A great road trip ended badly as the Vancouver Canucks lost 5-2 Monday to the Philadelphia Flyers.
It ended the Canucks’ five-game, pre-Christmas trip at 4-1. So, they’re not perfect. When have they been?
But after an emotional and revealing 10 days, the Canucks are a lot less imperfect than they used to be.
Rather than defeat them, the monster trade of captain and best player Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild on Dec. 12 — during Vancouver’s outbound flight — provided clarity and purpose to the struggling National Hockey League team. It also provided energy with the arrival of middle-six centre Marco Rossi, world-class defence prospect (and NHL-ready) Zeev Buium, and speedy winger Liam Ohgren.
Their course re-set by management, the Canucks became a new team over the road trip, which opened with three games and a full week in the New York area.
The return to top form of goalie Thatcher Demko was a massive factor, and even on Monday the Canucks starter was beaten cleanly by a Flyers’ shooter only once, when Owen Tippett sealed the win by stuffing a breakaway forehand under the back bar of the goal frame after a rare misstep by Canucks rookie Tom Willander.
As we’ve noted, if Demko stays healthy, he is a one-man tank-buster, a goalie too good and too capable of carrying his team for the Canucks to stay at the bottom of the overall standings.
What has helped him is the noticeable uptick in the team’s defensive play, although they yielded the middle of the ice too often in Philadelphia and Boston, where the Canucks were outshot 42-22 by the Bruins but won 5-4 in a shootout on Saturday due to backup goalie Kevin Lankinen and timely scoring by members of the Vancouver youth movement.
Coach Adam Foote noted after that game that the Canucks’ younger players, like Ohgren, Linus Karlsson and Max Sasson, drove the attack in the absence of impact from veteran forwards.
Two nights later in Philadelphia, there really wasn’t anyone behind the wheel.
The Canucks actually had some good early shifts, outhitting the Flyers 10-2 in the first six minutes while outshooting them 3-2. But a dreadful power play after Christian Dvorak took a holding-the-stick penalty at 10:52 extinguished Vancouver’s momentum, and a dangerous Philadelphia power play following Tyler Myers’ holding penalty at 13:51 completely turned momentum the other way.
The Canucks never got it back. They were outskated and outplayed by Rick Tocchet’s Flyers from then on. Vancouver struggled through the neutral zone, rarely sustained shifts in the offensive end, were a step late everywhere and left too much open ice in front of Demko.
The goalie kept the game scoreless until Nikita Grebenkin deflected a puck past him at 13:13 of the second period after Flyer Rodrigo Abols easily turned away from Sasson with the puck.
With the game still there for them, the Canucks had chances to tie it early in the third, but Flyers goalie Dan Vladar stopped Evander Kane at the side of the net and Conor Garland on a wraparound, and Kiefer Sherwood hit the post from distance.
But at 5:58, unchecked in the middle of three Canucks, Carl Grundstrom whacked his own rebound past Demko after Trevor Zegras’ centring pass forced a point-blank save. And at 7:49, with the Canucks disorganized on their back check after a bad pinch and an outnumbered rush for the Flyers, Dvorak made it 3-0 by bunting in a friendly rebound off the end glass from Zegras’ high shot.
Sasson scored a pretty goal for the Canucks at 13:05, sliding the puck between Vladar’s pads on a breakaway after a nice pass by Garland. But Tippett countered on his solo dash at 15:35 after Willander, the smart and fleet Vancouver rookie defenceman, was caught slightly flat-footed and then was turned the wrong way by one of the NHL’s fastest skaters.
After Matvei Michkov’s empty-net goal at 18:49, the 20-year-old Buium made his nicest offensive play since the Minnesota trade, weaving deep into the Philadelphia zone before dishing to Drew O’Connor in the slot for a goal with 18 seconds remaining.
“They had more juice than us, their legs were going, they got inside ice on us,” Foote told reporters in Philadelphia. “They got to the net and, you know, that was the difference.
“It was a good trip. . . especially with all the movement and what happened. It just looked like tonight we ran out of gas.”
BACK TO PROBLEM ONE
The improvement in systems play the last month, repairs to the penalty kill and the return to health and form of Demko means the Canucks’ biggest challenge now is what was expected before the season began: scoring goals.
They had timely depth/youth scoring during the trip, some puck luck and a Sherwood hat trick on Long Island. But most veterans at the top of the lineup continue to struggle to score. Garland (1-4-5 pts in 9 games), Jake DeBrusk (1-4-5 in 13) and Evander Kane (1-3-4 in 9) each has one goal in December, and Brock Boeser’s last goal was Nov. 28. He has one assist in 11 games since then. Even Rossi had just one assist in his first five Canuck games.
If the Canucks continue to get goaltending like they had on this trip, they don’t need to score a lot. But they can’t be relying on Sasson and O’Connor (in Philadelphia) and Karlsson, Sasson and Ohgren (in Boston) to be driving the attack.
PLAYING HURT (OR NOT)
Although neither is talking about it, it’s pretty clear that Boeser and Garland have been grinding through ongoing injuries. Their team was in last place, their close friend and captain was traded, so Boeser and Garland are not only in the lineup but pushing themselves through big minutes.
But the paramount player missing entirely is centre Elias Pettersson, whose absence was regarded as day-to-day when the trip began. By definition, each game the $92.8-million centre missed increased the likelihood that he would play the next one. But it never happened.
Before Monday’s game, Foote told reporters that Pettersson “tweaked or jammed” his upper-body injury last week, but that “he’s getting close.” But the coach couldn’t say if Pettersson will play the first game after the Christmas break, Saturday at home against the San Jose Sharks, or the second game or when. The Canucks need him back.
BOTTLE THIS QUOTE
Tocchet, who left the uncertainty of the Canucks after last season to return to the Flyers, has a star-less team that was widely expected to miss the playoffs at 18-10-7. With Dan Vladar as its starting goalie.
Many of the questions Tocchet gets is about Matvei Michkov, whose empty-net goal Monday was just his ninth in 35 games, and the coach’s handling of the second-year player, which included an intense interaction at the Flyers bench during Saturday’s game. Michkov’s average ice time of 14:41 is down two minutes from last season, when the Russian enjoyed greater latitude from previous coach John Tortorella.
This is the shortened version of what Tocchet told reporters before Monday’s game: “What are we 17-10? We’ve got a good record. I’ve answered six Michkov questions. I mean, enough is enough, guys. You’re trying to make something that’s not. He’s got to learn to play the game and he’s trying. He’s a lot better defensively, he’s a lot better playing a team game, and that’s how you win hockey. It’s not about catering to one person, I hate to tell you guys. That’s it.”
