Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Whether the Canucks succeed or fail, Vancouver is stuck with their core group for a long time.

LOS ANGELES — Teams play 82 games a season, players come and go, and so-called must-win games take place all of the time.

But there are moments — and for the Vancouver Canucks, this is one — that tell you what you really want to know about a team and its players.

We’re not talking exclusively about Game 4 in Los Angeles. The Canucks could lose that game and still win this series.

We’re talking about how this group of core Canucks players handles this particular crisis. How they approach a situation where a young Kings team is looking to pass them by on the Western Conference ladder — not just this spring, but for the next few years, likely — and how they address the current problems that they face.

Because your core is your core now, Canucks fan. You are stuck/blessed with this group for the next long while.

Roberto Luongo’s 12-year extension starts next season. So does Ryan Kesler’s six-year deal. The Sedin twins have concluded Year 1 of their five-year contract, and Alex Edler is around for the next three seasons.

It’s one hell of a core. But then again, The Four Pillars in Calgary looked awfully good too, for a while there. Now, Flames fans are less sure.

So how do the Canucks leaders figure to get out of this current mess? The players to whom the organization has made these long-term, multi-million dollar commitments?

"I think a lot of guys have to step up. It’s not going to be just our best players. It has to be our whole team from top to bottom," said Kesler.

"This is a team game, man," points out Luongo. "Nobody wins a series individually. We’ve got to win as a team. We’ve all got to step up our game."

Alain Vigneault, faced with a listing ship, was confident that the captains would take the wheel and steer to a safe harbour somewhere. Not the deckhands, we repeat, but the captains.

"Your goaltender is usually your best penalty killer," Vigneault began on Tuesday, when asked how that dreadful unit might be righted. "Who do we play on the penalty kill? Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows were up front for three-quarters of those penalties. They’re my best players. (So are) Sami Salo and Alex Edler. All those guys need to be better; they know they need to be better; and they will be better."

And his goalie?

Vigneault knows, as we all do, that this club will live or die for some time on Roberto Luongo, a fate many NHL teams would be happy to settle for — at the moment. The fans may be doubting Luongo, but at a time like this teams pull together, look inward, and help to build each other’s flagging confidence.

"He’s got another opportunity tomorrow to be a difference-maker," Luongo said. "He wants that opportunity. In my mind he wants this challenge, and he’s going to seize the moment. We’ve got a lot of confidence in him, and he’s going to prove us right."

They are all the right words. Exactly what you’d expect to hear.

But there are faint cracks appearing as well, something that is not exclusive to the Canucks. When you lose, doubt creeps in. When you are getting murdered by another team’s powerplay the way the Canucks are, it doesn’t just creep — it pours in.

Surely, shot-blocking is just a matter of trying harder, isn’t it? Sheer will should be enough, for a team as good as this one, shouldn’t it?

"I think it’s different this time. It’s not about will," said Ryan Kesler, whose confident front lowered slightly as the interview wore on Tuesday. "We’re trying to will the puck out of our net right now. They’ve been getting the bounces.

"There are thing that we can switch up, but we need bounces right now. We’re going to have to force our own bounces to come."

The bounces usually take a long time to sway in your direction. The Canucks don’t have time. "How do you speed up that process?" we asked Kesler.

He offered a long pause, then a short laugh: "Ha. Good question," he said. "Just keep doing what we’re doing. Stay the course, and believe in our system and believe in the guys in our room. Hopefully it will change."

That’s all you have right now, if you are the Canucks. You have the men you have assembled to face a moment just like this one, and you expect them to be enough.

Or at least, you hope like hell they are, because whether they succeed or fail, you’re stuck with them for a long time yet.