Canucks' disheartening, winless road trip still features silver linings

It wasn’t so much a road trip as a six-game educational tour that the Vancouver Canucks finished Saturday in Tampa. They discovered how much they don’t know.

More constructively, they discovered how much room they have for learning in the coming months (and years) as the National Hockey League team’s rebuild gets going.

Over six games in 12 days, which included three opponents who have combined for five of the last seven Stanley Cup championships, the Canucks were schooled. Sometimes, brutally so.

Their 4-2 loss Saturday to the Tampa Bay Lightning capped a winless road trip in which the Canucks claimed just one of 12 points available — and even that one, from Thursday’s overtime loss to the Florida Panthers, was a consolation prize for blowing a two-goal lead in the final nine minutes of regulation time.

Vancouver had another 2-0 lead in Tampa, thanks primarily to spectacular goaltending from Kevin Lankinen, but surrendered four unanswered goals over the final 34 minutes.

“It’s obviously disappointing to come away from a trip with one point,” Canucks coach Manny Malhotra told reporters in Tampa. “And just the way we're giving up points and goals, it continues to frustrate the group. But you know. . . a lot of the things that we see are fixable. They're self-inflicted wounds, so we recognize the answers have to come from within our room, and we'll continue to work at finding them.”

The two weeks were awfully disheartening, but certainly not a waste of time for a team trying to find its way.

These were not exactly new lessons.

Details matter — like when the Lightning executed perfect faceoff plays that generated goals for Nikita Kucherov and Pontus Holmberg, exploiting 22-year-old Canuck defenceman Elias Pettersson on both.

Special teams are critical. Tampa went 1-for-1 on the power play, and Vancouver’s penalty-killing was an unsurvivable 46.7 per cent on the trip. The original Elias Pettersson did score a power-play goal for the Canucks on Saturday, but Vancouver’s man-advantage unit finished the six games 3-for-17.

Starting games and periods slowly make it extremely difficult to win. The Canucks were outshot 207-119 on the trip, and looked a step behind at the start of most games. They dipped their toes in the water in numerous periods, allowing the opposition to dictate play before Vancouver got moving. Outshot 35-14 by the Lightning, the Canucks registered two shots in the first 11 minutes of the opening period, two shots in the first 15 minutes of the second, and one shot through 18 minutes of the third period.

Good teams elevate when they need to, and the Canucks need to learn how. Whatever their flaws, and however badly they may have been outshot, the Canucks competed and hung in through 40 minutes of the last four games against the Lightning, Panthers, New York Islanders and Rangers. But they were outscored 8-0 in the third periods, unable to counter the urgency and intensity of their opponents when the games were being decided.

Talent matters. Always has, always will. But even at this stage, the Canucks need to find a way to compete more consistently, instead of for stretches here and there, even when outgunned.

Despite the bleakness of a 0-5-1 trip (and seven-game losing streak), there were some positives.

Embarrassed in the first half of the road trip, when they lost 7-2 (Carolina Hurricanes), 4-1 (New Jersey Devils) and 6-2 (Rangers), the Canucks displayed more competitiveness and battle resilience over the final three games.

Leevi Merilainen, the 24-year-old goalie claimed on waivers from the Ottawa Senators a few days before the start of the season, was outstanding. In four appearances during the trip, which included consecutive starts against Panthers and Islanders, the prospect posted a .921 save rate. It’s dangerously early, but the Finn looks like he could become an important piece of the Canucks’ rebuild, which will make for interesting roster/waiver decisions by the organization when starting goalie Thatcher Demko finally recovers from last February’s hip surgery.

Young Elias Pettersson earned a promotion to the top defence pairing with easily his best hockey so far in the NHL, asserting himself physically throughout the odyssey and using his superior speed to unlock offensive ability we weren’t sure was there.

And even the essential prospect-defenceman he dislodged, Zeev Buium, played with much more confidence and effectiveness in the final two games in Florida after a nightmare performance against the Islanders capped a string of poor games.

Lankinen was the top Canuck on Saturday, rebounding from three disconcerting starts with his best game so far. The struggling veteran stopped the first 16 shots he faced and his 31 saves including a handful of stunners — mostly by getting across his crease to rob shooters on outnumbered rushes and backdoor chances.

The return of often-injured centre Filip Chytil clearly made the Canucks better. His assist on Linus Karlsson’s opening goal against the Lightning, when Chytil retrieved the puck after watching Liam Ohgren miss point-blank from his excellent setup, gave the Czech two assists in two games. Chytil’s speed and ability with the puck on the rush was especially evident in Tampa. Now, he just needs to stay healthy.

The trip was eye-opening for Canuck players, who seemed genuinely stunned at the mid-point in New York last weekend about how badly (or easily) their team was getting beaten. Everybody knows now what they face, and how they need to be better.

“I mean, it sucks to lose,” Karlsson told Canucks TV. “It's frustrating. We're still learning the new system and stuff but. . . I think we need a little bit more of a team effort. We need to battle a bit harder. And, I mean, it's time to learn.”

ICE CHIPS – Centre Marco Rossi sat out Saturday’s game due to illness, which brought Arshdeep Bains back into the lineup and moved Drew O’Connor to centre from the wing. . . Senior defenceman Luke Schenn was a healthy scratch for the second straight game. . . Despite the Canucks being badly outshot, third-pair defencemen Buium and Victor Mancini commanded 61 per cent of shot attempts and generated expected-goals-for of 75 per cent during 9:07 of five-on-five ice time together.