The end of the road trip was not kind to the Canucks as they didn’t have much effort in a 5-2 loss to Seattle Thursday night. The Canucks dropped their fourth straight as the adversity mounts for them, going winless on their road trip. Here are your highlights:
After a strong-effort game against the Avs the other night, the boys didn’t have much in them for Seattle. The game marked their 10th game in 17 days, playing in 9 different arenas across 4 time zones. They’ve played a lot of hockey lately, but tired legs shouldn’t be an excuse for a poor outing, according to Tocc:
“We called this that it would be a tough stretch, but you can't give into fatigue,” he said. “You can't. You've got to play smarter. Just play smart and compete. It's not Xs and Os. They came up with loose pucks and we didn't. I mean, you guys saw it. There's nothing for me to analyze. There's nothing really to say.”
But, he did have a lot more to say:
“Not much compete from the guys. That's on me; I’ve got to take the blame for that. I didn't get the guys to compete hard enough, so I'll take the heat on this one. There was a lot of no-shows tonight.
“I thought the first 10 (minutes), I thought we were fine. Then all of a sudden, it was a comedy or errors where guys were missing pucks and things like that. We don't get the clear on the PK and then it just started to unravel. We had some guys trying but some guys just had a tough time tonight.”
The Canucks seem to be sliding as other teams are gearing up, which makes the effort level more apparent.
“I mean, this is not even close to playoff hockey,” Tocc added. “(The Kraken) were desperate, but if these guys think playoff hockey is that, we're in trouble. There's been a couple of games here where we need some guys to get going. I don't care what our record is; it's been a little bit disturbing some of the efforts from some of the guys right now.”
Feet getting firmly held to the fire.
Hughes is trying to take a measured approach to the slide, but understands it wasn’t good enough. This is his first big point as a captain to lead the team out of this, notably on the power play too.
“Not a great effort,” he said. “It doesn’t feel great, obviously, but we can look at this as a chance to improve. I’m not going to be too high or too low and I think I’ve done a good job of that this year and so have the guys. We know we need to be better but nobody is panicking.
“The power play is going to be a focal point until we have success, but nobody cares more about it than the guys on the ice. If we can’t get the job done, they (coaches) will find guys who can.”
The power play has one goal in the last 28 chances, and the team was outscored 5-1 on special teams on the road trip. Something’s gotta give. They shuffled the formation a bit when they added in Lindolm, so perhaps going back to what it was before may help.
Ian Cole, whose voice has resonance in the room, added his opinion on the adversity bump:
“You can make the argument that Boston didn't face any adversity last year in their historic season, and then they certainly faced it in the playoffs,” he said. “Adversity is inevitable in the playoffs. And for us to be able to work through this... I think is going to be beneficial for us in the long run.
“So far, the season has been great. A little adversity is not a bad thing. When the playoffs come and... the shit starts to hit the fan, hopefully we can feel, like 'OK, we've been here and this is how we worked out way through it.’”
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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