Canucks waste strong start as frustrating 2025 comes to an end

VANCOUVER – For the Vancouver Canucks, 2025 feels like the longest decade in franchise history.

The year began with the Canucks as a championship contender. It ends with them at the bottom of the National Hockey League standings on points percentage, contending for the top spot in the draft lottery.

The last 12 months saw dysfunction in the dressing room reach a critical mass until core player J.T. Miller was traded in January. Amid an avalanche of injuries, the Canucks missed the playoffs for the eighth time in 10 seasons.

Then coach-of-the-year Rick Tocchet bolted when given the chance to leave. The injury bugs returned this fall to feast on Vancouver after breeding and multiplying over the summer, and captain Quinn Hughes, the best player in Canucks history, was traded on Dec. 12.

The Canucks won 14 home games in 12 months, that almost unfathomable struggle continuing Tuesday with a 6-3 loss to Tocchet’s Philadelphia Flyers at Rogers Arena.

There were some positives for the Canucks, of course, primarily the arrival and development of a handful of talented early-20s players who may eventually provide a better future for a franchise still awaiting its first Stanley Cup.

But 2025 for the Canucks? Good riddance.

“It's not hard to stay positive, it’s just hard to lose,” senior defenceman Tyler Myers said after the Canucks lost for the ninth time in 10 home games to close out their year. “You know, we're losing too much right now, and that's what's hard. That’s what’s frustrating.

“I still come to the rink every day with a positive attitude, positive mindset. It's just frustrating to lose. It's in our control to turn things around. We're making immature mistakes as a group. We have to get back to finding our identity and doing it night in and night out. We can't just bring it on the road or once every three or four games; we have to do it all the time.”

Off until Friday’s home game against the Seattle Kraken, the Canucks end 2025 at 16-20-3 for the season and 37-39-9 for the year.

One year ago, despite the onset of problems that would eventually exhaust everyone and chase away Tocchet, the Canucks turned the calendar at 17-11-8. Seven months before that, they made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs’ second round to cap their best season since 2011.

It has been quite a descent since then.

Tuesday’s loss leaves their home record this season at 4-12-1. Naturally, it followed a 3-2 road win in a shootout 24 hours earlier in Seattle.

“I don't know, I wish I had an answer,” winger Drew O’Connor said when asked about the home-and-away schism. “You know, we want to come in here and play well in front of our fans. It's frustrating for them, frustrating for us when we don't. So it's something that we're working on. We want to be better because it's important to have a good home-ice advantage, and we haven't had that.”

The first 11 minutes of Tuesday’s game, when the Canucks built a 10-0 edge in shots, was some of the best home-ice hockey they’ve played this season.

Barely there in the first half of the first period – and lucky to be tied 1-1 when it was over – the Flyers were everywhere in the second period. The Canucks were nowhere.

Philadelphia simply took over the game. They were first getting to pucks, winning most of the battles, and forcing the Canucks to play under pressure in their own zone. Vancouver’s forecheck evaporated as quickly as their early lead, and by the start of the third period, it was 3-1 for Philadelphia.

“I think we just were on top of them (at the start),” winger Jake DeBrusk said after returning to the Vancouver lineup following a healthy scratch by coach Adam Foote. “We were winning lots of pucks. Obviously, they were going to respond. They’re well-coached, so we knew that was coming. And then we didn't really help ourselves out. We had some power plays, which were terrible, and they got the momentum.”

At the end of a marathon, two-minute-plus shift for third-pairing defencemen Tom Willander and Pierre-Olivier Joseph, the Flyers took advantage of the Canucks’ exhaustion and took the lead at 3:40 of the middle period when Carl Grundstrom had room to cut to his forehand and roof the puck from close range behind goalie Thatcher Demko.

The Flyers peppered Demko with 17 shots in the frame and at 16:20 went up 3-1 when Travis Konecny, unchecked beside the Vancouver net, had time and space to flip his own rebound past the goalie after a point-blank save.

By that stage, it was difficult to recognize the teams from the ones that began the game.

“I thought tonight was maybe our best start of the year,” Myers said. “Our physicality was at its highest that I've seen this year on the forecheck. The first 10 minutes of the game, I thought was one our best. . . and then we just lost our details.

“We're giving up too many odd-man rushes, and we're not getting pucks behind their team. We’ve got to clean some things up. More than anything, we’ve just got to clean up our consistency. We do a lot of good things, but we just don't do them enough.”

The Canucks could have led by more than just David Kampf’s goal, scored at 3:45 of the first period after a nice setup by O’Connor.

The Flyers struggled to get out of their zone and had almost no puck possession in Vancouver’s end until they snatched a tying goal at 12:02 when Canuck Liam Ohgren reached in as Noah Cates shot off the rush, changing the trajectory of the puck that fooled Demko.

It was a different game from then on.

In the third period, O’Connor got a friendly bounce from Kampf’s partially-fanned shot and scored just 68 seconds in to make it 3-2. But the Canucks gave that back only 26 seconds later when defenceman Filip Hronek pinched without cover, giving the Flyers a two-on-one that Zeev Buium poorly defended. Bobby Brink tapped in behind Demko at 1:34.

The Flyers sandwiched empty-net goals by Owen Tippett and Christian Dvorak, who chose Philadelphia over Vancouver in free agency last summer, around a garbage-time goal by Willander.

“We have to be a stronger group in that second period when things didn’t go our way,” coach Adam Foote said. “We’ve got to find a way to just stay within the system. It took us a little bit too long to get back on our game.”

ICE CHIPS – Veterans DeBrusk and Kampf both looked motivated upon their return to the lineup after being scratched in Seattle. Centre Aatu Raty and winger Nils Hoglander were scratched against the Flyers. . . Long-injured centres Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil skated with the extra players Tuesday morning, and Foote said Chytil could be back from his latest concussion in about two weeks. . . Asked before the game if the Canucks have “too many bodies” now, Foote said: “Coaches don't think there's ever too many bodies. I mean, that's not my department, like you said. I'm just going day by day with what we have, and trying to (use) my instincts and what I think has to happen for us to get the two points.”