Not the high flying start the Canucks wanted to get off to. After dropping their first game in OT, the Canucks dropped the ball against the Flyers last night, losing 3-2 in a shootout. The Canucks were clinical last year holding a lead going into the third (they lost only five of 47 games going 42-1-4), however this year they’re already 0-0-2. Not the worst, but also not a place you want to find yourself at home.

There were positives from last night: the defensive structure, goaltending, the bottom six… Tocc was keeping a level head after the game and was very pleased with how the team bounced back in front of newcomer Kevin Lankinen.

“I said to you guys, even last year, if we had a weird or a tough effort — maybe not a good effort — we’d always bounce back. So I thought we did a good job in the D zone of bouncing back,” Tocc said.

Apparently it took until the third period for the Flyers to register a five on five “high danger chance”, and at the end of the game the five on five scoring chances were 20 - 10 in favour of the Canucks. They just didn’t finish.

“I’d like to see a little bit more net front presence. More shooting mentality. But for the most part, the zone time, we just got to start converting,” Tocc lamented. “Now we got, you know, two overtime losses. We need to make some big plays here.”

Lankinen looked very solid last night, coming up with some big saves to keep his team in it and stopping 29 of 31. Looks like it will be a nice competition with Silovs for the starting gig, which Lankinen has an inside track on after the first two games.

Which brings us to the not-so-positives: the top six wasn’t it, the powerplay was blanked, and the Canucks lost Myers early to an injury. Petey and Miller didn’t have great nights, and for the team to win consistently they’ll need those guys – especially Petey – to bring it every night. Losing Myers is a pretty big blow for a Canucks team who doesn’t really have that much D depth, so let’s hope that his apparent leg injury isn’t too serious. Plus, as Blueger points out, there are a lot of new faces incorporating themselves into the team and system, and that may take a moment to settle in:

“I think new guys, you know, it can take some time to adjust, for sure,” Blueger said. “We've got a lot of new players. It takes time sometimes.

“We had chances, they had chances (and) they end up scoring that one in the third. It felt like a pretty even game. I think the difference was very, very small tonight. We were going with five (defencemen), missing a big part of our D-corps. All in all, you know, it was right there for us.”


After two games at home, the Canucks are taking off for a 4 game road trip that opens Tuesday night in Tampa.


Annnnd comments:




Quotes from the Province and Sportsnet.

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