3 Canucks to blame for embarrassing road loss to Flyers

The Vancouver Canucks (2-1-0) travelled down to the United States for the first time this season, squaring off with the Philadelphia Flyers (2-1-0) in their home opener. Former Canucks head coach John Tortorella had his Flyers ready to play, and they gave their loyal supporters a show with the Phillies also playing in the NLCS at the same time. The Canucks did not.

An ice-cold start to the first period set Vancouver back early; young defenseman Yegor Zamula scored less than two minutes into the game to give the hosts a near-instant 1-0 lead. The Canucks would eventually settle in and start winning the shot battle, until Noah Juulsen handed Sean Couturier a penalty shot by taking a foolish penalty.

The 2019 Selke Trophy winner was able to deceive Thatcher Demko by briefly facing backwards before deftly firing a snap shot off the inside of the far post and into the net. Demko, meanwhile, stopped the other 40 shots that came his way, and the Canucks really couldn’t have asked any more of him. The American netminder was a brick wall in what certainly seems to be a bounce-back season from him.

And, while it’s nice that some moral victories can be had in spite of this loss, the Canucks’ season is more than those first two wins against the Edmonton Oilers. Losses are bound to happen, but in this particular instance, the effort from start to finish was dire. If there was a textbook way to lose a hockey game, the Canucks’ performance against the Flyers is probably it.

#3. Elias Pettersson doesn’t bring the offense for the Canucks

Just days after getting some Hart Trophy plaudits, Elias Pettersson let this game fall by the wayside. For a player also trying to earn a huge contract as a pending free agent, this performance wasn’t good enough – simply put.

Based on Moneypuck’s postgame expected goals chart, Pettersson’s 0.15 expected goals falls below Conor Garland (0.19), Dakota Joshua (0.22), Brock Boeser (0.22), and Pius Suter (0.37). Nobody played particularly well, and yet Pettersson’s offensive performance still fell well short of snuff.

The 24-year-old also only managed one shot on goal in his 23:48 of ice time, and only had one shot attempt blocked. Pettersson was 2/6 on faceoffs, and his Corsi percentage of 39.3 percent was higher than only Nils Hoglander (35.1) and Carson Soucy (31.4).

Although we can be certain Pettersson, Garland, and Andrei Kuzmenko will have much better performances as a unit in the future, Pettersson needs to rise above and take over games for the Canucks. That didn’t happen on Tuesday night.

#2. Tyler Myers still isn’t good

Not much more can be said about Tyler Myers’ Canucks tenure than what has already been said, and yet the 6-foot-8 defenseman still finds more ways to impress fans with his ability to put the team in disadvantageous situations.

Myers took two penalties in a game where the Canucks were down two goals nearly the whole time, and that only added insult to injury with Suter, Juulsen, Ian Cole, and Sam Lafferty all paying visits to the sin bin themselves. The veteran defenseman also had two defensive zone giveaways, and drilled Pettersson with a slapshot at one point too.

Myers just can’t produce offense like he did very early in his career, and his decision-making and defensive work are each too poor to offset that. He’ll turn 34 on Feb. 1, and at this rate, the Canucks probably can’t wait to get his $6 million cap hit off their books this summer.

Internally, the team doesn’t have many options to replace the 33-year-old, but if the poor play continues longer than a few games, they might be forced to find an alternative one way or another.