Canucks Takeaways: Ohgren a bright spot in otherwise listless loss

It certainly wasn't the nail in the coffin of a 6-2 loss, but the final goal the Vancouver Canucks allowed against the Utah Mammoth on Monday night sure felt like a microcosm of the disaster that has been their 2025-26 season.

The Canucks were still down three goals at that point, but had put together their best 13 minutes of the game in that final frame, generating scoring chances while stringing together extended shifts in the offensive zone.

It was probably too little, too late, but for potentially the first time on Monday, it felt like the Canucks had some life. Maybe, if they were going to drop the game, they would at least make the home team and their fans sweat a little in the process.

And it could have worked. That is, until three Canucks — Jake DeBrusk, Linus Karlsson and Max Sasson — were tied up along the boards in the Mammoth's zone, allowing Utah forwards Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller to get a step through the neutral zone for a two-on-one. Rookie defenceman Elias Pettersson, as the lone Canuck back, attempted to take away the pass, but Keller was able to find Schmaltz through the slot, who then directed it past goaltender Kevin Lankinen for his hat-trick goal.

And just like that, that string of good shifts, getting this close to making it a two-goal game on a few occasions, was all for naught.

Of course, the third-period push would have been loads more meaningful had the Canucks not shot themselves in the foot in the middle frame, allowing three goals from Mikhail Sergachev, Lawson Crouse and JJ Peterka before Teddy Blueger clawed one back for the visitors.

Instead, it became yet another in a long list of losses as part of what has been a dismal year for the franchise, where the lone shred of hope is the draft lottery in June.

The Canucks have yet to record a road win since the calendar flipped to 2026 and have won just two in that span, period.

Just one game remains before the Olympic break — Wednesday against the Vegas Golden Knights. With injuries to Marco Rossi, Brock Boeser, Zeev Buium, Nils Hoglander and now Filip Chytil (more on that later), the two-week hiatus cannot come soon enough.

Here are some more takeaways from Monday's loss:

Defensive zone woes reemerge

Heading into Monday's game, head coach Adam Foote was actually positive about his team's work on defensive zone coverage.

"I like the way we're playing right now, especially in the d-zone, going back for pucks," Foote said following morning skate, praising his team for their work in protecting the puck and calling their approach to games "layered."

Well, we can imagine he's singing a different tune now.

Throughout the first 40 minutes on Monday, the Mammoth generated chances at will, hemming the Canucks into their own zone and connecting on dangerous passes that had the visitors on their heels.

Take the Mammoth's second goal of the game — Chytil lost the defensive-zone faceoff cleanly, allowing Sean Durzi to skate the puck down the half wall to find Schmaltz, wide open, in the slot. That's a shot he won't miss.

A similar breakdown in coverage led to Utah's fifth goal of the game, when Vancouver failed to clear their zone, then failed to pick up Peterka, who made no mistake when he was gifted the puck and a wide-open net.

"When you give a team three (goals), well, I'm not even sure how well they played, it's what we gave them," Foote told reporters post-game.

"Just mistakes," he continued. "We had some heat on them ... Just subtle mistakes went in the back of our net. Like I said, it all started with the three.

"You can't give up freebies early."

Ohgren, Blueger and Garland chemistry brewing

Liam Ohgren already cemented himself into pseudo-legendary status amongst Canucks fans after netting shootout winners in back-to-back attempts late last year, but on Monday, he provided a very real glimpse into the kind of hockey player he can be for the team.

With Rossi (lower-body) and Buium (face) both on the injured reserve, Ohgren now stands as the lone healthy skater from that Quinn Hughes trade available to the Canucks, and he was more than enough against the Mammoth.

Ohgren scored his fourth goal of the season in the first period to tie the game when he collected a pass from Conor Garland and sent it glove-side past Karel Vejmelka.

Moreover, the 22-year-old Swede was creating chances as well, exemplified by a sequence in the second period. Ohgren carried the puck into Utah's zone, deked through defending Mammoth players before sending a cross-seam pass intended for Blueger, who would have had the easiest tap-in of his life had he not been tied up in front of Vejmelka.

He also played a season-high 17:53.

Ohgren is young, and he wasn't exactly the centrepiece of the gargantuan Hughes return, but he's certainly proving himself to be a valuable player for a rebuilding team that will be relying on its under-25s to take a step forward in the coming years.

His line, centred by Blueger and accompanied by Garland, was responsible for both Canucks goals and combined for five points.

Blueger, who was playing in just his ninth game of the season, recorded his fifth goal in that span, as well as adding an assist. Garland, who had been held pointless since Dec. 27, factored in on both Canucks goals to bring his season point total to 24 in 45 games.

Injury bug bites back

Just six games into his return to the Canucks lineup, Filip Chytil was forced to leave Monday's game after suffering an injury.

After the game, Foote told reporters in Utah that Chytil tweaked something, which rendered him unavailable to play the final period, adding that he'll undergo evaluation on Tuesday and the team will know more.

Asked if it was a head injury, Foote said, "I hope not."

The 26-year-old previously missed 44 games over a three-month period after he suffered a concussion on Oct. 19. It was the fifth concussion of Chytil's nine-season NHL career.

Tank report

After Monday's loss, Tankathon.com has the Canucks' odds of landing the first-overall pick at 25.1 per cent, the second-overall pick at 18.6 per cent and the third-overall pick at 56.3 per cent.