'It wasn't there tonight': Canucks suffer most mystifying loss yet

VANCOUVER — By definition, a higher standard means a lower threshold for disappointment. Much is expected from the Vancouver Canucks, who also expect much from themselves.

Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on home ice may have been the most disappointing of the season and, with just five Vancouver wins in 16 games at Rogers Arena, that is saying something.

There have been a handful of similarly perplexing performances by the Canucks — “duds” coach Rick Tocchet called them during an especially dismal homestand in November — that are almost impossible to figure even with the various challenges the team has faced in the opening third of the National Hockey League season.

Saturday’s loss is the most mystifying yet, coming with the team almost back to full strength and just two nights after a 4-0 win against the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers that was as good and complete as the Canucks have looked this season.

J.T. Miller is back. Thatcher Demko is back. Brock Boeser is fully healthy. Jake DeBrusk is scoring and Conor Garland is playing the best hockey of his career. Elias Pettersson was playing his best hockey of his season until Miller returned two games ago and, until Saturday, so was Quinn Hughes.

And then, after a rest day Friday, they opened Saturday’s annual reminder of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final by getting outshot 16-4 through 20 minutes by Brad Marchand’s team. Natural Stat Trick had high-danger scoring chances 11-0 for the Bruins.

Torched 5-1 and 8-1 in Winnipeg and Seattle to open its western road trip, Boston scored twice in the first period, twice in the second and 26 seconds into the third.

“Let's face facts, we have four or five guys, they're struggling,” Tocchet told reporters post-game. “They're struggling to get emotionally invested in the game, and that's my job to get these guys (invested). Certain guys, we've got to find another gear from them. They've got to understand that it's the NHL, and you can't play one good game and two bad or whatever. 

“This is a game, a sport, the NHL, where you have to be jacked up to play the game. You have to be emotionally in the game. Sometimes the guys, it takes them like 30 minutes to get in the game for whatever reason.”

This is about Tocchet’s harshest general criticism of his players since the coach said in the playoffs’ second round last spring that the Canucks couldn’t beat the Oilers “with 12 guys.”

Speaking about this season, Canucks captain Quinn Hughes said: “I mean, we were able to win some games without some of those guys (who were missing) just because our compete level was high and intensity. And I think that's what it comes down to.”

Down only 2-0 after the first period due to Demko’s work in his second start in nearly eight months, the Canucks were still in the game when the middle period began.

Tocchet pooled Garland, Boeser and Miller onto one line. And on the second shift of the period, the Canucks surrendered a breakaway goal to Pavel Zacha at 1:12 — from a neutral-zone faceoff — when defenceman Mark Friedman pinched and Carson Soucy was caught on the wrong side of the ice.

By any measure, with or without the puck, the Canucks were dreadful in their own zone. They couldn’t make a pass or weren’t even trying to. They banked pucks off the glass or dumped them down the ice or simply gave them back to the Bruins to regroup in the neutral zone and launch another attack.

“I just didn't understand the first period,” Tocchet said. “I mean, we have plays to be making (and) we're icing a puck. Or a forward's got a puck with five feet of good ice to take and make a play and we dump it in. I don't know if that's nervousness. I don't know what it is. We had a day off yesterday, we had some guys under the weather. Maybe having a day off. . . I don't know. We've got to try to figure it out quickly.

“To me, the icing is inexcusable for all of us. I'm not just blaming the defence; it's the forwards. That to me just gives the other team a lot of juice.”

It wasn’t just the defence, but the Canucks’ blue line on Saturday, with the exception of Hughes and perhaps Noah Juulsen, didn’t perform to NHL standards let alone the standards of a team aiming to improve on a 51-win season from a year ago.

Tocchet said this week that the home hex is now more psychological than physical, although it sure looked like both on Saturday.

It was so bad for the Canucks that respectful rookie Max Sasson wasn’t able to celebrate his first NHL goal, for which he had been waiting and dreaming about for his lifetime.

Miller set him up at 10:13 of the final period, then quietly collected the puck for Sasson. At least he got that.

“I don't know why, but guys are tense at home for whatever reason,” Tocchet said. “We seem a little bit more relaxed on the road to make a play. Here, for some reason. . . we just want to punt it as soon as we get it. So we've got to figure that out.

“We were just watching a video after the game; there's 10- to 12-foot passes available, and we're flipping pucks. Not just the defence, it's a group. But some guys tried tonight, so I can't throw everybody under the bus. Some guys really worked hard tonight.”

Now 2-2-1 on their homestand, having followed one of their best games this season with one of their worst, the Canucks face the Colorado Avalanche Monday at Rogers Arena before playing back-to-back road games in Utah and Las Vegas.

They are 15-9-5 this season but, honestly, nobody can say with certainty which team the Canucks will be on Monday.

“If we want to be a really, really good team, we have to find ways to string these (good) performances together,” Hughes said. “Like you said, we played really good against Florida. And it wasn't there tonight.”

ICE CHIPS — After an impressive return to the lineup from injury on Thursday, defenceman Derek Forbort was unable to play Saturday due to illness circulating through some Canucks. Goalie Kevin Lankinen also stayed away from the team, making Arturs Silovs the backup to Demko against the Bruins.