Canucks choke again vs. Flyers, establish concerning trend

One game could be a coincidence, but two games are not. After taking and losing the lead twice against the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday night, the Vancouver Canucks are establishing a concerning trend.

In Wednesday's season-opener against the Calgary Flames, the Canucks had leads of 3-0 and 4-1, thanks in large part to two power-play goals and a strong individual performance from Brock Boeser.

Four unanswered Flames goals in the span of under 14 minutes gave Calgary a 5-4 lead, but J.T. Miller was able to capitalize at the death with an extra attacker on the ice and tie that game at 5-5.

As we know, disaster struck in overtime as Connor Zary weaved his way through the Canucks defense unabated, scoring and winning the 11-goal game, 6-5.

Generally speaking, the Canucks could just flush that one, clean up some penalties and other mistakes, and get onto the next one. But they pulled the same vanishing act against the Flyers on Friday.

Forwards Nils Hoglander and Teddy Blueger scored midway through the first and second periods to give the Canucks 1-0 and 2-1 leads, but Tyson Foerster and Cam York took advantage of some extremely lax defending to punish Kevin Lankinen (who was outstanding, by the way) and the Canucks.

As good as Lankinen was on Friday, and as bad as Arturs Silovs was on Wednesday, the Canucks still found a way to lose a game rather than win one. They sit with an 0-0-2 record and are now without Tyler Myers for the immediate future, as the 34-year-old defenseman suffered an apparent lower-body injury against the Flyers after just 36 seconds of ice time.

Through two games, Elias Pettersson, who is getting paid like an NHL superstar, has not played like one. He has one assist and exactly two shots on goal so far, so he needs to get back on his horse if the Canucks want any chance of repeating the success of last season.

And, with Myers on the shelf, a team with already questionable defensive depth looks more shallow than ever before.