VANCOUVER — That’s two third-period leads in two games on home ice for the Vancouver Canucks. And zero wins.
They have salvaged two loser points, including Friday’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, so there’s not exactly a crisis at the start of their National Hockey League season.
But for a team that lost only five of 47 games last season (42-1-4) in which they led going into the third period, their inability to close out the Flyers and, on Wednesday, the Calgary Flames is indicative of a Vancouver team trying to find its footing as it incorporates seven new players after five months of inactivity.
At the top of their lineup, the Canucks look out of sync at five-on-five as star centres J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson work with new linemates added in free agency. But then again, there are also new players in the bottom half of Vancouver’s lineup and the third and fourth lines won their matchups on Friday.
The way the games went in Week 1, the Canucks could be 2-0 or 0-2. Being 0-0-2 is fair, although disappointing, and coach Rick Tocchet and his staff clearly have work to do in practices before the Canucks open a four-game road trip Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“I think new guys, you know, it can take some time to adjust, for sure,” fourth-line centre Teddy Blueger said after scoring one of the Vancouver goals. “We’ve got a lot of new players. It takes time sometimes.
“We had chances, they had chances (and) they end up scoring that one in the third. It felt like a pretty even game. I think the difference was very, very small tonight. We were going with five (defencemen), missing a big part of our D-corps. All in all, you know, it was right there for us.”
We may know more in the next few days but it’s possible the worst part of the Canucks’ first two games was losing veteran, matchup defenceman Tyler Myers to what looked like a significant knee injury less than three minutes into Friday’s match.
Myers was pinching along the boards in the Flyers’ zone when he skated into the back of winger Joel Farabee. The Canuck’s knee buckled, and Myers lay on the ice until play was stopped. He needed assistance to hobble to the medical room.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Carson Soucy, Myers’ blue line partner, said. “I mean, especially when, you know, it’s one of our bigger impact. . . guys that goes down. Obviously, he’s a hard guy to replace in this locker room. So it was tough.”
“Especially for the second game of the year, it’s tough on the D,” Tocchet told reporters. “I thought they (the five remaining defencemen) did a nice job of hanging in there for us. Myers, I don’t know. Hopefully we dodge a bullet, but I’m not sure.”
Depth, like a lot of other things on the Canucks, is being tested early.
Vincent Desharnais, his opening night rough enough that Tocchet and assistant coach Adam Foote replaced him in Friday’s lineup with Noah Juulsen, is available to take Myers’ spot.
Winger Pius Suter also played Friday after sitting out Wednesday, but the Canucks’ biggest change was in net as veteran Kevin Lankinen, signed during training camp due to the indefinite absence of injured starter Thatcher Demko, replaced Arturs Silovs after the rookie allowed six goals on 26 shots against Calgary.
Lankinen was excellent, stopping 29 of 31 shots and making a tie-preserving, five-star stop against Flyer Jett Luchanko on a rebound halfway through the final period.
But in the five-round shootout, Lankinen was beaten between the pads by Travis Konecny, who needed to score on Philadelphia’s third attempt to extend the tie-breaker. And in Round 5, Flyer Morgan Frost waited and waited before shooting past the Canuck’s glove.
Astoundingly, those two shots matched the total shootout goals Lankinen had allowed in his NHL career. The Finn stopped 20 of 22 attempts during four seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators.
“It’s a mindset,” Lankinen explained. “It’s kind of a one-on-one battle against the shooter. And the way I grew up playing, the goalie just stops the puck and does whatever it takes. And that’s kind of the mentality in the shootouts there, where you kind of throw the technique out of the window and just focus on stopping the puck. I feel like that’s been a good strength of mine, and I’ve got to keep working on that.
“Obviously, the result is the first thing in mind. We’re in a sport where we count the wins. But as a whole, I think there’s a lot to build on (from this game), and we’ve got a couple days here before the next game here to kind of recap and move forward.”
With Demko out, Lankinen is competing with Silovs for starts. It’s advantage Lankinen so far.
“I’m not even thinking about that,” Lankinen said. “My motto has always been live one day at a time, and that’s what I’m trying to do here. I’m not looking too far ahead here or too far behind, and whatever follows will follow. The only thing I can really focus on. . . is my own habits, my own work ethic and attitude, coming to the rink every day and being a leader. So I’m trying to do my best to earn more starts. But at the same time, you know, that’s not my decision.”
Philadelphia defenceman Cam York tied the game 2-2 at 2:48 of the third period, shooting post-and-in after Vancouver winger Daniel Sprong left space for York to skate downhill onto Ryan Poehling’s pass.
The Canucks led 1-0 and 2-1.
After Poehling bobbled a pass into a turnover, Canuck Conor Garland moved the puck quickly to Nils Hoglander and last season’s 24-goal scorer sniped the short-side top corner to make it 1-0 for Vancouver at 12:55 of the first period.
But Hoglander was in the penalty box for holding five minutes later when the Canucks yielded a three-on-two rush — penalty killer Elias Pettersson was caught — and the Flyers tic-tac-toed the puck past Lankinen with Tyson Foerster getting the final touch from Farabee’s excellent pass.
“Petterson was caught flat-flooded,” Tocchet said of the goal. “He’s got to gap up, and he’s got to be the wedge guy. And then we played the rush wrong. A couple of detail mistakes. We’ll correct it.”
Farabee missed a gimme during a second-period power play, steering Foerster’s pass wide of an open net behind Lankinen. The miss seemed even bigger a few minutes later when Blueger easily beat 18-year-old rookie Luchanko to the Flyers’ net and converted Derek Forbort’s excellent goalfront pass at 11:25.
But for the second straight game, the Canucks failed to hold their lead in the third period.
“Not a lot of flow in the first few periods for us,” Soucy said, referring to nearly 17 minutes of power-play time on Friday. “It’s obviously nice to get those early power plays, but you can even ask the power play guys, it’s not how you want to start. I think, honestly, a little more five-on-five time for us in the first would be good. I think it would benefit. . . four lines and three pairs of defencemen, just kind of everyone getting into it. I thought we had a good second period tonight, and then, like I said, just couldn’t hold it.”
Again.
