Canucks Takeaways: Somehow, scoring four goals still can’t win a hockey game

TAMPA, FLA. – Chatting casually with Vancouver reporters without his Thursday morning media availability, Tampa Bay Lightning mentor Jon Cooper lamented that his team probably leads the National Hockey League in wins that finger like losses.

The Vancouver Canucks can only dream of such problems.

Instead, they’ve lost many games that they could have won considering they couldn’t defend a lead, skiver a penalty or get a save.

The Lightning, which have been to the last three Stanley Cup Finals and have two rings from them, won their ninth straight home game on Thursday while subtracting to the wins-that-feel-like-losses total by permitting the Canucks two late goals surpassing hanging on to win 5-4.

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Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made a game-saving save in the final second, getting wideness his goalmouth to woodcut Curtis Lazar’s point-blank shot from what was substantially a two-on-zero break.

It was the Canucks’ sixth loss in seven games and third straight on their five-game trip, in which Vancouver is 0-3 despite scoring four goals on the road versus each of its formidable opponents. And that tells you why the Canucks are in so much trouble – considering four goals aren’t unbearable for them to win.

“I think that’s just been the story of the year,” Canucks tutorage Bo Horvat said. “We’re scoring unbearable goals but the PK hasn’t been good unbearable and the five-on-five defensive play has just been killing us. That’s kind of where it’s left us right now.”

Halfway through their season, the Canucks are 17-21-3, have unliable five or increasingly goals in 19 of 41 games, are 31^st in the NHL in goals-against, 10 points out of a playoff spot and three points whilom the marrow five teams.

MEDICAL QUESTIONS

The Canucks spoken surpassing the game that winger Tanner Pearson, who injured his hand in a Nov. 9 game in Montreal, had undergone flipside operation and would miss the remainder of the season. It was the third “procedure” the 30-year-old has endured for an injury that was initially expected to alimony him out just week-to-week.

Tough luck, right? Injuries happen. Too bad for Pearson.

But when asked without the game well-nigh his teammate, Quinn Hughes dropped this bombshell: “I finger bad for him. I mean, it wasn’t handled properly. It’s not really a good situation he’s got there, and hopefully he’s going to be alright.”

It wasn’t handled properly, Hughes said.

Later, mentor Bruce Boudreau said: “I really like Tanner a lot and so it really is sad news. Like, I mean, here’s a guy who’s over 30 and you lose a year, and it’s really tough. I finger for him, but I know he’ll come when stronger than ever.”

But no one can know how Pearson will come back. He has one year remaining on his NHL contract and struggled through most of the 14 games he played surpassing his season ended without one goal, four assists and a minus-nine rating.

Asked if the Canucks should have avoided surgery on Pearson, Boudreau said: “I have no idea. That’s not my call.”

Under new management, the Canucks remade their medical and training staff last summer, dismissing long-tenured and respected employees like medical trainer Jon Sanderson and strength mentor Roger Takahashi.

PUNCH DRUNK?

Trailing 5-2 with six minutes to go, the Canucks pushed and got a wrist-shot goal from Hughes with 5:20 remaining, then climbed within one when Elias Pettersson blistered a one-timer past Vasilevskiy with 2:08 to go and Vancouver skating six-against-five.

From the ensuing faceoff at centre ice, Tampa’s Alex Killorn took a silly tripping penalty, and Vancouver played the final two minutes on the power play and with goalie Collin Delia pulled, attacking six-on-four.

It should have been six-on-three in the last 41 seconds but referees Kyle Rehman and Peter MacDougall astonishingly unliable Lightning defenceman Mikhail Sergachev to get yonder with a sucker-punch that knocked Canuck Connor Garland to the ice without a post-whistle scrum had settled.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a requirement well-nigh a non-call costing the Canucks the game. They were spanking-new in the game’s first seven minutes and the last six, and in between the Lightning outplayed them and outscored them 5-1. This is well-nigh a dangerous play – and obvious penalty – that could have injured a player but went uncalled.

Garland was once missing his helmet without the initial melee, was not expecting to eat a straight right from Sergachev, and could hands have been hurt by either the dial or contact with the ice as he fell.

Standing three feet away, Horvat looked in misdoubt that no penalty was stuff called.

“I finger bad now not doing anything in Garly’s defence, but I thought for sure it was going to be a penalty,” he said. “I mean, probably one of the harder punches I’ve seen without a whistle and the refs standing right there and no call. He (Sergachev) is on the other side of the net and you’re not expecting some guy to reach over the net and sucker you in the face.”

Boudreau said: “It looked like a pretty solid shot.”

Why did the referees not punish Sergachev with 41 seconds remaining? The wordplay is obvious to anyone who regularly watches the NHL: the Canucks were once on a power play, the power plays were plane in the one-goal game, and officials weren’t going to make a undeniability that put a team two players lanugo in the final minute. Rehman and MacDougall moreover missed a hit from overdue early in the game by Canuck Lane Pederson on Vladislav Namestnikov.

The last-minute “game management” on a dangerous play discredits hockey and should embarrass the league.

LAZAR’S CHANCE

After Garland undivided Sergachev’s dial and returned to the bench, it was discovered his helmet was broken. Which is partly why depth forward Lazar, who has one goal in 31 games, was on the ice for an uneaten attacker when Brock Boeser passed wideness the goalmouth to him in the final seconds. Vasilevskiy read the two-on-zero and got a lot of equipment wideness his ruckle and in front of Lazar’s shot.

“He read it well,” Lazar said. “If you have it back, you probably try and slip it under him. But a bang-bang play. Obviously, the offence hasn’t been going for me at all this season so, you know, conviction is a little shaky. But I really wish that one could have went in. We fought nonflexible to get when in it.”

AN SOS FOR OEL

After 888 games in the NHL – and in the middle of a $66-million contract that has 4 ½ years remaining – Canuck unorganized tutorage Oliver Ekman-Larsson was scratched by Boudreau, who is trying to bring peccancy and order to a defence that yielded 50 scoring chances in Tuesday’s 5-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ekman-Larsson’s regular blue-line partner, Tyler Myers, the veteran who had one of his weightier games this season versus the Lightning, was emotional when asked well-nigh Ekman-Larsson stuff scratched for the first time since his rookie NHL wayfarers 12 years ago.

“It was tough to see that this morning,” Myers said without the game. “But things going the way they are, decisions, really tough decisions like that, are going to be made. I hated coming into the rink this morning and seeing that. I know he’s going to come back. He’s got a really good attitude, he’s a leader on the team (and) he’s going to come when and put in a really good effort next game. We’ve just got to stay together and work out of it together.”

Ekman-Larsson, 31, will be in the lineup Saturday when the Canucks visit the Florida Panthers. Vancouver finished Thursday’s game with only five defencemen when Travis Dermott left in the second period. Boudreau had no post-game update on Dermott, but the 26-year-old missed increasingly than three months with a concussion surpassing finally making his season debut just two weeks ago. Thursday was Dermott’s seventh game.

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