VANCOUVER – The last time a National Hockey League team went four games without scoring a goal, it was so long ago that not only was Bo Horvat not born, neither was the Vancouver Canuck’s father.
Lyndon Johnson was the United States’ president, Bobby Orr was coming off his rookie-of-the-year season and it would be another two-and-a-half years before the Canucks entered the NHL and began their Stanley Cup drought.
That was when the 1967-68 Oakland Seals, who eventually became best known for their white skates and ineptitude, in that order, played four consecutive NHL games without scoring. The 2017-18 Vancouver Canucks stand at three and could make history Saturday when they play at home against the San Jose Sharks.
In another bleak, hopeless March for the Canucks, the darkest part of their season was this week when the team managed to play a three-game road trip without scoring a goal.
Despite the modest promise of a better season than last year, the Canucks have become a car wreck from which you can not avert your eyes. They have nine wins in 2018 – roughly one for each player currently out of the lineup due to injury.
They have three goals in five games since leading scorer and Calder Trophy candidate Brock Boeser suffered a fracture in his lower back when he fell into the door frame at the Vancouver bench. How Canuck of him to be injured that way.
Even some draftists feel sorry for the Canucks, although that may be only because everyone on the West Coast fully expects the team to get screwed again by the NHL draft lottery when Vancouver finishes in the bottom three for the third straight year.
Can it possibly get worse? Of course it can.
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These are the Canucks, who have lost five straight games despite good-to-excellent goaltending. The Canucks generated 94 shots on their road trip but still lost 1-0 in Arizona, 3-0 in Los Angeles and 3-0 in Anaheim. And Horvat isn’t even injured yet. (To be fair, he took his turn in December and January).
Even for a fan base accustomed to disappointment since the Canucks blew two chances to win one game for the 2011 Stanley Cup, these last two weeks have been dispiriting – chicken poop to the soul.
"Obviously, it sucks not scoring," Horvat, the 22-year-old centre who is the Canucks’ best hope for a goal, said after Friday’s practice at Rogers Arena. "Everyone wants to score. It’s not like we’re going out there and trying not to put the puck in the net."
"It’s a tough situation to be in as a hockey player,” veteran Sam Gagner added. “Obviously, there’s a lot of situations (in life) that are a lot harder than what we’re going through. But as a hockey player, you always play better and feel better when things are easier. But adversity makes every player stronger as you go through it. We just have to use these obstacles as an opportunity to get better. There’s an opportunity within everything. That’s the only way you can look at it."
Gagner, who has gone 22 games without scoring, is part of general manager Jim Benning’s free-agent folly — the group of five players signed last July 1 who were supposed to improve depth, provide insurance against injuries and help make the Canucks competitive as they rebuild and wait for a handful of elite prospects to march to the NHL.
Instead, the team is 25-37-9 – 11-27-5 since Horvat broke his foot on Dec. 5 – and at 59 points is highly likely to fall below last season’s 69 points, which was the Canucks’ worst finish this century.
"Before the season, you believe you’re going to be healthy, believe you’re going to play to your potential and you look at yourself as a playoff contender," captain Henrik Sedin said. "But with injuries – and special teams haven’t been great all year – you fall off pretty quickly especially when you’re not super deep (in talent)."
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The Canucks have gone three hours, 32 minutes and nine seconds since Jussi Jokinen, who is on his fourth team this season and likely on his way out of the NHL, scored at 7:51 of the second period last Friday against the Minnesota Wild. Since then, the Canucks have put 110 shots on net and been outscored 10-0.
The franchise record for goal-lessness is 3:52:54, so the Canucks can eclipse that mark in the first minute of the second period against San Jose.
"It’s not like it’s a hot topic in our room," Canucks coach Travis Green said. "We’re not sitting there and dwelling on it. It’s easy from the outside to talk about it. It’s a nice story for you guys to write about, and I get that. But, again, you reset every game. Play good or play bad, it’s a new game and you’ve got to reset."
Citing shots and scoring chances and how hard his players competed, Green said he likes how his team has played this week.
The Canucks should at least get a slight mental boost with the return from a broken leg of key defenceman Chris Tanev, who missed the last 17 games with his fourth injury this season.
"We’ve had great teams here where we went through stretches without scoring," Sedin said. "We went through three or four practices in a row (when Alain Vigneault was coach) just practising scoring goals. I don’t know if we’re thinking about it. But we’d rather get one in the first period tomorrow night."
