Making his first appearance for the Vancouver Canucks since Nov. 27, goalie Arturs Silovs made 30 saves on 32 shots against the Utah Hockey Club on Sunday night.
That was a pretty impressive performance for the youngster, who has again been put in a tough spot following another Thatcher Demko injury. The problem was that, despite Silovs's performance, the Canucks scored one goal in a 2-1 loss to a Utah team pushing back up the standings for that WC2 playoff spot.
Sure, the Canucks are still in that spot at the time of this writing, but if they continue to play like they have, they will be back out of it in no time. Utah just got defenceman Sean Durzi back from a major shoulder injury, goalie Connor Ingram is back from his personal leave, and forwards Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Logan Cooley, and Dylan Guenther continue to cook on offence.
The Calgary Flames, who also won on Sunday night, have no designs of giving up on their season, especially after adding Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost via a trade with Philadelphia.
The irony is that Silovs, who is now 1-5-1 this season, gave the Canucks a rare chance to win a game with him in net - and a big game at that. The Canucks responded by scoring one goal on 15 total shots on goal in a 60-minute hockey game. For those who are not math buffs out there, that is one shot on goal every four minutes.
In some better news, despite the two consecutive losses, the Canucks are still 6-3-1 in their last 10 games. Rick Tocchet had the team playing well, even with the Demko and Quinn Hughes injuries and an ineffective Elias Pettersson.
At the same time, it will be interesting to see how the trade deadline and offseason play out for Tocchet and the Canucks if this lack of competence continues for more than a few games at a time.