Canucks: 3 takeaways from disappointing 3-2 loss to Philadelphia

Don’t look now, but it might already be time to enter panic mode for the Vancouver Canucks.

The team continued their season-opening five-game road trip on Saturday, facing off against the Philadelphia Flyers for a matinee match-up at Wells Fargo Center.

It wasn’t exactly the best start to the 2022-23 campaign for the Canucks, who blew a three-goal lead to Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night.

Fortunately for Vancouver, they were set to play against a less offensively-loaded club in Philadelphia, who were already without key names like Sean Couturier, Cam Atkinson and Ryan Ellis.

You can probably see where we’re going with this.

The Canucks ended up putting together an even more disappointing performance than the one on Wednesday, once again allowing their opponent to crawl back into the game and to eventually come away with the two points.

With the loss, Vancouver now falls to 0-2-0 on the year. Although it is still early on, it’s also hard to look past some of the glaring issues that have presented themselves in the first six periods of the season.

Here are the three takeaways from Saturday’s 3-2 loss:

Special teams anything but special

Quite frankly, there’s no way to sugar coat this. The Canucks’ special teams need help, and they need help fast.

After putting up historically-low numbers on the penalty kill last year, while also sporting one of the more inconsistent powerplays in terms of unit production and chemistry, the team has picked up right where they left off in the first two games of the season.

The Canucks surrendered five powerplay opportunities to the Flyers on Saturday afternoon, bringing their total to a staggering 13 in just six periods of play.

Three of those powerplays, one of which was their second too-many-men infraction in as many games, took place in the opening frame when the Canucks were clearly the worse of the two teams on the ice.

Yes, it is hard to fault the Canucks for drawing the other two penalties in the second period, particularly the (stop us if you’ve heard this before) questionable high-sticking call against Nils Höglander.

But, at the end of the day, Vancouver wasn’t able to stop their opponent from capitalizing on their man advantage opportunities, resulting in their lead being cut down to one in the middle frame.

To make matters worse, the Canucks couldn’t even capitalize on their own powerplay opportunities, going 0-for-5 on the afternoon, including yet another shorthanded tally against (see below for more), as well as two failed powerplay attempts in the third period when the game was very much up for grabs.

Dude, where’s our centre depth?

The Canucks were pretty confident about their centre depth of J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson and Bo Horvat heading into this season. Two games in, and it’s already hard not to question that assessment.

Let’s start with Pettersson and Horvat.

Both were fairly non-existent when on the ice, combining for just four shots on goal throughout 60 minutes of play, while also posting Corsi For percentages of 67.50% and 51.43% respectively.

For Horvat, this marks his second straight lacklustre outing with the Canucks. The 27-year-old captain, who is entering the final year of his current deal, is still looking for his first goal of the season and hasn’t shown much offensive prowess on the third line with Vasily Podkolzin and Conor Garland.

Pettersson hasn’t been nearly as disappointing as Horvat, having already posted a highlight reel goal and having already found chemistry with linemate Andrei Kuzmenko. But, when your team is blowing leads and desperately trying to claw back into contests, especially this early on in the year, you need your best players to make some noise and be your best players.

Speaking of making noise, Miller certainly did that on Saturday, but for all the wrong reasons.

Miller, who occupied the 1C role with Tanner Pearson and Brock Boeser on his flanks, once again looked decent in the first period, showing signs of his previous 99-point self.

But, just like what unravelled on Wednesday in Edmonton, it all went downhill for #9.

Miller looked out of sorts in the final 40 minutes, failing to establish any control or speed in the neutral zone while also barely creating any scoring chances in the offensive zone.

The 29-year-old, who inked a seven-year, $56 million extension that kicks in next season, was also the main culprit on Philadelphia’s shorthanded tally, blatantly and sloppily giving the puck away en route to the game-tying goal.

Miller has now been on the ice for all eight goals against this season, and is out to an early lead in that category amongst all NHL players, a distinction he held back in 2020-21 with 72 in 58 games.

Let’s see if this one-two-three punch down the middle can turn things around in a hurry.