VANCOUVER — Adversity-free the last month, the Vancouver Canucks suddenly must cope with a losing streak.
They’ve lost two games.
That in itself isn’t the problem. Until four days ago, they were 12-3-1 and near the top of the National Hockey League. They’re still near the top.
The problem is Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Seattle Kraken was supposed to be the Canucks’ bounceback game from Thursday’s energy-less 5-2 setback against the Flames in Calgary, where Vancouver was playing its fifth game in eight nights with travel between all of them.
The energy on Saturday was better for the Canucks — although their execution wasn’t much better — and the game was sitting right there for them to take in the third period. Instead of finding a way to win like they have been, they found a way to lose like they used to.
The Canucks made mistakes and surrendered goals to Yanni Gourde and Matty Beniers 2½ minutes apart early in the third period, managing only two shots themselves in the first eight minutes, and lost a second straight game against a Pacific Division rival after winning their first eight against Western Conference opponents.
“I think that we were all, you know, a little fatigued mentally and physically in Calgary,” Canuck captain Quinn Hughes told reporters. “But I think tonight, everyone felt good. We just didn’t bring our A-game.
“I think sometimes you just don’t play good. We’re not going to play 75 really, really good games. It’s going to be a process and we’ve done a great job to start the year, but sometimes you’re going to lose two in a row.”
Nils Hoglander scored for the Canucks with 11 seconds remaining and six skaters on the ice. What followed was the team’s most impressive feat on Saturday: somehow generating two shots in the final 11 seconds off faceoff plays won by J.T. Miller, including the one at centre ice.
But as you would guess, this wasn’t nearly enough.
“It was a lot of different reasons why we lost that game,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. “Our changes were awful, long shifts — it wasn’t good. Awful changes and long shifts, that’s what happens.
“No excuses. They played as many games as us in those days (and) they were a little bit hungrier around pucks. Basically, that’s really the game.”
With two losses in three days — and their first consecutive defeats since Vancouver fell to 2-2 on its season-opening road trip — the Canucks have merely given back a couple of chips worth of house money. At 12-5-1, their stack is still impressively higher than anyone expected it to be in mid-November.
Plus, we know some kind of market correction is coming for the Canucks, who were never going to be a 125-point team.
Maybe that’s all this is. But it was disappointing, for the players and especially their coach, to let the Kraken take away Saturday’s game and both points when it was 2-2 with 20 minutes to go, the Canucks were on home ice, Thatcher Demko in their net, and Tocchet’s challenge still to answer after the Calgary game.
“I mean, it’s all good,” Miller said. “We know you’re going to lose a couple in a row. Like, 82 games. . . even the guys at the top of the league lose games consecutively. It is what it is. But I think sometimes you can lose games in better fashion than others, and I thought tonight we had an opportunity to salvage something and we got outworked.
“We had total control of the outcome of the game today going into the third period, and they outplayed us. So we’re going to learn from that and then worry about tomorrow.”
The Canucks, 2-3-0 in their last five games, play the San Jose Sharks Monday at Rogers Arena before travelling for another three games in four nights in Denver, Seattle and San Jose.
On Saturday, the Canucks blew a lead and overcame a deficit — all in the middle 10 minutes of the game.
A bad line change that had Elias Pettersson leaving the ice as Seattle countered left Jamie Oleksiak with an uncontested, downhill shot that the Kraken defenceman used to overpower Demko and tie it 1-1 at 5:43 of the second period.
“It’s the team that’s willing to do the right things (that wins), and Seattle did it,” Tocchet said. “We had some awful changes. Changes lose you hockey games and lose you playoff series. You have to change properly, and we didn’t.”
Seattle, which lost a video review when Vancouver went ahead 1-0 on Miller’s tap-in in the first, prevailed in the inquest that followed Jordan Eberle’s high deflection that made it 2-1 at 13:04 of the middle period, one second after Canuck Teddy Blueger’s hooking penalty expired.
But the Canucks tied it 2-2 at 15:47 when Pettersson won a faceoff after a Seattle icing, and Hughes slapped a laser into the top corner with goalie Philipp Grubauer completely eclipsed by the screen on Vancouver’s Ilya Mikheyev.
With the game in the balance, Seattle re-took the lead at 4:19 of the third period when Gourde was allowed to get free between Filip Hronek and Anthony Beauvillier to convert Will Borgen’s pass as the puck twice went laterally across the Vancouver goalmouth.
And at 6:48, Beniers scored cleanly from the slot to make it 4-2 after Canuck defenceman Tyler Myers lost the puck to Eberle behind the net, then fell.
“They just made it hard through the neutral zone,” Miller said of Seattle’s speed. “We turned the puck over a lot today. Got into a little bit of a track meet game, which isn’t really our game, and we just didn’t play up to our standard. Simple as that.”
ICE CHIPS — After taking Miller’s slapshot on the chin in Wednesday’s win against the New York Islanders, Andrei Kuzmenko returned to the Vancouver lineup after missing only one game. He did not register a shot on goal in 16:47 of ice time on Saturday. “Kuzie’s got to start to play a little harder,” Tocchet summarized. . . Hughes’ seventh goal through 18 games tied his output from last season over 78 games. The defenceman’s career-high is eight goals. . . Hronek logged a career-high 29:03 of ice time, had four hits and four shots, including the final one just before the buzzer on a one-timer teed up by Hughes from Miller’s faceoff win. . . Pettersson, Hughes and Miller each registered one point to remain in a three-way tie for the NHL scoring lead.
