Canucks Takeaways: Improved play but same result

Three games in, the Vancouver Canucks’ systems play is getting there. Most of their best players, not so much.

In their first road game of the National Hockey League season, the Canucks were even territorially on Tuesday with the Tampa Bay Lightning, who played their home opener at Amalie Arena less than a week after Hurricane Milton slammed through Central Florida.

Shots attempts were 63-58 for the Canucks, who outhit the Lightning 21-12 and looked at five-on-five closer to the 50-win team they were last season than the misfiring squad that lost its first two games in Vancouver in overtime and a shootout.

But Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy was excellent, and his team’s attack was driven by stars Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point as the Lightning won 4-1. 

The Canucks managed only a third-period power-play goal by Conor Garland, who tapped in the loose puck from Brock Boeser’s deflection when the score was already 3-0 for the Lightning.

Boeser, J.T. Miller and defenceman Quinn Hughes continue to drive play for the Canucks. But through three games, star centre Elias Pettersson is stuck at a single power-play assist. Other key Canucks like Filip Hronek and top-six forwards Jake DeBrusk and Danton Heinen also have failed to register a point at even strength.

Put together for Tuesday’s game by coach Rick Tocchet, the trio of Pettersson, DeBrusk and Heinen was outshot 6-2 at five-on-five and posted expected-goals of just 21 per cent before the line was separated in the third period.

As a team, the Canucks scored four goals in the first period of their season and have four goals in eight periods (plus overtime) since then. And Vancouver, 0-1-2, is below .500 for the first time since the 2022-23 season.

The Canucks’ overall play, at least, was a notch up from Friday’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers and profoundly better than their second-half collapse in Wednesday’s 6-5 overtime debacle against the Calgary Flames.

After a poor first period against the Lightning, the Canucks were excellent in the second. But they failed to beat Vasilevskiy during two key flurries: shortly before Point was left unchecked and blasted Jake Guentzel’s drop pass past Vancouver goalie Arturs Silovs to make it 2-0 at 7:43, and in the final three minutes of the middle frame when Garland and Hughes hit posts, and Boeser was stopped on a redirect.

Anthony Cirelli’s easy goal, when he stood open behind Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers and forced Brandon Hagel’s centring pass through Silovs, was a debilitating one for Vancouver to allow just 39 seconds into the third period.

Hagel, another of Tampa’s key forwards, added an empty-net goal with 1:46 remaining.

“We know Vasilevskiy is all-world, but we weren't ready to play the first period,” Tocchet told reporters in Tampa. “I know it was only 1-0, but I didn't think we won a battle. The second and third, we came. I thought we had some chances we didn't bury. But you can't give a team like that a two-goal lead.”

Hoping to challenge for a Stanley Cup this season, the Canucks are winless going into Thursday’s game against the champion Florida Panthers. Vancouver’s four-game trip concludes with stops in Philadelphia and Chicago.

“We've got to start on time,” Tocchet said. “We've got to start to win some battles. There's pockets of the game that I liked and some pockets of the game I didn't. But we need some guys to dig out a little bit. We're kind of in the corners on the ends of our sticks. It's been happening a couple games now, and we've got to make sure that we get a little bit grittier in the corners.”

SILOVS OVER LANKINEN

The easiest second-guess in hockey is the head coach’s choice of goaltenders, and Tocchet made a slightly surprising one by going back to Silovs after Kevin Lankinen put in a sturdy performance for the Canucks on Friday. Beaten six times on 26 shots on Wednesday, Silovs looked better in Tampa.

The Cirelli and Kucherov goals came from cross-ice passes. Silovs could have been more aggressive against Point’s blast from the right-wing circle, but Canucks defenceman Carson Soucy gave the Lightning scorer far too much space on the play as he peeled back to the netfront.

Tocchet said before the trip that he wants to keep both of his goalies involved early in the season and hinted that Silovs and Lankinen would split the two games in Florida. They still should, even if the playing order was unexpected.

LINEUP DANCING

Minor-league callup Arshdeep Bains got his first game of the season as winger Daniel Sprong, one of four experienced forwards signed by the Canucks in free agency, was scratched in Game 3. Playing mostly with Miller and Boeser on the top line, Bains registered one shot and three hits in 12:59 of ice time, which included 1:45 on the power play.

Even more surprising, Tyler Myers was healthy enough to log career game No. 998, playing four nights after sustaining what looked like a significant knee injury in the loss to the Flyers. It wasn’t Myers’ best game (two penalties, minus-two, an expected-goals share of 37 per cent and his mistake on Cirelli’s goal), but his apparent health is a massive relief for the Canucks and their second-pairing, matchup defenceman.

HIT THE NET

Except for his shot, Quinn Hughes looks like a Norris Trophy-winning defenceman. And the problem isn’t really his shot, but getting it through. The Canucks captain got three of his 10 shots on target against the Lightning, and in the first three games has had an incredible 18 of his 25 shot attempts blocked.

Clearly, opposing teams noticed that Hughes scored 17 times last season on his way to the Norris.

The rate at which Hughes is getting his shot rejected is unbelievable. But it is also unstainable. The defenceman is just too agile, too smart and too quick with his release when he wants to be for Hughes not to start scoring — or at least force goalies to make more saves.