Canucks can’t buy a goal in frustrating 1-0 loss to Red Wings

Well, that is a tough pill to swallow. The Vancouver Canucks needed to win this game since before it, they were only a point behind the Vegas Golden Knights for the final wild-card spot.

The Detroit Red Wings have been struggling lately and they lost six straight games before this one. It was also Troy Stecher and Olli Juolevi’s return to Rogers Arena and they got a welcome back from P.A. announcer Al Murdoch.

For the Canucks, it was an opportunity to take two valuable points and move closer to the wild-card spot. They needed some luck of the Irish on this St. Patrick’s Day but unfortunately, luck wasn’t on their side.

There are going to be a lot of Canucks fans that are probably pouring Whiskey in the Jar after watching this game.

You just can’t base the Canucks’ performance on luck, however. It was a very frustrating game to watch. The Red Wings have also won both games against Vancouver this season with the last one being a 3-1 win in Detroit back in October.

To make things worse, it wasn’t a good night on the out-of-town scoreboard for the Canucks as well. The Golden Knights ended up beating the Florida Panthers 5-3, the Dallas Stars beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-3 in overtime, the Los Angeles Kings beat the San Jose Sharks 3-0 and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Buffalo Sabres 6-1. The only silver lining is that the Nashville Predators lost to the Philadelphia Flyers 5-4 in Claude Giroux’s 1000th NHL game and likely his last as a Flyer.

Talk about a double gut-punch.

Let’s just get into this post-game article, shall we?

Thoughts on the game

From the get-go, the Canucks had a tough time solving Alex Nedeljkovic. He has been struggling the last few months (and let’s face it, has not had a good season.) and of course, he stands on his head against the Canucks. There were plenty of shots from the point, from the slot and directly in front of Nedeljkovic but he ended up stopping all of them. The Canucks best chance was probably an Elias Pettersson redirect in the first period which was stopped by Nedeljkovic’s blocker.

While there were plenty of chances (43) on Nedeljkovic, there were a lot of shots that missed the net. It also felt like the Canucks were hesitant to shoot the puck as well. Watching the Canucks miss the net was just as annoying as people telling me to watch Euphoria. (I’ll get to it…someday.)

Brock Boeser had two golden opportunities on the power play in the second period but he ended up missing both of them. He also had a chance on a two-on-one with Bo Horvat but he couldn’t handle the pass.

The Red Wings got on the board as the second period power play expired after Horvat lost the handle of the puck and the Wings went the other way quickly. Pettersson and Quinn Hughes should have done better on the backcheck but Pius Suter was looking to make a pass back to Vladislav Namestnikov but the puck went off Hughes’ stick and through Thatcher Demko’s five-hole.

*Cue Sad Trombone*

The Canucks also spent a lot of time, particularly on the power play, passing the puck around and waiting too long to shoot. It seemed like they were waiting for a perfect opportunity to get a shot. They should of just let it rip like what they say before a Beyblade is spun.

Since it was mentioned the Red Wings have lost six straight, it is a red flag that the Canucks got outplayed by them for most of the game. That was especially evident throughout the first period as the Red Wings got 17 shots in that frame. Corsi for was 60%- 40% in favour of Detroit in the first period according to NaturalStatTrick.

The defence from the Canucks wasn’t good either particularly from Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Tyler Myers. The pairing had a rough game. When the two of them were on the ice, the Canucks gave up 37 shots. Myers was Vancouver’s leader in expected goals against with 1.76 with OEL right behind him with 1.75. Both of them couldn’t defend the Red Wings on the rush, turned the puck over and had trouble getting the puck out of the defensive zone.

But that was one common theme of the night, the Canucks had trouble clearing the puck out and were too careless in their own zone. They also had a tough time winning the defensive battles along the boards.

Hughes even made some poor giveaways in the first period and there were a lot of them throughout the game from the Canucks in the game.

Demko looked good in the game and he made two great saves off Lucas Raymond.

This was the first one and it surely looked liked Raymond scored. Just another day in the office for Demko, especially with no goal support.

The Canucks had a lot of missed opportunities and this game was a huge opportunity missed. Losing to and getting shutout by the Red Wings is simply unacceptable.