Monday December 6 - Los Angeles Kings at Vancouver Canucks - 7 p.m.
It's gonna be a looooooong homestand. And not in a good way.
The fans, they were restless and relentless. We had the loud booing. The 'Fire Benning' chants. And the jersey tossed on the ice.
The visitors? The Pittsburgh Penguins replicated their result from 10 days earlier, handing the Vancouver Canucks another 4-1 loss. Jake Guentzel had the hat trick. Fans who paid to see Sidney Crosby return to the site of his Golden Goal from 2010 left satisfied, as he notched a goal and an assist.
Once again, the game hinged on failed penalty kills — a comedy of errors late in the second period, with the score tied 1-1.
• Tyler Myers - closing hand on puck - 16:14
• Tyler Motte - cross checking - 16:45
• Tucker Poolman - puck over glass - 17:05
Two of those were basically automatic. Motte's cross check was a bit of a softie, and he
told reporters after the game that Kris Letang admitted that he lost an edge on the play. But in the midst of a cross-checking crackdown, players can't put themselves in position to have to take that medicine.
"A bit of a new rule, bit of a change," Motte said. "Tough one to take, obviously, when you’re already down a guy. It’s 200 feet (from the Canucks net) with no clear scoring opportunity. I don’t think anyone ever really agrees with one that they take, but you know when a player comes up to you after and tells you he’s losing an edge on the way down, it’s tough. But obviously we took too many (penalties) again tonight."
Even if you disagree with that call, the Canucks needed to do more with their own man-advantage opportunities. They went 0-for-3 as the Penguins reached 10 games without allowing a single goal on the penalty kill — and have improved their record from 5-5-4 to 11-8-5 over that time.
The Canucks had successfully killed off three earlier penalties before the second-period sequence of doom. Not surprisingly, the Penguins scored twice on their extended 5-on-3. And that was the game.
Yes, 5-on-3 situations are tough to kill. But did you see St. Louis's penalty-killing situation against Florida in overtime on Saturday? Down a man, on a 4-on-3, defender Robert Bortuzzo played 1:16 of a 4-on-3 penalty kill without a stick. Against Florida — one of the top teams in the league.
Not only did the Panthers not score — they didn't even get a shot on goal during this sequence. In real time, it was incredible to watch the stickless Bortuzzo use his body to keep on defending what was essentially a 4-on-2.
And Saturday's game was not a situation where the Canucks deserved a better fate. They were outshot by nearly a 2-to-1 margin, 44-to-23, by a team that has been on the road for a week and played tough games in Calgary on Monday (2-1 shootout loss) and Edmonton on Wednesday (5-2 loss, four points for McDavid).
You can even take out the special teams and see that the Canucks were owned at 5-on-5 from start to finish.
The shot-location map doesn't look any better.
For Canucks fans, I think their pain runs particularly deep at this point because they were promised — again — that this year would be different. The club made major roster changes and re-built its organization after a year of pandemic-related cost cutting.
Instead, the product is worse than ever. Saturday's loss drops the Canucks' record this season to 8-15-2, and a horrific 3-7-1 on home ice. The only teams with worse home records are the soon-to-be-deposed Arizona Coyotes (2-7-1), who are enduring another round of rumours this week about potential relocation, and the struggling New York Islanders (0-4-1), who were placed in a nearly impossible situation as they bided their time before getting into their long-awaited new home at UBS Arena.
Here's another angle to make you realize just how badly this season is going. At the 25-game mark last year, the Canucks were 9-14-2 for 20 points. Right now, they're two points behind that pace.
The team and the fans are now stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, so I expect that outcry for change is going to get louder and louder.
Sunday is a team day off. Then, the Canucks will host the Los Angeles Kings on Monday, the Boston Bruins on Wednesday, the Winnipeg Jets on Friday, the Carolina Hurricanes next Sunday and the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday, Dec. 14. After that, it's a brief escape to the Bay Area for a date with the San Jose Sharks before what could be a major moment of truth — Canucks vs. Maple Leafs, with the despised 4 p.m. PT start, one week before Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 18.
Out in the Valley on Saturday, the news was also grim, as the Abbotsford Canucks had their two-game winning streak snapped in a 6-4 loss to the San Jose Barracuda.
Three of Abbotsford's goals came on the power play, from Will Lockwood, Phil Di Giuseppe and Nic Petan. At even strength, Jack Rathbone gave the Canucks a 4-3 lead early in the second period, which led to a goaltending change for San Jose and, eventually, a third-period comeback with three unanswered goals.
It was a rough night, defensively, for the top line. Sheldon Dries finished with a minus-5, while Di Giuseppe and Sheldon Rempal were each minus-4. Mikey DiPietro took the loss, with 26 saves, and saw his record for the season fall to 3-4-2, with a 2.97 goals-against average and .904 save percentage.
Travis Hamonic was in the lineup for Abbotsford on Saturday, after Travis Green said he wanted the defenseman to get into a game after missing a good chunk of time. He took two penalties and finished with a minus-2 — and is expected to be recalled imminently, back to the Canucks.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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