If the Vancouver Canucks were a tree, loggers would be shouting “Timber!” while squirrels run for their lives.
The National Hockey League team fell out of playoff position Saturday when the Calgary Flames scored three times in the final 8 ½ minutes to beat the Canucks 4-2 in Alberta. By scoring the tying goal and adding an empty-netter, Matthew Tkachuk drew attention to himself for something other than a spear, slash or elbow.
Back from a one-game suspension for forking Toronto Maple Leaf Matt Martin on Wednesday, Tkachuk was around the Canucks net all night. He was rewarded with his first goal in a month when he shelved a backhander while falling to make it 2-2 at 11:34 of the third period after a giveaway by Vancouver defenceman Ben Hutton.
Sam Bennett won it for the Flames with only 1:10 remaining when he beat Canuck Sam Gagner off the sideboards and also scored from the slot with a backhand, although, unlike Tkachuk’s shot, it looked like Vancouver goalie Anders Nilsson should have stopped it.
It was a big win for Calgary, which moved two points ahead of Vancouver in the Pacific Division and Western Conference wild-card race. But this was more a game lost by the Canucks than won by the Flames.
Up 2-1 on the road and desperate for some positivity after several bleak days, the Canucks got nothing. It was the third time in three weeks the Canucks led after the second period and lost. A really good team might not do that three times in a season.
But things look like they’re going to get harder for the Canucks. Two losses into the long-term injury to top player Bo Horvat, which followed the sad, sudden retirement of Derek Dorsett, the Canucks now play Monday in Winnipeg against a formidable Jets team that is 10-2-1 at home, then return to Vancouver to open a tough homestand Wednesday against the 18-7-4 Nashville Predators, who will be rested and waiting for them.
After Thursday’s disappointing 4-1 loss at home against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Canucks had to have a win Saturday. Now, as the wary West Texas sheriff warned in the film No Country for Old Men, if this ain’t the mess, it will do until the mess gets here.
MORE BAD NEWS
It’s possible the earth really is flat because Canucks winger Sven Baertschi fell off the edge of it and disappeared somewhere during that six-game road trip to end November. He had 17 points in the first 22 games before gathering a single assist in his last eight.
But we’re going to notice Baertschi more now if he, too, joins the injured list after leaving Saturday’s game when hit in the face by Mark Giordano’s clearance. The winger did not return. If he suffered structural damage and misses significant time, the Canucks will be without two-thirds of what had been their top line for most of the season. Horvat was Baertschi’s centre until that road trip.
With Brandon Sutter’s upper-body injury dragging on, Vancouver’s centres on Saturday were Henrik Sedin, Gagner, Michael Chaput and Nic Dowd. That’s the aging second-line centre, a guy who is now more of a winger than centre, a minor-league call-up and an NHL fourth-liner. Chaput actually looked pretty good in his season debut, but this is not a rotation down the middle that is going to win you many games in the NHL.
The Canucks can’t also afford to start losing top wingers.
DOWD FOR SUBBAN (THE OTHER ONE)
It’s tough to get too immersed in a trade that involves a 27-year-old fourth-line centre (Dowd) for a 22-year-old, undersized defence prospect (Jordan Subban) who was regressing and retreating down the depth chart in his third season in the American Hockey League until he was sent to the Los Angeles Kings late Thursday.
But with Horvat and Sutter out, the Canucks are in crisis down the middle and Dowd is an actual NHL centre who helps them short term and cost only a prospect who had been passed by a pile of others since he joined the Vancouver organization.
Of course, Adam Clendening was acquired by the Canucks during a similar crisis on defence in 2015 and all he cost them was undersized fifth-round pick Gustav Forsling.
Who is now averaging 20 minutes a night for the Chicago Blackhawks at age 21.
Subban, however, is no Forsling.
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THE GOOD NEWS
If you told Canucks Nation when the season started that Brock Boeser and Jake Virtanen would score Vancouver’s goals in a road game in Calgary, most people wouldn’t have even cared about the score. But due to the Canucks’ surprisingly good start under new coach Travis Green – and with Boeser – the score matters.
SMITH’S BAD NUMBERS
In the end, Mike Smith was just a fraction better in goal than Nilsson. The Flames netminder, the best of the 10 tried by Calgary in the last two-plus seasons, has rarely been outplayed this fall.
Smith is probably the Flames’ MVP, which is saying something considering the points amassed by Johnny Gaudreau. But there are a couple of statistics attached to Smith that should concern Calgary: the goaltender’s age, and his number of starts.
The 35-year-old logged his 26th start in 30 games on Saturday, which projects to a 71-game season. Granted, the disastrous Eddie Lack experiment, aborted last month when the ex-Canuck was waived and replaced with undrafted 25-year-old minor-leaguer David Rittich, forced a few more starts on Smith. So the 12-year veteran, who turns 36 in March, isn’t really going to start 71 times this season.
Even 61 would be too many, though, considering Smith’s age and this era in the NHL. Rittich has played only eight periods in the NHL. The Flames hope he’ll be able to give Smith some nights off.
But with the Flames still trying to gain traction after a somewhat spotty start, coach Glen Gulutzan is having a hard time letting go of Smith, who carried a .918 save percentage into Saturday’s game.
Smith is finally providing the superior, consistent goaltending the Flames have been missing for years. But if Calgary eventually makes the playoffs like most people predicted, Smith will need something left in the tank for the post-season. He’s played there only twice in 11 years.
OK, make that three stats that should give the Flames pause.
