You may or may not have heard that perception is reality, but the saying can provide a telling insight into how a person views the 2024-25 season for the Vancouver Canucks so far. Do they consider the team a failure or a success?
For example, do you see a Cancucks team with only five wins in their past 15 games, or one with just five regulation losses in that same time frame? Or do you look at a team dealing with too much adversity due to key personnel injuries and a reported rift between two of your most important players, or one which has an impressive collective mental fortitude that still has them in a playoff spot?
Heck, we can even extend this to the interesting disparity between the Canucks' results thus far at home compared to on the road. While their record of 7-8-6 on home-ice is underwhelming, contrast this with a 11-4-2 record on their travels, which is one of the best in the NHL.
A tough loss to the Predators
We say all this, as you can use the perception test for Friday night's home game against the Nashville Predators. The final scoreline of 3-0 to the visitors does sound bad, and yet it was just 1-0 until two empty-net goals inside the final two minutes of the third period.
Of course the fact that the Canucks were blanked is telling in its own right, despite the shutout coming at the hands of Juuse Saros, who continues to be one of the top goalies in the game. At the end of the day though, Vancouver is tied-15th in average goals scored per game, certainly not helped by ranking a lowly 29th in shots on goal as of Saturday morning.
On an individual level, Miller has now gone 12 games without a goal, in what continues to be a difficult season for him personally. Prior to his recent injury, Pettersson had just three goals in his last 13 games, to further highlight the collective offensive struggles of the team.
Miller knows he needs to better
Admirably, Miller still spoke to the media postgame, to discuss the scorning issues for both himself specifically and the team as a whole. As per Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet, he said:
"Clearly, Iām a little snakebit right now. I definitely put pressure on myself to step up in the scoring department right now. They're three of our more highly-skilled players (who are injured). So I think with who we have right now, obviously we have to do a little more as a group. But the hard thing is, you don't want to try to do too much. You have to kind of let the game come to you, get on the inside and score some ugly goals."
It's both tough and surprising to see Miller struggling, just because of how prolific he was for the Canucks during the past three campaigns. This includes last season, when he set single-season career highs of 37 goals, 103 total points and a +32 rating.
The 2024 NHL All-Star went into more candid detail about how he has performed, as well as what he needs to do to improve. He said:
"I mean, it's hard to score, and especially without the guys that typically drive offensive play a lot of nights for us. I'm trying not to get too wrapped up in it (mentally). Like I tell you guys all the time, I've just got to play solid hockey, and that other stuff will come. I believe that."
No shortage of effort from the Canucks
In fairness to the Canucks they did out-shoot the Predators on the night, with a 27-19 advantage in shots on goal. They were clearly also not lacking in commitment and work ethic, as evidenced by a convincing 51-21 edge in hits.
Ultimately though, the Canucks just couldn't break down Saros and the Predators defence. Speaking about Miller's line, also as per MacIntyre, coach Rick Tocchet said:
"I mean, they want to score. But sometimes if you want to score so much, you forget about doing the little things. Six on five, you know, if you just eliminate people, somebody's going to get the puck. I think we're trying to worry about plays. But, yeah, of course they want to score. I mean, they feel the pressure, yeah."
What will help Miller, his line, and the team in general, is some good luck, something which has been in severely short supply for them so far in 2024-25. If not, at some point it won't matter what you're perception of the Canucks is, if they end up missing out on the playoffs altogether.