TAMPA, FLA. – Chatting casually with Vancouver reporters after his Thursday morning media availability, Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper lamented that his team probably leads the National Hockey League in wins that feel like losses.
The Vancouver Canucks can only dream of such problems.
Instead, they’ve lost many games that they could have won because they couldn’t defend a lead, kill a penalty or get a save.
The Lightning, which have been to the last three Stanley Cup Finals and have two rings from them, won their ninth straight home game on Thursday while adding to the wins-that-feel-like-losses total by allowing the Canucks two late goals before hanging on to win 5-4.
Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made a game-saving save in the final second, getting across his goalmouth to block Curtis Lazar’s point-blank shot from what was essentially a two-on-zero break.
It was the Canucks’ sixth loss in seven games and third straight on their five-game trip, in which Vancouver is 0-3 despite scoring four goals on the road against each of its formidable opponents. And that tells you why the Canucks are in so much trouble – because four goals aren’t enough for them to win.
“I think that’s just been the story of the year,” Canucks captain Bo Horvat said. “We’re scoring enough goals but the PK hasn’t been good enough and the five-on-five defensive play has just been killing us. That’s kind of where it’s left us right now.”
Halfway through their season, the Canucks are 17-21-3, have allowed five or more goals in 19 of 41 games, are 31st in the NHL in goals-against, 10 points out of a playoff spot and three points above the bottom five teams.
MEDICAL QUESTIONS
The Canucks announced before the game that winger Tanner Pearson, who injured his hand in a Nov. 9 game in Montreal, had undergone another operation and would miss the remainder of the season. It was the third “procedure” the 30-year-old has endured for an injury that was initially expected to keep him out just week-to-week.
Tough luck, right? Injuries happen. Too bad for Pearson.
But when asked after the game about his teammate, Quinn Hughes dropped this bombshell: “I feel bad for him. I mean, it wasn’t handled properly. It’s not really a good situation he’s got there, and hopefully he’s going to be alright.”
It wasn’t handled properly, Hughes said.
Later, coach Bruce Boudreau said: “I really like Tanner a lot and so it really is sad news. Like, I mean, here’s a guy who’s over 30 and you lose a year, and it’s really tough. I feel for him, but I know he’ll come back stronger than ever.”
But no one can know how Pearson will come back. He has one year remaining on his NHL contract and struggled through most of the 14 games he played before his season ended after one goal, four assists and a minus-nine rating.
Asked if the Canucks should have avoided surgery on Pearson, Boudreau said: “I have no idea. That’s not my call.”
Under new management, the Canucks remade their medical and training staff last summer, dismissing long-tenured and respected employees like medical trainer Jon Sanderson and strength coach Roger Takahashi.
PUNCH DRUNK?
Trailing 5-2 with six minutes to go, the Canucks pushed and got a wrist-shot goal from Hughes with 5:20 remaining, then climbed within one when Elias Pettersson blistered a one-timer past Vasilevskiy with 2:08 to go and Vancouver skating six-against-five.
From the ensuing faceoff at centre ice, Tampa’s Alex Killorn took a silly tripping penalty, and Vancouver played the final two minutes on the power play and with goalie Collin Delia pulled, attacking six-on-four.
It should have been six-on-three in the last 41 seconds but referees Kyle Rehman and Peter MacDougall astonishingly allowed Lightning defenceman Mikhail Sergachev to get away with a sucker-punch that knocked Canuck Connor Garland to the ice after a post-whistle scrum had settled.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a claim about a non-call costing the Canucks the game. They were excellent in the game’s first seven minutes and the last six, and in between the Lightning outplayed them and outscored them 5-1. This is about a dangerous play – and obvious penalty – that could have injured a player but went uncalled.
Garland was already missing his helmet after the initial melee, was not expecting to eat a straight right from Sergachev, and could easily have been hurt by either the punch or contact with the ice as he fell.
Standing three feet away, Horvat looked in disbelief that no penalty was being called.
“I feel bad now not doing anything in Garly’s defence, but I thought for sure it was going to be a penalty,” he said. “I mean, probably one of the harder punches I’ve seen after a whistle and the refs standing right there and no call. He (Sergachev) is on the other side of the net and you’re not expecting some guy to reach over the net and sucker you in the face.”
Boudreau said: “It looked like a pretty solid shot.”
Why did the referees not punish Sergachev with 41 seconds remaining? The answer is obvious to anyone who regularly watches the NHL: the Canucks were already on a power play, the power plays were even in the one-goal game, and officials weren’t going to make a call that put a team two players down in the final minute. Rehman and MacDougall also missed a hit from behind early in the game by Canuck Lane Pederson on Vladislav Namestnikov.
The last-minute “game management” on a dangerous play discredits hockey and should embarrass the league.
LAZAR’S CHANCE
After Garland absorbed Sergachev’s punch and returned to the bench, it was discovered his helmet was broken. Which is partly why depth forward Lazar, who has one goal in 31 games, was on the ice for an extra attacker when Brock Boeser passed across the goalmouth to him in the final seconds. Vasilevskiy read the two-on-zero and got a lot of equipment across his crease and in front of Lazar’s shot.
“He read it well,” Lazar said. “If you have it back, you probably try and slip it under him. But a bang-bang play. Obviously, the offence hasn’t been going for me at all this season so, you know, confidence is a little shaky. But I really wish that one could have went in. We fought hard to get back in it.”
AN SOS FOR OEL
After 888 games in the NHL – and in the middle of a $66-million contract that has 4 ½ years remaining – Canuck alternate captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson was scratched by Boudreau, who is trying to bring accountability and order to a defence that yielded 50 scoring chances in Tuesday’s 5-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Ekman-Larsson’s regular blue-line partner, Tyler Myers, the veteran who had one of his best games this season against the Lightning, was emotional when asked about Ekman-Larsson being scratched for the first time since his rookie NHL campaign 12 years ago.
“It was tough to see that this morning,” Myers said after the game. “But things going the way they are, decisions, really tough decisions like that, are going to be made. I hated coming into the rink this morning and seeing that. I know he’s going to come back. He’s got a really good attitude, he’s a leader on the team (and) he’s going to come back and put in a really good effort next game. We’ve just got to stay together and work out of it together.”
Ekman-Larsson, 31, will be in the lineup Saturday when the Canucks visit the Florida Panthers. Vancouver finished Thursday’s game with only five defencemen when Travis Dermott left in the second period. Boudreau had no post-game update on Dermott, but the 26-year-old missed more than three months with a concussion before finally making his season debut just two weeks ago. Thursday was Dermott’s seventh game.
