Another third-period letdown sends Canucks to eighth straight loss

VANCOUVER – Nic Deslauriers has hurt a lot of opponents in the National Hockey League. Just not often with his stick.

The 35-year-old heavyweight scored twice Tuesday, matching his goal total from the last two years, as the Carolina Hurricanes pulled away from the Vancouver Canucks in the third period to win 6-3 at Rogers Arena.

Just like the Tampa Bay Lightning pulled away in the third period against the Canucks on Sunday. Like the Florida Panthers did the game before that. Like both the New York Rangers and Islanders did last week.

The Canucks have lost eight consecutive games (0-7-1), but in these last five have been tied three times after 40 minutes, trailed by a goal once, and led by two in another. But Vancouver has been outscored 11-0 in the final periods of these last games and lost them all.

Several of these teams, like the reigning Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes, are also NHL heavyweights. And when they come out swinging in the bell round, the Canucks have been pushed back to the ropes and tried to survive by covering up.

They have not succeeded. They are taking a pounding.

“It’s super frustrating,” longest-tenured Canuck Brock Boeser said. “I mean, you never want to lose this many games in a row in this league. I know we're in a kind of rebuilding stage, but it doesn't matter; it sucks to lose. We’ve got to dig deep and find a win here.

“It's like one mistake (in the third period) and it's in the back of our net, and then we're chasing. And then it's another mistake. It's frustrating for sure. It's just some of the small detail stuff we talk about every day that we let happen, and we end up getting scored on for it.”

Winger Paul Cotter said: “To me, it just kind of comes down to consistency. We've shown the ability to do what we need to do, like you said, in the first 40. But it shows with a team like Carolina that’s done very well over the past couple years (because) they’re just consistent. They're going to play the same way the first 20, the first 40, all the way through 60 minutes. Nothing changes. I think we're kind of a little bit all over the place.

“I think it gets magnified in the third period, especially in close games. There's little things, you know, wall play, board play, things to get the puck out (of the defensive zone). But a tiny mistake of not getting a puck out ends up with 30 seconds of more time in your own zone, and then it’s four shots later, and the energy swings.”

Deslauriers, whose 55 career NHL goals (in 714 games) now includes three multi-goal games against the Canucks, was left open between defencemen Luke Schenn and Zeev Buium and converted Bradly Nadeau’s centring pass to break a 3-3 tie at 4:07 of the final period.

Vancouver surrendered a breakaway clincher to Nikolaj Ehlers at 10:55 when Vancouver's Filip Hronek let the puck get past him near the Carolina blue line and his defence partner, Jamie Oleksiak, was a step slow getting across to cut off Ehlers.

Logan Stankoven capped his marvelous game with an empty-netter as the rebuilding Canucks, with only an overtime loser point in Florida to show from their last eight games, slid further down the NHL standings to 2-8-1.

“I mean, it sucks,” Cotter said. “I don't think we're a team that loses eight in a row. Whatever anyone else thinks, it doesn't matter in this room. We know we're not that team. So we need to figure out whatever it is we need to do, whether it's consistency or something else, and figure it out quickly.”

The third-period knockout spoiled what had been a resilient, gritty game for the Canucks through 40 minutes. Despite being outshot 17-3 in the middle period, Vancouver survived on Leevi Merilainen’s goaltending and a surprisingly effective penalty kill, which started the game last in the NHL but blanked the Hurricanes’ seventh-ranked power play on five chances.

Merilainen even stopped a penalty shot at 16:55 of the second period after penalty-killing forward Elias Pettersson absurdly launched his stick towards the puck while lying on the ice as he was being bypassed by Sebastian Aho.

“That was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve done on the ice,” Pettersson told reporters afterward. “Thanks to Leevi for saving that penalty shot.”

Amid all that Carolina pressure and Vancouver penalties, Max Sasson had snatched a tying goal for the Canucks at 13:07 after emerging from the penalty box and executing a pretty give-and-go with trailing defenceman Buium on an outnumbered rush.

Then the Hurricanes stormed out of the dressing room for the third period and forced the Canucks into mistakes.

“It’s a really good lesson for our group that when your game lacks details in the third, or when you open up the door against teams that we've been playing, they make you pay,” Canucks coach Manny Malhotra said. “Obviously, a lot of good things (are happening) to be able to claw and scratch our way and stay in these games. But it's a valuable lesson to us that 40 (minutes) is not good enough, 45 is not good enough, 50 is not good enough in this league.”

Ice chips

Canucks centre Marco Rossi missed his second straight game due to illness. . . Schenn returned to the lineup after being sat out for Victor Mancini the last two games. . . Shots finished 42-17, the third consecutive game Vancouver has been outshot by at least a two-to-one margin. . . Not one Canuck managed a shot-share greater than 50 per cent, although fourth-liners Sasson, Arshdeep Bains and Brendan Gallagher posted expected-goals above 60 per cent at five-on-five. . . After facing recent Stanley Cup winners five times during their eight-game freefall, the Canucks play the visiting Detroit Red Wings on Thursday.