Canucks Takeaways: Effort, execution lacking in embarrassing loss

It’s not the end of the road trip the Vancouver Canucks need, but the end of Murderer’s Row.

Not only have the Canucks been one of the busier teams in the National Hockey League so far with five games in 10 nights, but opponents in four of those games have been to the Stanley Cup Final in the last two years. 

So the measuring stick the rebuilding team has been forced to use at the start of the season has been dauntingly long, sharp-edged and unyielding.

Splitting two rollicking games against the Edmonton Oilers, Cup finalists in 2024 and 2025, was good for the Canucks. Losing 3-2 to 2026 runners-up the Vegas Golden Knights was honourable. Getting embarrassed 7-2 Thursday by the current champions, the Carolina Hurricanes, was neither.

After Vancouver Canucks coach Manny Malhotra emphasized that his team needed to play its own game and not focus on the Hurricanes’ speedy, relentless press, they looked completely unprepared for the pressure as they fell behind 3-0 and managed just one shot on target in the first 17 ½ minutes.

Carolina led 4-0 and 7-1 and, unlike the second of the two shootouts with the Oilers when the Canucks turned a six-goal deficit into a 9-7 loss, there was no redeeming surge at the end by Vancouver.

The Hurricanes eviscerated the Canucks on special teams, going 3-for-3 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill while also scoring a key shorthanded goal at 13:13 of the second period. 

Well, already up 4-1, maybe the first of three goals by Logan Stankoven wasn’t pivotal to the outcome. But Jake DeBrusk had just trimmed the deficit to three goals when the Canuck power play had a chance to make it two. Instead, Vancouver surrendered a two-on-one that Filip Hronek badly defended and it became 5-1.

The Canucks won’t face any Stanley Cup favourites when they head to the New York area for three games in four nights starting Saturday against the New Jersey Devils. But that schedule certainly isn’t easy. And looming at the end of Vancouver’s six-game marathon are severe tests next week against another pair of recent Stanley Cup winners: the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Thursday was disappointing. Without better effort and execution from the Canucks, this trip could quickly become a sobering illustration of how much work ahead is required for the rebuild.

“We acknowledge we’re going to have some rough nights,” Malhotra explained to reporters post-game in Raleigh, N.C. “But on our part and the way we coach it, it’s not going to be for lack of effort. 

“We can’t have guys that are just going to go away in these situations. It shows what type of character we have when we show the ability to push back and play our game despite the score. And that, unfortunately, wasn’t the case tonight.”

CHECK! MATE

Every coach talks about structure. But basic positional structure isn’t much good if unaccompanied by defensive awareness and anticipation.

On several of the Hurricane goals, including on their power play, Canucks defenders were in position to make plays but simply didn’t.

On Andrei Svechnikov’s second power-play goal, which made it 3-0 just 9:25 into the first period, Hronek turned too slowly as the Hurricane went to the net, then failed to tie up his stick or stop Jackson Blake’s centring pass through the crease.

On Stankoven’s second goal, defenceman Victor Mancini was in position to take away the scorer’s space, but hesitated to move higher in the slot and was checking no one as the puck went in to make it 6-1. And on the last Carolina goal, also by Stankoven, Aatu Raty turned over the puck and then failed, as did winger Arshdeep Bains, to quickly recognize the danger in the high slot, which Vancouver left open despite still having an advantage in numbers.

We understand these are early days for coach Malhotra’s system. And players, especially younger ones, have lots to learn. But to be competitive, the Canucks must defend better than that. Like they did against the Golden Knights on Sunday.

SOME GOOD NEWS

Elias Pettersson continued his encouraging start for the Canucks as he tries to resurrect his status as an elite player. Pettersson drove a first line that generated both Vancouver goals (by DeBrusk) and won a head-to-head matchup against Conn Smythe-winner and perennial Selke Trophy candidate Jordan Staal.

Five-on-five shots were 5-1 for the Canucks in 7:01 of Pettersson-vs-Staal ice time, 25-8 for the Hurricanes without that matchup. The third member of the top line, rookie Jonathan Lekkerimaki, registered three shots, one assist, was plus-two and played his best game of the season so far.

LINEUP CHOICES

It makes sense that Malhotra manages over an 84-game schedule the workload of his bottom-of-the-lineup veterans, but scratching defenceman Luke Schenn, 36, and winger Brendan Gallagher, 34, for more speed in Mancini and Bains did not help the team in Carolina. Time will tell if it helped Schenn and Gallagher.

“The one common thread with any player that is a scratch is that they're going to be upset,” Malhotra said before the game. “The guys want to play. They want to be in the lineup. So regardless of what reason you give them, there are going to be some feelings there, which is expected. (But) if you have a guy that's accepting of being out of the lineup and not really caring, then that's a whole other set of problems. So it's a good problem to have. The veteran guys, they're intelligent; they understand why it's happening. Again, they're not happy about it, but they understand it.”

QUOTEBOOK

DeBrusk: “We talked a lot during training camp, and the last couple of days, what’s expected of us. And obviously that wasn’t good enough.”

AND OTHER THINGS

Defenceman Zeev Buium picked up his first point since signing a $75-million extension in September, moving the puck to the side of the net from the point on DeBrusk’s second goal with 6:56 remaining. . . After scoring just four even-strength goals in 81 games last year (plus 19 on the power play), DeBrusk had two at five-on-five in his third game of the season after missing two due to illness. . . Canucks starter Kevin Lankinen allowed six goals on 18 shots before Malhotra replaced him for the third period with Leevi Merilainen, who stopped 14 of 15. . . Pettersson, DeBrusk and Lekkerimaki combined for half of Vancouver’s 20 shots. . . Raty finished minus-two in his team-low 8:36 of ice time.