The Canucks had a chance to build off their win against Edmonton against the lowly Sabers on Tuesday night, but the team was again inconsistent and lacked energy in their 3-2 loss Tuesday night. The Canucks haven’t won back-to-back games since the beginning of December. If you wanna watch, you can here:
It’s sort of been the story of the year for the Canucks. Get scored on first. Show flashes of their potential. Let things slip away. Rue it afterwards. Tuesday night wasn’t any different, aside from maybe all the trade chatter that’s constantly been ramping up this past week. But at the end of the day, the Canucks didn’t play well enough to beat a team they should have beat.
“It’s just been a microcosm of our season,” Tocchet said. “Key times and key moments, we’re just not getting them. We’re not protecting the middle of the ice and sometimes in a key moment, and I hate to use the word, but we go kind of numb.
“We’ve got to turn that around. Consistency is a responsibility of the player. We’re up 2-1 and our next three shifts, we make blind plays and give Buffalo a chance to go the other way. Some guys have to know their roles.
“You can’t always try to score when it’s not there.”
The Canucks held a lead heading into the third on goals by PDG and Petey. Last year’s team would have closed that out. This year, the Canucks have been uneven in their confidence and structure. They’re 15-1-6 this year when leading after two, compared to last year’s remarkable 42-1-4.
The Canucks were able to muster more shots against Buffalo, which is nice as they’ve been pretty bad all season at that. But, they couldn’t really buy some goals. Their offense seems more popgun this season, which may be due to regression but also maybe coaching.
“We defer when we’ve got some good things happening,” said Tocchet. “Sometimes, we think it’s going to be easy when we have five chances in a row. But it’s hard to flip and frustrating because when you’ve got a team down, you have to attack the interior.
“I just felt we were perimeter.”
Heading into the third with a 2-1 lead didn’t feel safe – the Canucks weren’t dominating the game – and the team let Buffalo score two goals from the slot. They didn’t defend well, and they didn’t catch a big save when then needed it.
“It’s disappointing,” said Demko. “I’ve got to get a piece of one of those (goals) in the third. Got piece of the first one and it snuck through. It just comes down to us in the room. We’ve got to man-up a bit and certainly myself included.
“I haven’t been good enough this year so far and I’ve got to keep working to get to that level I know I can get to. Obviously, it’s been a challenging year and dating back to the summer. A lot of soul searching over the last few months.
“It’s been an odd year. I came back for a few games before the Christmas break and missed two games and a little bit of back and forth. But that’s irrelevant. I’ve got to show up when my name is called. I’ve got to do a better job.”
The defense has to be better too. They were solid on Saturday night against Edmonton.
“The Edmonton game we did a great job of (protecting the lead), and tonight we just kind of gave up some chances from high-danger areas,” Forbort said. “It's hard to put a finger on what it was until you kind of look back at the game. But yeah, it's not good enough.
“I mean, we were talking before the game about this being a must-win. I thought we had pretty good O-zone time, good possession. (But) when it was kind of time to do some of those hard things, we just couldn't do it.”
The Canucks have a chance to put this behind them when they head to play the Oilers on Thursday night. It will be a rematch of Saturday’s intense game, of course without Calder winning Tyler Myers and noted goon Connor McDavid. As always, Tocc had something to say about the suspensions:
“It was just unfortunate and it’s a tough job for the referees,” he said. “I just don’t like the grandstanding to protect this and that. It is what it is. I don’t want McDavid to get suspended. We’re playing them (Thursday) and you want to play the best.
“He’s terrific for our league and an unbelievable kid from what I’ve been told on how he works at his game. And his feel for the game. It (suspension) happened and you deal with it. It’s the same thing with Myers.
“Really hard to sit on the couch and rip everybody. I have a real tough time with that. A lot of people are grandstanding and ripping the refs. There were a couple of holds that were missed and then the high sticks and we can go back and forth. We’ve got to move on from this.
“Garland just wants to win. When there’s 10 seconds left, sometimes you’re supposed to do that and start grabbing and holding people. Nothing wrong with that strategy and he also got punched in the head, too. It’s tit-for-tat.
“Everybody is blowing this out of proportion. Move on.”
Until then, comments and JT Miller trade watch continues:
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