Are the Vancouver Canucks struggling against an unstoppable force? Is their 0-3-1 start to the season part of some grand karmic plan to deliver Connor Bedard to his hometown team at the 2023 draft?
Monday night’s 6-4 loss to the Washington Capitals made Vancouver the first team in NHL history to lose its first three games of the season by coughing up multi-goal leads in each contest, per Sportsnet Stats.
Like clockwork, it happened a fourth time on Tuesday in Columbus. Bo Horvat opened the scoring with a shorthanded tally, then Elias Pettersson’s third of the year put the Canucks up 2-0 by the 11:11 mark of the first period.
After that, the home team chipped away. Justin Danforth got the Blue Jackets on the board in the second, then an unguarded Zach Werenski swooped in to flip a rebound over sprawling netminder Spencer Martin to tie the game 2-2 at the 6:18 mark of the third.
Then — something unexpected happened.
Just 42 seconds later, the Canucks re-took the lead. Horvat tipped a point shot from Tucker Poolman past Elvis Merzlikins for his second goal of the game, and the Canucks’ first third-period goal of the year. It was a positive sign after three straight late-game collapses, and enough to secure Vancouver’s first point of the year in the standings.
But with 10:33 left to play in regulation, Johnny Gaudreau forced overtime with a strong individual effort that ended with a wraparound tuck.
In the extra frame, Elias Pettersson clanged a snipe off the post and the Blue Jackets couldn’t manage a shot on goal on a 3-on-0 opportunity. At 3:21, Vladislav Gavrikov converted a pass from Yegor Chinakhov on a 2-on-1 to give Columbus its first win of the year.
Despite another loss, there were some positive signs for the Canucks.
- They played a team even in the third period for the first time this season.
- Tyler Myers and Ilya Mikheyev drew in for their first games following pre-season injuries. Both chipped in on the penalty kill, which went a perfect 2-for-2 after a horrific 6-for-12 performance in Vancouver’s first three games.
- Horvat had a strong outing, leading his team with five shots on goal and an 11-for-21 performance in the faceoff circle, as well as his two goals.
- Pettersson was strong at both ends of the ice and made his mark on the scoresheet. He followed up a three-point night in Washington with a goal and an assist on Tuesday.
Here’s the bad news:
- Special teams are still a concern: the penalty kill is only 57.1 percent effective, the power play is at 11.8 percent and the Canucks have given up two shorthanded goals for a net man-advantage result of zero.
- Vancouver’s 5-on-5 play was solid for the first two games of the year, but that has dipped as this road trip has continued. Per Natural Stat Trick, Vancouver controlled just 44.69 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5 in Washington on Monday. That number dropped significantly further in Columbus, to 34.08 percent.
The Canucks’ new management team, led by GM Patrik Allvin, went shopping for blueline upgrades during the off-season. But speedy winger Mikheyev and some bottom-six forwards ended up in their shopping cart at checkout.
Riley Stillman was a late addition. He was acquired by trade after Myers and Travis Dermott, who’s still sidelined with a concussion, were knocked out of action.
Can this group be successful with a back end that’s short on top-tier NHL talent? The return of Myers will help, but after missing the end of the pre-season due to a non-COVID illness, Quinn Hughes sits second in the NHL in average ice time through Tuesday, averaging 26:58 a game. That workload is too heavy to extract optimal results. But given the options he has available, it’s understandable why Bruce Boudreau keeps putting No. 43 back on the ice.
Is roster construction what’s holding the Canucks back? Or has Boudreau simply lost hold of the magic that he channelled when he landed in Vancouver last December? The seven-game winning streak that launched a thousand choruses of “Bruce, There It Is!” is now a very distant memory.
But that memory does contain a lesson — that things can change on a dime in the NHL, sometimes off an unexpected trigger.
Boudreau’s return to Washington, where it all began for him, didn’t deliver his 600th career win as an NHL coach. Perhaps another former home in Minnesota will be kinder when the road trip wraps up on Thursday.
And the Wild are dealing with struggles of their own. They’ve opened their year with three straight losses on home ice, giving up a staggering average of 6.67 goals per game to the Rangers, the Kings and the Avalanche.
Throughout the pre-season, Boudreau emphasized the importance of a good start for his club, which went 35-15-10 after he arrived last season but didn’t have a long enough runway to climb into a playoff spot.
Instead, the start is historically bad. And every multi-goal lead has given fans reason to hope, making the losses sting that much worse.
The Canucks will wake up Wednesday morning sitting 30th in the NHL standings. Below them, not the Arizona Coyotes or the Montreal Canadiens or the Chicago Blackhawks, but the Wild (0-3-0) and the San Jose Sharks (0-5-0).
In a season that has been earmarked as an ideal tanking opportunity, thanks to an ultra-deep 2023 draft class, perhaps that’s Vancouver’s true destiny?
The Canucks have never selected first overall in their 52-year history. And British Columbia has never bred a prospect with as much tantalizing potential as Connor Bedard.
Just the right age to have been mesmerized by the dominant Vancouver teams of the early 2010s, Bedard grew up as a die-hard fan of his hometown squad.
If it turns out that the Canucks can’t get this season back on track, the opportunity to potentially draft such a special talent could quickly become an alluring alternative for management and fans alike.
