How the Canucks continue to run themselves into the ground
By Miles Bolton
Saturday night’s game in Toronto was the epitome of the Vancouver Canucks season thus far: an early multi-goal lead blown and turned into a loss.
The problem with this Canucks team isn’t scoring goals. It’s that they can’t keep the puck out of their net.
A basic statistic that shows how bad the Canucks’ defensive play has been this season is that they’ve allowed less than three goals only once this season, and it came in a 5-1 victory on October 28th against an uninspiring Pittsburgh Penguins team in the midst of a seven-game winless streak.
Vancouver has yet to be shut out this season, and their four wins were either blowouts or high-scoring affairs.
This team hasn’t been able to hold leads, nor have they been able to be clutch when it matters.
Take, for example, Saturday night’s game against the Maple Leafs. The Canucks took a two-goal lead in the first period off of goals from Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller, then threw it away in the second as Toronto scored three straight goals in under 10 minutes.
Auston Matthews, Pierre Engvall and former Canuck Jordie Benn all scored as the Maple Leafs, unlike their opponents, held onto their slim lead for a 3-2 victory.
This past offseason, the Canucks spent valuable cap space resigning Miller and Brock Boeser, and signing Ilya Mikheyev to a four-year contract paying him $4.75 million each season. As of today, Miller is third on the team in scoring with 14 points in 15 games, and Mikheyev isn’t far behind with eight points in 12 games. Boeser has had a slow start to the season with just seven assists in nine games.
When Miller’s $8 million contract extension kicks in next year, the Canucks will be paying him and Boeser nearly $15 million combined, which is valuable cap space that the team could have used to upgrade their blue line.
The one bright spot of the Canucks’ offseason has been the Andrei Kuzmenko signing. On an entry level deal, signing Kuzmenko – a potential superstar – is a risk you take. Despite being a healthy scratch on Sunday night, he’s still fifth on the team in scoring with 11 points in 15 games and has taken over Boeser’s spot on the first powerplay unit.
Then again, we know that goal scoring is not the problem in Vancouver. On many occasions this season, we’ve seen the Canucks give us a glimpse of hope by scoring early and often to take early leads, then blow them.
And as it was throughout much of the Benning era, it’s a frustrating time to be a Canucks fan. We know what this team needs – better defence – but we’re locked into a tough cap situation with our forwards.
After losing an uninspiring game in Boston – the number one team in the league – the following night, everyone knows that a significant change needs to happen for the Canucks to succeed in any capacity.
President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford and General Manager Patrik Allvin are doing their best to help the team, but the fans’ faith in this club is essentially all but lost.
What are your thoughts on the Canucks’ gameplay over this recent stretch of games? Let us know in the comments!