Tarred, feathered by fl ying fowl
Tortorella almost speechless after being embarrassed by powerhouse Anaheim
ANAHEIM, Calif. — There is no California Dreaming for the Vancouver Canucks. Only nightmares.
The Canucks suffered another SoCal setback Wednesday, suffering an embarrassing 9- 1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center. So, what else is new? The Ducks have now won all three games against the Canucks this season. Vancouver is 0- 5- 2 this National Hockey League season against the Los Angeles Kings and Ducks. If you throw in the San Jose Sharks, the Canucks are 1- 7- 3 against all three California teams.
Monday’s 1- 0 loss to the Kings was called a statement game by the Canucks. But two nights later, they didn’t have a whole lot to say.
The players had talked about becoming tougher to play against after that emotional game against the Kings. Wednesday, they were only tough to watch.
Coach John Tortorella had talked about “owning the ice.” The Canucks pretty much leased it out to the Ducks.
Tortorella was almost speechless after the game, refusing to say much about the team’s worst loss in ages.
“I am not even going to try and explain it,” he said. “It was one of those nights, so we plow on to our next game and get ready to play that one.”
Asked what disturbed him the most, Tortorella said: “A lot of things. It does me no good, it does the players no good to discuss what happened here. The biggest thing for us is we just need to get out of here and get ready for our next game.”
Until this team can solve its acute offensive problems, wins are going to be hard to come by against the NHL’s top teams.
And the Ducks are certainly one of those teams. They remain unbeaten in regulation at the Honda Center this season ( 20- 0- 2) and have won 17 of their last 18.
The Canucks, meanwhile, have not weathered a particularly tough stretch of their schedule well at all. Vancouver has lost seven of its last eight games.
“It’s never a great feeling being on the wrong side of a 9- 1 game,” said defenceman Dan Hamhuis.
“Six power- play goals,” said captain Henrik Sedin. “It got away from us.
“We played a good first period, it should not have been 2- 0 after the first. We came out in the second and we started taking penalties. They got some great bounces. I didn’t think we played particularly bad up until the halfway point of the game.”
“The goal- scoring woes are nothing new. But the Canucks’ defensive game also failed them Wednesday and the goaltending was spotty.
Eddie Lack was pulled early in the second after giving up three goals on 13 shots. Joacim Eriksson came in to make his NHL debut and was beat on the second shot he faced. It was that kind of night. This one was pretty much over early. Andrew Cogliano got behind the Vancouver defence, took a pass from Jakob Silfverberg and beat Lack on Anaheim’s first shot of the game at the 4: 27 mark of the first.
With Alex Edler off serving a tripping minor, the Ducks scored on the power play at 17: 57 of the first when ageless wonder Teemu Selanne tipped a Sami Vatanen one- timer past Lack.
The Ducks scored four more goals in the second before the Canucks finally answered. Zack Kassian beat Anaheim goalie Frederik Andersen after David Booth had crashed the crease on a drive to the net.
The Anaheim fans felt there should haver been a goalie interference penalty on the play and they may have been right.
The Canuck dressing room was probably not the Happiest Place on Earth during that second intermission.
The Ducks scored three more goals in the third. Two of them came on a bizarre seven- minute 5- on- 3 power play in the final minutes.
The nine goals were the most ever scored by a Ducks team.
ICE CHIPS: The Canucks have now scored one or fewer goals in 14 games this season ... The Ducks set a franchise record with six power- play goals.