TORONTO – Well, that showed them.
If the Vancouver Canucks proved something to the Maple Leafs and other residents at centre of the universe, it was that no matter how much the Canucks change and rebrand, they can usually be counted upon to toe pick on a Saturday night in Toronto.
With eight wins in their last nine games but only one win at Scotiabank Arena in the last 10 years, the Canucks lost like they so often do here, failing to display the best version of themselves as the Maple Leafs won 5-2 on Remembrance Day.
It’s a game the Canucks will try to forget by beating the Montreal Canadiens Sunday night when Vancouver ends its annual tour to Eastern Canada.
Let’s be realistic about Saturday’s loss: It was overdue for a Canuck team that started the National Hockey League season 10-2-1, hadn’t lost a game in regulation since Oct. 19, and had benefitted from some bounces along the way.
But of all the places for the Canucks to have a market correction, to be prosecuted by the law of averages, why Toronto?
“It’s just disappointing to do it on this type of stage,” Canuck Conor Garland conceded. “That’s a fun game to play in, Saturday night in Toronto, and we would have liked to put forth a better effort. It’s a big weekend but, you know, it’s still one game, right? Every game you have to be up for and play. But this was the bright lights and … it’s just a fun game to play in and we didn’t throw our best effort forward.”
A superficial check of the scoresheet showed the unconventionality of the game (but not the final verdict). The four Toronto goals over the final two periods – after Vancouver used its power play to build a 2-1 lead in the first 16 minutes – were a Canucks own-goal (Willy Nylander got behind goalie Thatcher Demko and banked the puck in off defenceman Tyler Myers), a top-corner snipe by Noah Gregor, a point-blank backhand by Nick Robertson after Quinn Hughes lost the puck in his own slot, and an unknowing deflection by David Kampf.
We’re not sure Maple Leafs superstar Auston Matthews actually played, although it was also hard to find any of the Canucks’ top players. Hughes’ game was easily the worst in his otherwise spectacular start of the season, Demko started with a .948 save percentage but allowed the five goals on 22 shots, and Elias Pettersson finished minus-three.
When the Canucks opened their trip with a 5-2 win Thursday against the Ottawa Senators, surviving a flat first period before seizing control of the game, J.T. Miller broke a 2-2 tie with a bar-down wrist shot.
When Hughes hit the underside of the cross bar in the third period Saturday, the puck stayed out. The Leafs’ first two goals were the result of bank plays from behind the net after Demko was caught out.
“We were a little sloppy,” Garland said. “We scored a couple of quick ones early and didn’t really play our game after that. That’s kind of disappointing because we’ve been pretty good this year. You don’t dismiss it and you don’t just chalk it up to bad luck. If we had had a better effort, it would have been a tighter game.
“We just have to be more detailed in our D-zone. I mean, I don’t know if they bounced in off anything, but we don’t really like giving shots up right from there in tight. We’re a good defensive team and that’s not like us.”
“It’s a long year,” Hughes said. “You’re going to have a lot of good games and other ones like that. We’re just lucky we get to play tomorrow. We want to beat these guys, but all the games are worth two points.”
A convincing win over the Leafs, however, would have been value-added for the Canucks, whose new-and-improved identity would be further burnished by beating Toronto on Hockey Night in Canada.
Instead, the Canucks didn’t look much like the team that had won five straight and went nine games (8-0-1) without losing in regulation.
Miller and Pius Suter, on a rebound from Anthony Beauvillier’s one-timer, scored power-play goals for Vancouver in the first period after the Leafs twice – twice! – took silly instigator penalties reacting to perfectly legal Canuck bodychecks. But that was it for Vancouver’s NHL-leading offence.
“Quite frankly, we’ve had some good bounces this year, so we’ve been fortunate,” coach Rick Tocchet told reporters. “Some nights, you’re not going to have the bounces but you’ve … got to make sure you stay in your game. If you’re in the right spots, you’re going to get the bounces most nights. I don’t think we were in the spots tonight, defensively or offensively.”
He said of the Canucks’ overall form this season: “Listen, you feel good about yourself. But then we’ve got to be careful. If things are slipping in your game, we’ve got to address it, just as a group. And I thought the last few games, there’s pockets of the game I think teams are out-working us. We’ve got to play desperate hockey, too. You have to match the level of your opponent. This is early in the season. It’s the 82 games you learn from. There’s some stinkers, and sometimes you learn from a stinker.”
Tocchet said centre Teddy Blueger, who hasn’t played since blocking a shot in the final pre-season game, will make his Canucks debut in Montreal. Fourth-liner Nils Hoglander, despite his improved play since being healthy-scratched Oct. 21 in Florida, seems the most likely forward to come out.
“We can’t dwell on it, can’t get down about it,” Myers said of the faceplant on Saturday. “We’ve played some good hockey. Tonight wasn’t our night; I didn’t think it was our best night. And we just have to respond. It’s a tough building (in Montreal) and we know they played tonight as well. And we just have to make sure we’re the better team.
“Nights like this are going to happen, and if we’re going to become the team we want to become, we have to know how to respond. We have a chance to do that tomorrow night.”
