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

After beating the Calgary Flames 4-2 in Abbotsford on Monday night, the Vancouver Canucks were trying to douse the Calgary Flames again after four days off.

Unfortunately, the Canucks were the ones that got burned this time.

Before the game, the big storyline was that Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes have re-signed. Pettersson was signed to a three-year deal worth 7.35 million dollars per season and Hughes was signed to a six-year deal worth 7.85 million dollars per season.

The other big storyline was the situation with Travis Hamonic. Friday was the deadline for him to decide whether he would opt-out, retire or play the season.

Shortly before puck drop, it was confirmed that Hamonic would not be opting out of the season. General manager Jim Benning spoke about it in a statement through CanucksPR.

"“We’ve received confirmation that Travis Hamonic will not be opting out this season. He remains at home, dealing with some personal matters. We continue to support him, and out of respect for the situation, we will have no further comment at this time.”"

The Canucks were outshot by 22-31 by the Flames and other than a goal by Jonah Gadjovich, but couldn’t really muster anything else past Jacob Markstrom and Dustin Wolf.

Head coach Travis Green clearly wasn’t happy with the performance.

“I don’t think we played very well tonight,” said Green per Patrick Johnston of The Province and Vancouver Sun. “We didn’t have a lot of good hockey players. Deserved to lose tonight. I thought our passing and receiving really wasn’t very sharp at all. Don’t think we got places quick enough.”

They were pretty good on the penalty kill (mainly due to Thatcher Demko) going one for six (The Flames scored their only power play goal on an empty netter.) The power play was not good as they went zero for four.

Here are three takeaways from the 4-1 loss.

1. Luke Schenn struggles

It’s only preseason, but Luke Schenn’s second stint with the Canucks isn’t off to the best start.

The two-time Stanley Cup Champion started the night off with Jack Rathbone and he did not look good.

He was easily getting beat by the Flames players and was on the ice for two of the Flames goals.

Johnny Gaudreau in particular made life difficult for Schenn. Gaudreau pretty much left him in the dust and he couldn’t help out Demko.

He (along with Zack MacEwen) tried to fight Nikita Zadorov behind the play. To quote Jason Batemen in the 2004 film Dodgeball, “ That’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for him.”

It did not.

Schenn was getting beat all night by the speed of the Flames players and struggled to keep up.

Overall, it wasn’t a good impression for Schenn to make the team.