On Saturday afternoon, the Vancouver Canucks coughed up more bankable points in the standings and spoiled starting goaltender Ryan Miller’s Buffalo homecoming by allowing an 11th hour game-winning goal to Buffalo Sabres defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen.
“He made a nice cross-body, cross-screen shot,” Miller said of the late game winner. “That’s all she wrote.”
It was a game the club should’ve had, frankly.
“The way that we played, we deserved points in this building,” Canucks winger Daniel Sedin said. “So it’s unfortunate.”
That’s one way to put it. Vancouver carried play all afternoon, outshooting and out-attempting the Sabres nearly two-to-one. It was a series of little mistakes in the defensive zone: a confused assignment on the first goal, allowing a defenceman to walk virtually unchecked into the high slot on the game winner, which cost the club in a major way.
“I thought we maybe lost focus,” Miller said, adding that he detected a lack of attention to detail from his club, and describing the loss as a “wake up call.”
“That’s been kind of the script for a lot of the third periods,” Miller continued. “At some point it has to become an issue.”
It’s already an issue, really.
Even before Saturday’s heart-breaking buzzer beater, the Canucks had lost four games in which they led after 40 minutes. Saturday’s contest doesn’t quite qualify under that rubric since they entered the third frame trailing by a goal, but it’s another example of a team that consistently maximized their points haul last season – the Canucks were dominant in extra time and in one-goal games – struggling to repeat those crucial feats this year.
In the Pacific Division that promises to be tight, the points Vancouver has frittered away as a direct result of poor third period play may well come back to bite them.
A look at the underlying numbers suggests that the club’s third period issues aren’t entirely a mirage. By whatever metric you prefer, the third period has been Vancouver’s worst this season. And in terms of the scoreboard itself, the Canucks have the third best goal differential in hockey in the first period, and are a top team in the second frame as well.
They’ve surrendered as many as they’ve scored in the third.
In attempting to explain the Canucks’ issues in the latter 20 minutes, a popular theory posits that the club begins to spin its wheels when head coach Willie Desjardins shortens his bench and becomes reluctant to give the club’s bevy of younger players ice time late in games. Correlation doesn’t imply causation though, as Saturday’s loss would underline.
“I thought (the kids) were good,” Desjardins said of his collection of rookie players. “It’s always hard to play them sometimes late in games because you’re not quite sure what you’re going to get, but you have to give them a chance to grow.
“I rolled four lines all the way to the end.”
Desjardins’ claim holds up under scrutiny. Jake Virtanen, 19, saw relatively fewer shifts in the final frame, though it’s worth noting that he was targeted by Sabres players throughout the contest and took an undisciplined second period penalty. Jared McCann, Ben Hutton and Sven Baertschi were all used as regularly in the third as they were in the first 40 minutes.
This relatively newfound level of trust isn’t lost on Vancouver’s rookies.
“(Desjardins) is showing confidence in me and I don’t want to let him down,” McCann said of logging shifts late in Saturday’s game.
In going as young as the Canucks have this season, you have to expect the odd mistake. When 20-year-old Bo Horvat and 22-year-old Ben Hutton appeared to get their signals crossed on the Sabres’ first goal, it’s likely a matter of growing pains.
What’s a bit tougher to swallow though is Daniel Sedin’s giveaway leading to the Sabres’ game winner.
“We tried to make a play high, but it was a tough play, they were on us,” Desjardins said.
Saturday’s loss stings but in the big picture, there’s still a lot to like out of Vancouver so far. The club has only lost four times in regulation this season and all of those losses have been narrow. On Saturday, the Sedins controlled play, Vancouver’s depth players held their own and all of the club’s young players authored a least one genuinely dazzling moment.
Now if the Canucks can put it together for a full 60 minutes with some level of consistency, they might really have something.
