Sutter says road trip is ‘make or break’
Straight-shooting centre senses urgency as team heads to Nashville, Columbus and Pittsburgh
As a methodical middleman, Brandon Sutter has always found the middle ground. You don’t have to talk the Vancouver Canucks’ centre off the ledge because he’s never going to leap into a sea of despair. It comes with nine years of National Hockey League experience.
After playing just 20 games last season because of sports hernia surgery and a fractured jaw, Sutter understands the ebb and flow of professional sports better than most. After all, his goal-celebration song is laid-back country, not shake-your-foundation rap.
Sutter isn’t going to serve up jaw-dropping quotes, but what he had to say about the present and immediate future wasn’t clip-andsave stuff, but it was telling.
Despite his two-goal outing Saturday at Rogers Arena, and being on pace for a career-high 22-goal season, the centre lamented being an accomplice in a pair of goal gaffes during a 6-3 reality-slap loss to Western Conference-leading Minnesota, in which the Canucks gave away the puck and odd-man rushes like cheap Halloween candy.
“Odd-man rushes against a team like that, they’re just going to bury you,” said Sutter, who was a minus-2 and his minus-14 rating is second worst behind Henrik Sedin’s minus-15. “Four of their goals came off 3-on-2s or 2-on-1s and you can’t give those up.
“They are very tight in the neutral zone and I don’t know if we had any odd-man rushes other than Bo’s (Horvat) goal. We were too loose in our D-zone in giving up pucks and that goes from the defencemen to the forwards. And too many lost one-onone battles and they make you pay.”
If that isn’t bad enough, Sutter cut to the chase about a landmine-filled six-game road trip. It opens Tuesday in Nashville and includes gut-check stops against powerhouses Columbus and Pittsburgh.
It could end with the stark realization that any flickering hope for a wild-card playoff position could be all but mathematically extinguished. Oddsmakers at Sports Club Stats give the 11th-place Canucks a minuscule 5.7 per cent chance of advancing to the post-season.
“This trip is probably make or break for us — we’re going to find out what we’re made of,” admitted Sutter, knowing the Canucks have lost four of their last five, are 28th on the power play, 23rd on the penalty kill and own a league-worst 6-153 road record.
Only three of Sutter’s goals have come on the road and the irony of consistently falling behind and cheating on structure to get back in games, is that five players have had two-goal efforts away from Rogers Arena. Sven Baertschi has done it twice while Alex Burrows, Jayson Megna, Jack Skille and Markus Granlund have also had two-goal outings.
“When you’re winning, everything seems to be so easy and when you’re losing, it’s the other way around — regardless of your personal points or all the crap,” added the 27-yearold Sutter. “We’re out there to win and for me being in the league a few years, you figure it out pretty quick.
“When we had that six-game win streak (Dec. 28-Jan. 6), we just played and had more of an open mind. We took care of defensive details and the rest took care of itself.”
Saturday marked the 34th time in 52 games in which the Canucks have surrendered the first goal. And on the road, they have struck first just nine times in 24 games. That’s why structure goes out the door. Constantly playing from behind is physically and mentally draining and if the Canucks think that’s going to instantly change, think about this:
Roman Josi and P.K. Subban, puck-moving, offensive-minded defencemen with plenty of giddy-up, were not in the lineup when the Canucks eked out a 1-0 win at Rogers Arena on Jan. 17. They’re playing Tuesday.
“The good part is we have a lot of young guys who are a little numb right now,” reasoned Sutter. “And sometimes you sit around and think too much and that can get you in trouble. You’ve just got to go out and play.”
The Canucks had lost nine straight, one short of a franchise record, when they went into Madison Square Garden and authored a Nov. 28 result that was as shocking as the U.S. presidential election. Loui Eriksson, Baertschi and Burrows scored their first goals of the season in a stunning 5-3 triumph in New York.
“If we want to make the playoffs, it’s pretty simple,” summed up Sutter. “Our execution has to be better and I think it will be.”