Power play lets Canucks down in another costly loss to Utah

VANCOUVER – In the last six weeks, the difference in the standings between the Vancouver Canucks and the Utah Hockey Club is due entirely to the two games in which they played each other.

Including Sunday’s 3-1 road win in Vancouver, Utah won both. The Canucks lost 2-1 in Salt Lake City on Feb. 23. Reverse the results and Vancouver leads Utah by 10 points and comfortably holds a playoff spot in the National Hockey League’s Western Conference.

Instead, the Canucks are tied with the St. Louis Blues for the final wild-card spot, just two points ahead of both Utah HC and the Calgary Flames in what looks like a four-team battle royale.

With the formidable Winnipeg Jets visiting Rogers Arena on Tuesday — the NHL-leading Jets are the likely first-round “prize” for whoever wins the wild-card race — the Canucks can only hope that the four points they yielded to Utah don’t determine whether Vancouver goes to the Stanley Cup tournament or misses the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.

“At this time of the year, you've just got to try and stay present,” Canuck defenceman Derek Forbort said. “If you dwell on what could have been, it's going to affect your next game. I mean, this sucks, but you've just got to move on, got to recover tomorrow and learn from the stuff that went wrong.”

“It's no different than you losing a playoff game,” coach Rick Tocchet explained to reporters. “We’ve got to flush this down. Are we disappointed? Yeah, but you have to flush this down. We've got a big Winnipeg team coming in. We've got a day off tomorrow; we've got to get some rest and get some energy. I'm sure we're disappointed right now, but we’ve got to come in (Tuesday). . . and we've got to bring energy. You can't be down (and) play a rollercoaster. You've got to let it go. Tough to do, but you've got to let it go.”

It was impossible Sunday to let go of the pivotal moment in the Canucks’ failure to build on Saturday’s 6-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks and sweep the weekend back-to-back games that Vancouver desperately needed.

Low-scoring, low-event games like the two against Utah can be decided by one play, one moment, good or bad.

On Sunday, that moment for the Canucks lasted four minutes – the duration of a critical, continuous power play that began at 10:43 of the third period and ended with a only a couple of shots from distance as Vancouver’s best players got stuck at the top of the zone when pressed by three of the four Utah penalty-killers.

Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson, who generated a second-period power-play goal that made it 1-0 for Vancouver, were chiefly responsible for failing to take advantage of Utah’s pressure on the perimeter by moving the play down low where the Canucks would have had a numerical advantage.

“We just looked at it, me and. . . the coaches,” Tocchet said. “We're a little frustrated. There was a lot of plays there to be made, and we just didn't make them. It was a little bit slow. We needed somebody to take charge of it. You know, they had three guys on one of our guys. If it goes low. . . I mean, there's plays there.

“Go down low and have a three-on-two or two-on-one. It's plain as day. It's been told (to players). I will say we're a little frustrated as a coaching staff because when you go hard up high (with penalty killers), the puck has to go low. You've got to make a play. It's there. So I think we're a little bummed out about that.”

During the four-minute advantage, the Canucks generated only one shot from below the hash marks: A chance for Conor Garland at the top of the crease after a pass by Jake DeBrusk.

“That's on all the guys that are on the ice, and I'm included, obviously,” DeBrusk said of the failure to attack the net. “And you know that's unacceptable.

“Obviously, trying to get that look (low down), it's a lot easier said than done. But they were very aggressive up top and, as the down-low guy, I've got to be better getting open. I've just got to just pop open in the spots.”

But the puck also needs to be passed there.

“That's on us,” winger Kiefer Sherwood, who is part of the Canucks’ second power-play unit, said. “We've got to execute, and we've got to get the momentum or create more chances. That's a prime opportunity for us to take advantage of the game.”

Tocchet said the failed power play, plus another earlier in the third when Logan Cooley held Pettersson, was the game.

“A 1-1 game, 22-hour turnaround (from the start of the Chicago game), and we have six minutes of power play (and) we don't get it done,” Tocchet lamented. “That's the game. Bottom line.”

Besides the weekend doubleheader, the Canucks were playing their fourth game in six nights – two sets of back-to-backs that included a return trip to Calgary, where they beat the Flames 4-3 in a shootout on Wednesday.

But they squandered their best chance to win on Sunday when Clayton Keller was assessed a double minor for accidentally high-sticking Brock Boeser while falling from the Canuck’s push. 

The Canucks managed only 19 shots on Utah goalie Karel Vejmelka, including just 10 in the first 40 minutes. Utah didn’t do much better, putting 22 shots on Vancouver goalie Kevin Lankinen, plus one into an empty net when Keller iced the game with 31 seconds remaining.

But the visitors got a fourth-line goal from Kevin Stenlund (against the Canucks’ first line) to tie the game at 12:04 of the second period, then took advantage of their own lucky break when Logan Cooley scored into a semi-open net at 5:08 of the third after a shot bounced 90 degrees directly to him off Vancouver defenceman Marcus Pettersson.

“We’ve got to be better,” Sherwood said. “It just seemed like tonight we were chasing, that we couldn't really set up our forecheck and, you know, have those possession shifts where we can kind of roll the lines.

“It's more so, like, if we play the right way, play predictable hockey, I think that's easier for guys to make reads and creates more opportunities and chances. And if we do that, you know, I think everything else opens up. We probably didn't deserve (to win) tonight.”

ICE CHIPS – Tocchet confirmed before the game that speedy second-line centre Filip Chytil is in concussion protocol after getting hit in the numbers and driven into the boards by former Canuck Jason Dickinson with five minutes left in Saturday’s win. There was neither any supplemental discipline nor even a penalty called on Dickinson, who did not play another shift.

On Sunday, the Canucks were noticeably engaged physically and quick to react and stick up for each other after whistles. Asked post-game what he thought about Dickinson’s hit the night before, Sherwood said: “He's going to have to answer the bell next year — because I know we don't play them again. That was a dirty hit, unnecessary, 6-2. And then he doesn't have the whatever to step on the ice afterwards. You know, (Forbort) asked him. It is what it is; we'll get him next year.”