Oof. That was a let down game if there was one. The Canucks crawled out of the gates, made things interesting in the second, and then the wheels came off in the third to a 7-3 tune. If you’re into that sort of thing, here are the highlights:
Hopefully none of you have seasons tickets to the Canucks, because they haven’t been particularly good on home ice. Their last two home games have been a combined score of 13-3, leaving them 1-2-3 at home and 6-1-0 on the road. For some reason, it’s just not clicking in front of the faithful yet.
“I think we're still growing as a team,” Soucy said. “Obviously, it was a great road trip with kind of our most complete game coming at the end (4-2 win in Los Angeles on Thursday). But I think just kind of growing as a team in consistency, game in, game out… I don't know if home and away has anything to do with it. We want to bring that energy to home. I mean, it was a great crowd in here tonight and we kind of let him down with the slow start.”
Yes, it was another slow start for the Canucks. They’ve given up the first goal in their last 7 games. It’s tough to impose your style of play when you’re constantly playing catchup as the team has been. Tocc needs to get them ready, so part of that is on him, and part of it is playing more directly.
“We’re not getting to our game early enough,” Tocchet told reporters. “We’ve got a couple of guys who’ve got to understand how we have to play more predictable. I think we’re taking the puck back too much. We survived it after the first, but we’ve got to make sure that we stick to the game plan.”
Pretty sure the game plan wasn’t allowing seven goals against the Oilers, or letting them put them up as easily and softly as they did. It was… a bad game. They happen. The loss of Boeser hurt, but Miller also had a game to forget. He might still be nursing whatever ails him, but Miller was out-chanced 9-1 and outscored 3-0 on the night, and his line didn’t generate a single shot on goal during Miller’s five-on-five shifts. Not gonna win many when he’s not driving the forwards like he normally does.
On the plus side Petey sparked their mini second period comeback attempt. He did well forechecking to cause Ekholm to throw the puck away to DeBrusk, and then went to the net to tip the puck home to get the Canucks on the board. He also picked up a primary apple on their garbage time goal. His play is starting to come together a bit more, we all hope.
“I felt better personally, but I know it’s a long way to go to be where I want to be,” Pettersson said post-game.
Put this game in the mental garbage and move on to the next one, really. The Canucks go again Tuesday night against the Flames.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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