Well that was not a good game. The team, to put it mildly, sucked last night. In preparation for Halloween the Canucks put in a ghostly effort en route to a 6-0 defeat at the hands of the Devils. If you want to watch the lack of highlights, you can find them here:
Honestly, not much to say after that. It was the Canucks’ worst home shutout loss since 2006. You’d love to be able to chalk it up to “one of those nights”, but the team’s play hasn’t inspired enough confidence so far this year to be able to do that.
“It was embarrassing,” Myers said. “We should be embarrassed. Even through some wins the last couple of weeks, there were some things within our game right now that we've got to clean up. We've got to find our identity. Right now, we're just, we're not there yet, and we know it.
“We had two-on-ones and three-on-twos against the whole night — stuff we have to clean up. We're swinging (and not stopping). We're not going through people. Like I said, it's finding our identity, and right now we don't have it. Maybe it’s a good wake-up call for us.”
Wake-up calls are nice as long as they actually wake you up. If you just keep hitting snooze, they’re only annoying.
“We just were not good at all, and hopefully it's a wake-up call because we've got to play a lot better than that,” Garland said. “That's what happens when you play like that for long enough in this league. They'll come in and beat you pretty good.”
Top to bottom the team wasn’t good enough. Bad giveaways, lackadaisical effort, pouress defending, uncertain goaltending… the Canucks have tried to open up their offense compared to last year, but the calling card defense that put them on the right track seems to be suffering for it.
“Our odd-man rush coverage was probably the worst I’ve ever seen since I’ve been here. It reminded me of when I took over the team. That’s how bad it was tonight,” Tocchet said.
The Canucks’ effort hasn’t been there for a full 60 so far this year. The general swagger of last year has ebbed and flowed. Garland tried to drag the team into the fight last night with a fight midway through the game, but that didn’t even seem to spark the team.
“Gars does an unbelievable job in that scrap,” Miller said. “That was a helluva fight. You’d think we’d play a little bit better after that. That sucks, a guy getting punched in the head for you. You think that would light the team; it didn’t. We just make it too easy on the other team.”
“Our chemistry is fine,” Garland said. “We’re just not playing the way we should. When we’re at our best, we’re a hard defending team, and they lit up six tonight, so obviously we’re not doing that right now.”
Yet again, the power play was a source of frustration. An early 1-0 hole could have been erased and then some on a 4 minute PP. Not only was the unit blanked, but they gave up a shorty on a terrible giveaway. Tocc even pulled Miller and Garland off the top unit in the second it was that bad. Tocc’s been imploring the team to shoot more, and it seems to be falling on deaf ears.
“When you beat pressure, take it to the hole,” Tocchet told reporters after the morning skate. “That's the play. We should have three guys around the net when you take it to the hole, not one guy and then everyone in their spot looking for one-timers.”
Not that Petey is the issue, but he’s a member of the unit that isn’t living up to expectations. I found this little nugget from Harm at The Athletic interesting:
You can’t pin the power-play’s lacklustre performance on any one individual, but Elias Pettersson’s shot is a concern. Pettersson’s one-timer used to terrorize teams in his rookie season; now it doesn’t even feel like an option they’re looking for. During his 102-point campaign in 2022-23, Pettersson fired 163 shot attempts on the power play across 80 games, which is about two per game. Heading into the New Jersey game, he’d taken just three shot attempts in eight games.
I don’t think any player can be singled out for last night, the whole team was a let down, and they’ll have to all climb their way out of this hole. They have a couple days off before their next contest on Saturday in San Jose.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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