National Post (National Edition)
Canucks woeful, top to bottom
Team has led for all of 39 minutes this season
VANCOUVER • To hear the captain tell it, it was the Vancouver Canucks’ best start of the season.
Motivated, and hungry, the Canucks were instantly airborne against the New York Rangers Tuesday.
For a few brief moments in time, it was glorious, like the old days.
They still couldn’t win. They still didn’t lead. In fact, it wasn’t even close.
The Canucks have led for 39 minutes this season. They’ve played 17 games and they have haven’t had a lead for two periods yet, total. Let that sink in. All of it is hard to believe. Much like how the coaching staff on one of the worst offences in the NHL can’t find a way to play Loui Eriksson regularly with the Sedins on the power play.
You know, like Team Sweden, one of the best teams in the world, does all the time.
In a recent interview with ESPN, Trevor Linden blew it off because, well, Sweden participates in international play. The Canucks play in the big, bad NHL.
But it’s a symptom of a larger issue.
Not much of anything the Canucks are doing is working. The training camp pairing of Erik Gudbranson and Ben Hutton, regrettably over-hyped by some, has flopped. The power play has just disintegrated, buried by over-thinking.
The Jake Virtanen situation, which took another turn when he was demoted again to the AHL Wednesday, has turned into a leaguewide joke. Brandon Sutter, the shutdown centre who should be taking the tough matchups off Bo Horvat’s plate, is playing the wing on the top line.
And the Canucks are losing, and losing.
After their 11th loss in 13 games, head coach Willie Desjardins, who has become one of the most reflective coaches in the league, valiantly fielded questions about his job security.
He said he doesn’t think about it much, though he added, “It will play itself out.” It sure will. Desjardins and the Canucks need some wins before the whole thing just crashes down.
If there are many more losses, the Canucks will be pressured to make a move on the coach. What else can they do when the team they sold as a playoff contender is performing like one of the worst teams in the league?
They either eat it publicly or they try to do something about it.
Desjardins said the team hasn’t quit.
“Even when they made it 5-2, the guys still thought if they got one, we had a chance, and that was late in the third,” he said.
Of course, he’s not wrong. Of course, the hand he’s been dealt is not a winning one, or a fair one. But at some point, you have to wonder, what else can this team do but pick a fall guy?
In the last four weeks or so, the Canucks have two wins, one partly because a goalie was pulled by a concussion spotter, and the other partly because the Dallas Stars were at the end of a road trip and have pretty brutal goaltending.
Neither of those wins provided much spark or momentum or confidence.
No matter what the coach says, the Canucks are a fragile group, one that started to peel apart like 10-year-old deck stain Tuesday when the Rangers scored the first goal.
Asked if it was difficult to keep the thought of, “Oh god, here we go again,” out of his mind when the other team scores first, Horvat said: “Absolutely.”
Both Henrik Sedin and Horvat admitted after Tuesday’s 7-2 humiliation that, in some games, players are sacrificing the team’s structure to try to score goals.
“Sometimes. I think we’re all guilty of it,” Horvat said. “When you’re not scoring, not getting goals, you want to cheat to help the team win, and to help the team offensively.
“That’s when it hurts you the most. When you’re cheating it usually goes the other way on you.”
Imagine for a moment you’re one of these players. What would you do? Continue to get beaten by not scoring, or try to actually, you know, score some goals?
But you do that knowing you’re probably going to give up transition chances that will end up in the back of your own net.
That’s the choice the team and the players are facing right now.
It’s not a great one. But neither is this team.