Canucks blowing yet another lead a reflection of disappointing first half

PITTSBURGH — All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put the Vancouver Canucks together again.

But Bruce Boudreau will keep trying.

The National Hockey League team, which crashed on its first road trip in October and has seen its fragments smashed into smaller bits since then, blew another three-goal lead Tuesday and lost 5-4 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It’s not that this game made the Canucks irreparable, blowing a 3-0 first-period head start over the span of 10 minutes. It’s all the games they’ve kicked away in the franchise’s most disappointing first half this century.

Tuesday was the third time in 40 games they lost in regulation time after scoring the first three goals. It was the eighth time they’ve lost while leading by two or more goals.

But, really, what has made them unfixable is the way they defend – leading or otherwise. They have surrendered five or more goals 18 times, nearly every other game. And only the Anaheim Ducks have allowed more goals this season than the 158 pucks the Canucks have fished out of their net.

And this isn’t on the goaltending. OK, it’s partly on the goalies. But it’s mostly on the inept defending in front of them.

After starting Pittsburgh goalie Casey DeSmith was yanked for allowing three goals on five shots in the first seven minutes – coach Mike Sullivan’s relief choice was 33-year-old minor-leaguer Dustin Tokarski, who hadn’t played an NHL minute since last season – the Penguins outshot the Canucks 15-3 in the 10 minutes they required to pull even.

Amid that onslaught, Canucks goalie Spencer Martin made a pile of five-star saves. He faced 20 shots in the first period, when naturalstattrick.com had the total scoring chances at 23-7 for the Penguins. Martin was arguably the best Canuck, although the reunited Vancouver defence pairing of Quinn Hughes and Luke Schenn did combine for four points while going plus-three in the loss.

The Canucks’ problems are their carelessness with the puck, the space they leave in front of their net, their lack of speed to win races to the puck or unwillingness to battle for it in one-on-one situations. And now, having chased under duress since starting the season 0-5-2 and lurching from crisis to crisis, there is mental fatigue. The drama of their season is exhausting.

And it’s the mental challenge that coach Bruce Boudreau must try to address in order to have a hope of fixing some of those other causes of losing.

“I mean, I know the guys at the end, they want to win so bad,” Boudreau told reporters Tuesday night. “They were all standing up on the bench (late in the third period) and every time the puck went at the net there, you're yelling positive stuff. I know they're not giving up or nothing, but I'm glad we have a day off before the next game.”

Having lost against superior teams in Winnipeg and Pittsburgh despite scoring four goals in each road game (while allowing a total of 12), the Canucks visit the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, then complete their five-game survival test with back-to-back weekend contests against the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes.

We said after Vancouver’s 6-2 home loss last week against the New York Islanders that it was hard to imagine them winning another game the way they were playing. But then the Canucks surprised the Colorado Avalanche 4-2 two nights later. That win sure looks like an outlier, as the Canucks bleed scoring chances against elite teams and continue to slide towards the bottom of the standings and a slightly better lottery ticket in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes.

“At the end of the day, we're on the road or weathering the storm,” Martin said. “We've got to show up and play another three really tough opponents.

“I'm sure if you're competitor, having what we feel in this room is a bunch of good hockey players, it is frustrating just to keep not getting the results we want. And then you know, personally. . . I want to win these games, I want to have a good trip and we're off to a 0-2 start, so that’s definitely frustrating.”

And he was one of the best Canucks.

“You're never going to be at peace as a goalie if you let in five, and it's happening way too often,” Martin said. “It's extremely frustrating.”

Between Hughes’ goal that trickled through DeSmith to make it 3-0 at 7:05, and Travis Dermott’s goal from an end-boards rebound at 12:52 of the third period, Vancouver manufactured 13 shots in nearly 46 minutes.

Martin, meanwhile, was under siege. Evgeni Malkin had two goals and two assists among the five straight goals scored by Pittsburgh, which went 2-for-5 on the power play while Vancouver was 0-for-5.

Elias Pettersson, battered in his even-strength matchup against Malkin, was stopped on a pair of shorthanded breakaways and leading goal-scorer Bo Horvat hit the post on a semi-open net during a Canuck power play when it was 3-3 early in the second period.

“I don't think it's mental; I just think their best players kind of stepped up and made a bunch of plays and decided they were going to try to make an impact on the game,” Hughes said. “I don't think it's mental errors from our part, just them playing better than us.”

How hard was it to sit in the dressing room tied 3-3 after the first period when the Canucks had led 3-0 on goals by Conor Garland, Brock Boeser and him?

Hughes: “I wasn’t feeling demoralized. I mean, at the end of the day, they come back and tie it 3-3 at the end of the first, so we're still in the same spot we were before the game.

“It's our job to show up and perform to the best of our abilities. I know it's like a cliche answer, but it's the truth. Everyone has to continue to mentally battle or do whatever they need to do to try to bring their best. And wherever we stand at the end of that, that's just where we stand.”

“You know what, it's not (just) this team,” Boudreau said of the blown leads. “I can look at any game when teams jump into a quick lead, and in today's game, they don't usually keep it. There were certain times there. .  . when they made it 3-1, Petey has a breakaway and if he makes it 4-1, that stops their momentum. Same thing in the second period, it's 3-3, and Bo missed a glorious chance and they came down (and scored). Those are things, I mean, we don't like it. But I'm glad to see the way in the third period that we didn't quit and we kept coming and almost had something at the end.”

Eight points and four places out of a playoff spot, the 17-20-3 Canucks finish the first half of their schedule on Thursday.