Inconsistent Canucks lack execution in third-period collapse: 'This one hurts'

VANCOUVER — Had the Vancouver Canucks not surrendered four goals in the final seven minutes of Saturday’s 5-4 overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken, the team would have won two straight home games for the first time this season.

Instead, with their final game of 2024 in Calgary on Tuesday, the Canucks will go into the New Year still looking for a winning streak longer than one game at Rogers Arena.

Based on this, we’ll let you decide whether it was genuinely shocking that Vancouver choked on a three-goal lead as if it were a turkey wishbone, becoming just the third team in National Hockey League history to lose a game in which it led by three goals in the final five minutes of regulation time.

Discouraging? Yes. Exasperating? Definitely. Embarrassing? It should be. Shocking? Probably not.

This season has been all about inconsistency for last year’s 50-win team. 

Certainly, the Canucks have faced significant lineup challenges. 

They played Saturday, for instance, without superstar defenceman Quinn Hughes and $92.8-million centre Elias Pettersson, both out with undisclosed injuries and missing from the same lineup for the first time as Canucks.

After making it until March before any of their core players missed a game last year, the Canucks’ top three forwards, best two defencemen and starting goalie have all missed time before the calendar even flips on this season.

But nothing — NOTHING — explains throwing away a three-goal lead and a point on home ice against a Kraken team that had lost five straight games and were dead in the water Saturday until Jaden Schwartz banked a puck in off Canuck defenceman Noah Juulsen with 4:45 remaining in regulation time.

“Bad things happen when a defenceman just stays in the crease," Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said of Juulsen. “You could look at every goal (in the Kraken comeback and) we had the puck where we could have executed a play. Even. . . twice with the empty net, I thought a couple guys could have skated a little bit longer than throwing it in the middle. They're just execution plays.

“We were pretty good for 55 minutes and all of a sudden there's, like, four not-execution plays in a row on the goals. We needed. . . somebody calming the waters down a little bit.”

Juulsen and Carson Soucy, who have become a fairly dependable second pairing on defence since Filip Hronek suffered a serious upper-body injury a month ago, each made a poor play with the puck to give Vince Dunn a gift on the fourth day of Christmas with 1:12 remaining.

Schwartz then tied it 4-4 just 22 seconds later when he skated past Canucks winger Dakota Joshua to take the puck to the net, where he encountered little resistance as he scored on his own rebound. Obviously, Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko didn’t make enough saves.

Dunn won it for the Kraken at 2:15 of overtime after Canuck defenceman Tyler Myers pulled up with the puck in the offensive zone and passed it cross-ice behind teammates J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser to present Seattle a breakaway.

“You know, it's pretty devastating,” Canucks winger Jake DeBrusk said. “We should never be losing that game, let alone letting it get to overtime. It just reinforces the focus we have to have no matter what the score is.

“We obviously have lots of pride in our games. And, you know, when things don't go right or when there's mistakes and breakdowns and things like that, guys feel it. They wear it on their sleeve in this room. That's why we've been able to deal with adversity — because guys obviously care and are proud. In terms of how it feels, it doesn't necessarily feel like a normal loss. If we don't regroup quickly, it's one of those things where this league doesn't wait for anybody.”

Tocchet said: “This one hurts. We've got to come back tomorrow and have a good practice; this is the way the world is. You know, we have to pick some guys up. I'm sure a couple of individuals don't feel good about themselves, but we've got to make sure they've got energy tomorrow and be ready for the next game.”

DeBrusk had a goal and assist for the Canucks, and Brock Boeser scored twice for Vancouver as it built its 4-1 lead. For 55 minutes, it was an impressive, professional performance by a team missing three of its best players.

But beyond the third-period catastrophe, the Canucks’ failure to salvage a win in overtime means the team is now 3-7 this season at three-on-three. Only the Los Angeles Kings (1-5) have been worse in OT.

Including their lone foray into shootouts, the Canucks are 3-8 after regulation time. That’s a bunch of points that have leaked away from a team living in the wildcard zone.

“Yeah, I don't know if it's hard to believe more than it is just disappointing that those points are going elsewhere,” Soucy said. “I think in this league, we've seen teams that were close to making the playoffs, but those extra points is what kept them out. Those points are important.”

“Anytime you make errors, teams counter,” winger Conor Garland said of overtime. “It seems like we're always the team making the big error. You might have played a good game, and then you spit it out. Today, obviously, we would have loved to salvage that extra point because we played so bad the last five minutes. But, yeah, you lose enough overtime games, those points start to pile up for sure.”