The Vancouver Canucks' playoff hopes have taken another hit, as J.T. Miller and the New York Rangers escaped Madison Square Garden with a 5-3 victory and two points on Saturday afternoon.
Contrary to the final score, the Canucks fully dominated this game. And the one guy the team really let down on Saturday? Their captain, Quinn Hughes.
With Hughes on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks controlled 74% of the shot attempts (26-9), 88.9% of the scoring chances (16-2), and held all of the high-danger scoring chances (8-0), per Natural Stat Trick. Despite that, the Canucks only out-scored the Rangers 2-1.
So, excluding Miller's game-ending empty-net goal, the Rangers out-scored the Canucks 3-1 when Hughes was not on the ice.
By extension, it was not a great outing for the Canucks' depth players. Kiefer Sherwood was out-scored 4-1 at 5-on-5, which also means he was on the ice for every Rangers goal aside from Miller's. Drew O'Connor, Derek Forbort, Teddy Blueger, Marcus Pettersson, and Tyler Myers also lost the scoring battle in this one.
For a player like Hughes, there is only so much Vancouver can ask of him or expect him to do.
Forwards Elias Pettersson and Nils Hoglander both bowed out of the contest due to injury, and the Canucks were already without Filip Chytil (concussion), who is not even with the team for this road trip.
If Pettersson, in particular, is forced to miss any games, the Canucks can probably throw in the towel on this season. It has already been proven that Hughes physically cannot do it all himself, and the task becomes that much harder when the Canucks' No. 1 forward suffers an injury.
Canucks fans still pulling for a playoff push will have to hope that the Chicago Blackhawks and New York Islanders pull off upsets against the St. Louis Blues and Calgary Flames, respectively, later on Saturday.
If not, things are going to be looking bleak in short order.