VANCOUVER — When the Vancouver Canucks beat the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 7, nobody could have guessed after Game 12 that it might prove to be the pinnacle of the Canucks’ season.
The 4-2 win gave them an impressive three-game sweep of California, and seven wins in nine games. The sputtering and misfiring of the National Hockey League’s opening month seemed to be behind them.
“I feel like every game, we’re kind of getting closer to the 60 minutes,” J.T. Miller said that night in the visitors’ dressing room at Crypto.com Arena. “It seems like everybody’s just getting a little more on the same page and we have more urgency.”
“It was a great road trip,” Tyler Myers said, “and we just want to keep building.”
Unless you were there to feel the positivity, confidence and hopefulness pulsing from the team that night, it is difficult to fully grasp how much the mood and tone around them have been battered by the two months since then.
That long-ago California dream boosted the Canucks’ record to 7-2-3 and felt like a launch point for a team aiming to eclipse last season’s 109 points.
Thursday’s dispiriting 5-1 loss at home against the same Kings felt like the crash, the termination of what has been a tumultuous, unhappy journey.
It isn’t the end, of course, even if it felt that way in the first 10 minutes when the Canucks surrendered three absurdly easy goals. Surely, the Kings would have scored even more had they not been shorthanded for four minutes of that time due to a pair of inept Vancouver power plays.
We’re not foolish enough to call the Canucks’ season with 38 games to go and the team, somehow, still only one point out of a playoff spot.
But the way they played Thursday, completely unengaged and unfocused at the start (after getting torched 6-1 Tuesday by the Winnipeg Jets at the end of a difficult road trip), demonstrated how hollowed out they’ve become. They’re impossible to recognize as last year’s team.
The only similarity the Canucks bore Thursday to the group that won in L.A. two months ago is that Quinn Hughes, who scored in both games, is still one of the best defencemen in the world.
The Canucks are 12-13-7 since Nov. 7.
At midseason, they are dead in the NHL water, appearing to everyone but themselves to be going nowhere.
“You get punched in the mouth and you get back up,” coach Rick Tocchet told reporters late Thursday. “You can’t quit on yourself or your teammates. If you’re in this business long enough, you’re going to get these situations. Character guys, leadership, all that stuff usually comes out of it, so we’re looking for those type of people right now.”
Maybe they don’t have enough of them.
It took the Canucks only 51 seconds to fall behind. When Miller shorted his bank pass to Filip Hronek in the offensive zone, the defenceman went for it anyway and was trapped, giving Los Angeles a two-on-one. Hughes allowed Adrian Kempe’s goalmouth pass to Alex Turcotte to make it 1-0.
And after Canuck defenceman Vincent Desharnais then challenged and fought Tanner Jeannot, whose blindside hit away from the puck knocked Brock Boeser out of that Nov. 7 game and out of the lineup with a concussion, Vancouver responded by surrendering two more goals in 24 seconds.
Turcotte scored easily on a big rebound from goalie Thatcher Demko to double the lead at 9:18, after Miller was badly beaten at the point by Kevin Fiala. And Kempe finished off a three-on-two rush to make it 3-0 at 9:42 when Canuck Elias Pettersson was bypassed in the neutral zone and rookie call-up Jonathan Lekkerimaki coasted on his backcheck.
Boeser missed seven games with his concussion and, but for a four-game scoring binge at Christmas, has struggled to make an impact since his return. While Boeser was out, Miller began his 10-game personal leave of absence.
And he has not been the same player since.
“It’s hard,” Miller said Thursday night. “I’m trying to be mentally strong. And I think this is where your character shows, in moments like this. So today, my mindset was to work my ass off and see what happens. And I really still think I did that, but it’s just costly mistakes right now. I just need to focus more.
“It doesn’t matter what I do, I’m on the wrong side right now, and it’s on me. I’m a leader on the team, and the team expects me to be a lot better than this. So that’s my focus.”
Miller did not register a shot in 14:34 of ice time against the Kings and has gone five games without a point.
“Yeah, he’s struggling,” Tocchet said. “He’s caught in between. You know, it seems like every time he’s on the ice, something bad happens. I think he’s got some bad luck, but he’s also got some reads that he’s got to look at himself right now and focus on some of these reads. I think he’s trying. I think the focus level has to get a little higher.”
The same applies to the team, and nobody else has required a leave of absence to deal with personal issues.
“It’s been tough,” winger Phil Di Giuseppe said. “We’re all sick of losing, so we’ve got to get through this. And the only way through it is together.”
It’s difficult to imagine general manager Patrik Allvin and president Jim Rutherford continuing to be patient with the Canucks and allowing this group of players to work out the problems themselves.
The Canucks have won seven of 22 games at Rogers Arena this season. They have scored zero or one goal in six of the last nine games. The team is 3-6-5 since Dec. 16.
“Of course, we believe in each other,” Miller said. “There’s good parts of seasons and bad. Right now, all I can worry about is myself and how I’m going to be a better player and put my teammates in a better position to succeed.
“We’re never going to point fingers. It’s a group here. It’s on us.”
The Edmonton Oilers visit Vancouver on Saturday.
