One year ago, the Vancouver Canucks sent six players to the NHL All-Star Game. Six players!
On this date one year ago, January 23, 2024, the Canucks were first place in the NHL with a sparkling 32-11-4 record. J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson were both in the top ten in points, Brock Boeser was in the top ten in goalscoring, Quinn Hughes led all defencemen in scoring, and Thatcher Demko led all goaltenders in wins and had a .922 save percentage.
It seemed completely reasonable that a full 15% of the 40 players at the All-Star Game were part of the Canucks’ roster. They were just that good.
All five of those players are still on the Canucks’ roster, which is only missing Elias Lindholm, acquired on the eve of All-Star Weekend, of the six that went to the All-Star Game. And yet, the team they’re on now is unrecognizable.
It’s not just that the Canucks are losing a lot of games, though they’re certainly doing that, with losses in 14 of their last 18 games. It’s that they’re losing them in such disheartening, embarrassing ways.
As the Canucks went into Edmonton on Thursday, they were coming off a loss that head coach Rick Tocchet called “one of the most disappointing since I've been here for two years.” Instead of responding to that loss and their coach calling them out, the Canucks came out with an even worse performance against the Oilers.
“We give them penalties right off the start, we give them a couple of free goals, and then you’re trying to chase the game — you can’t do that against this team or any team,” said Tocchet. “We’ve been doing that lately. I’m sure they are dispirited but you can’t give teams freebies and we’re giving them.”
The Canucks were dreadful. Dire. Disastrous.
It was nigh-unwatchable. But that “nigh” meant it wasn’t impossible to watch and I persevered when I watched this game.
- Two out of every three Canucks games right now feel like games that could get a coach fired or spark a major trade. The trouble is, every other team around the league sees how vulnerable the Canucks are right now and are circling like vultures. It’s tough to get a reasonable trade offer when the other team knows just how badly you need to make a trade.
- Filip Hronek had a rough game, with key mistakes on multiple Oilers goals. It started early, as he had a brutal turnover on the penalty kill just a few minutes in, as he threw a puck right onto Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ stick at the edge of the crease and he nearly snuck the puck past Thatcher Demko’s glove. It was a baffling pass attempt in any situation, let alone while shorthanded. To quote Cecily Strong, “Why? And, like, don’t.”
- Hronek was victimized on the opening goal. It started with Jake DeBrusk making a terrible decision to jump up on the forecheck when both his linemates were below the goal line, so when Leon Draisaitl hoisted a long saucer pass out of his zone, Hronek was caught between pressuring the player DeBrusk was supposed to be checking or taking care of his own side of the ice. The answer was the latter, as Hronek gave Zach Hyman acres of space on the wing, letting him cut to the net and finish five-hole on Demko.
- It was a poor game for Vincent Desharnais as well, his first back in Edmonton after leaving the Oilers in the offseason. He gave his old teammates three power plays with bad penalties, leading to two of the Oilers’ six goals. I was half-expecting Desharnais to do a full heel turn and rip his Canucks jersey off at the end of the game to reveal an Oilers one underneath.
- Brock Boeser, at least, had a good game. He nearly tied things up on a Teddy Blueger rebound shortly after the Oilers’ first goal but Calvin Pickard stretched out his toe to make the save. Well, he didn’t literally stretch out his toe; that would be gross.
- Hronek was again the goat on the Oilers’ second goal. In his defence, he was stuck on the ice for a long shift — literally, the entire two-minute penalty kill, which makes no sense because he could have easily changed 30 seconds in when the Canucks cleared the puck the length of the ice. Perhaps exhaustion can explain why he was standing still beside the crease while Draisaitl moved to the right faceoff dot to fire a one-timer past Demko.
- The very next shift, the Oilers made it 3-0. Adam Henrique got lost in the weeds behind the net, with neither Mark Friedman nor Max Sasson picking him up. When he got a pass, he quickly cut to the far side with a backhand wraparound and Demko was too slow coming across to seal the ice.
- Elias Pettersson kicked off the second period with a huge hit on Mattias Ekholm in the neutral zone, which was nice. It might be nicer if Pettersson would set up a few more goals or put some more pucks in the net himself. But big hits are pretty neat.
- You can come back from 3-0. The Canucks have shown that this season. I mean, they’ve shown that in reverse by allowing teams to come back from three goals down, but still. Unfortunately, two minutes into the second period, Blueger threw a blind pass into the slot in the defensive zone, turning the puck over to Noah Philp and he set up Hyman for a point-blank goal to make it 4-0.
- “You can’t throw pucks in the slot and you can’t take stupid penalties,” said Tocchet. “I thought some guys were trying tonight but we just didn’t have enough.”
- It’s no revelation to say that many Oilers fans are hypocrites. Most people are hypocrites in one way or another and that tendency only grows with the tribalism of sports fandom. Still, there was something grotesque about both Oilers fans and media glorying in Corey Perry wrestling Quinn Hughes head-first into the ice right after complaining for days about Conor Garland manhandling Connor McDavid.
- The extra dash of irony that it was Perry, who had gone on the record about the league needing to protect its stars, then grabbing the smaller Hughes out of a scrum. On top of that, he made like he was going to drop the gloves with Teddy Blueger later in the game, then kept them on as Blueger, frustrated by being punked, started throwing punches anyway.
- Perry isn’t required to fight anyone, of course. I’ve certainly never been an advocate of that. What’s cowardly is talking a big game about players policing themselves, then goading a player into a fight you never intended to accept. Refusing to fight Blueger, of all players, a guy who gives up three inches and 20 lbs on Perry, is particularly ridiculous. It’s nothing new for Perry but if he’s going to play like that, he doesn’t get to talk in the press about “protecting stars.”
- I saw several Canucks fans praise J.T. Miller for talking to Perry heading into the second intermission and I just have to ask, what are we doing here? Are we really at the point where we’re extolling a guy for giving someone a stern talking-to in response to his captain getting thrown head-first to the ice?
- Carson Soucy was on the ice for four Oilers goals, which is slightly less than ideal. A Draisaitl pass went right through his legs on the penalty kill, landing on the tape of Nugent-Hopkins, who had plenty of time and space to make it 5-0 midway through the second period.
- The Canucks got a couple of goals back before the end of the second — not enough to make anyone believe they could come back, but enough to remind you that the Canucks are actually capable of scoring goals, which somehow makes it worse. They could have been scoring goals this whole time?! Why haven’t they been doing that?!
- Boeser got the Canucks on the board just after the 5-0 goal. Miller gained the zone and slipped the puck outside to Boeser before driving to the net to make sure the sniper had space. Boeser made like suspenders and went over the shoulder.
- A couple of minutes later, Hronek hammered a one-timer off the post and in to make it 5-2. Boeser won the puck off a scrambled faceoff, fed Quinn Hughes at the point, and the captain put a pass into Hronek’s wheelhouse for the goal.
- Hronek’s goal was nice and all but he then capped off the second period with another defensive zone turnover, forcing Demko to bail him out with a point-blank save on Hyman with 14 seconds left. There was no disguising Hronek’s struggles in this game.
- It was a bad game for Demko too. Sure, he got hung out to dry a couple of times but he just doesn’t look comfortable on the ice right now and keeps making things harder on himself. The Oilers added a sixth goal in the third period because Demko coughed up a brutal rebound to Kasperi Kapanen. This is not the same Demko fans have grown used to over the past several seasons.
- “I’m sure pretty much everyone’s turned on us and they’re not wrong: we haven’t been playing good,” said Blueger after the game. “But, I mean, at some point, with persistence and work and commitment — hopefully, sticking together — we’ll turn it around.”
