, while at the same time stealing almost three hours of our lives that we’ll never be able to get back.

This match-up also marked the first of four contests between the Flames and Canucks, with the remaining three games set to take place over the next six days (during your lunch breaks, most likely…).

In other words? Get ready for some low-talent, high-cringe hockey between two teams that are just trying to finish ahead of the Ottawa Senators, all while attempting to tune out the deafening laughter of the hockey gods as this bizarre, pandemic-induced situation unfolds.

One silver lining? At least we can picture some of the players as burger ingredients.

Without further ado, here are three takeaways from last night’s loss:

Consistently one step behind the play, time and time again

This has been an ongoing theme for the Canucks this season.

Whether they’re on the second half of a back-to-back, or trying to overcome a combination of bad luck and poor-decision making, or simply just going up against a far more superior team, the Canucks always appear to be lagging on each shift.

Thursday night was no exception.

Take a look at the Flames’ first two goals in the opening frame.

In a matter of seconds, Nate Schmidt misread a passing play along the boards, Alex Edler unnecessarily dropped to the ice and failed to block the pass, and Tanner Pearson totally forgot about the backdoor option to the left of Thatcher Demko.

The second goal wasn’t much better.

After failing to clear the puck from their own zone, the Canucks were also unable to get bodies in front of the incoming shot from the point. Add in some questionable positioning from Olli Juolevi, who, for some strange reason, found himself behind his own net, instead of covering the open Flames’ forward, who ended up easily deflecting the puck past Demko for the eventual game-winning goal.

This marked the 24th time that the team entered the second period trailing by one or more goals.

Their record in these situations, you ask? 4-19-1.

Enough said.

The battle between the pipes

Despite blowing yet another lead in the opening frame, the Canucks were actually able to bounce back pretty well in the second period.

The team came out flying for the first half of the middle frame, playing with much more intensity and energy than we saw in the first 20 minutes. They peppered Flames’ goaltender Jacob Markstrom with eight shots on net before his team could even register one, and were able to produce some quality, albeit fairly low-danger scoring chances.

The Flames bounced back in the latter half of the period, but Demko was just as dialled in between the pipes as his former teammate at the other end of the ice, keeping the score at 2-1.

Demko wasn’t as busy as he normally was during the middle frame, only facing ten shots total, but still had to come up with key saves here and there, including this glove save robbery on

Oscar

Oliver Kylington:

But, as expected, the team broke down defensively in front of Demko in the third period, allowing the Flames to throw 11 more high-quality, point-blank shots on net, with two of them getting past Demko in the dying moments of the contest.

There’s no doubt that Markstrom and Demko were the respective first stars on their rosters, with both netminders bailing out their team on multiple occasions, as well as keeping the game tightly-contested for the much of the 60 minutes of play.

The Flames, as expected, were able to produce some last-minute offensive heroics to come away with the two points, but it easily could’ve gone the other way if Vancouver found their scoring touch first.

Regardless of which team can eventually put more pucks in the back of the net over these next three contests, expect Demko and Markstrom to battle it out on a nightly basis. And boy, what a storyline that would be.