VANCOUVER – It seems especially cruel — but typical — that what sure looks like the worst season in Vancouver Canucks’ history will be extended by two games by the National Hockey League and its players’ association.
On the other hand, an 84-game season, divided by four, means the Canucks have one more game to avoid manufacturing the NHL’s worst opening quarter since the salary-cap era began in 2005.
So, despite an array of gruesome numbers surrounding the Canucks, arithmetic may still be their friend. They could use one.
In Game 20 of the Canucks’ rebuild season, the Philadelphia Flyers, the third-worst team in the league and losers the night before in Calgary, not only dusted Vancouver 3-1 on Monday at Rogers Arena but held the home team to six shots through 40 minutes
The 5-10-5 Flyers ranked 21st in goals-against.
A third-period surge, which is to say the sudden reappearance of competitiveness, generated 13 shots for Vancouver and a power-play goal by Jonathan Lekkerimaki that brought the Canucks within one until Travis Sandheim’s empty-netter with 59 seconds remaining.
The loss was the Canucks’ 16th in 17 games and left them at 3-16-1 for the season. Twenty games was commonly regarded as the first quarter of an 82-game NHL schedule before the league extended each team’s docket to 84 games this season.
The 2017-18 Arizona Coyotes hold the 20-game ineptitude record in the cap era, managing to collect just seven of the first 40 points available to them by going 2-15-3.
Fun fact: Rick Tocchet, who was behind the Flyers’ bench Monday after running for his life from the Canucks in 2025, was the Coyotes’ coach for that ignominious season nine years ago.
The Canucks also have just seven points and an .175 winning percentage through 20 games. But they have one last chance to add a point or two before their first quarter officially ends in Game 21 on Friday against the New York Rangers, who at 10-7-1 are a credible playoff contender.
As with Tocchet, ex-Canuck J.T. Miller won’t recognize the team he left behind when he was traded two years ago to the Rangers.
“I’m lost for words here,” Canuck defenceman Guillaume Brisebois said after sitting motionless in his dressing room stall for several minutes. “You’ve just got to show up. It's just about showing up for 60 minutes, not 10 of 15.”
Six shots and a 2-0 deficit through 40 minutes against a “tired” team?
“Yeah, there's actually no excuse for that,” Brisebois said. “It's unacceptable to show up like this.”
“I think, like, when things aren't going well, when the puck's not going in the net, it feels like you're working 10 times harder,” winger Drew O’Connor told reporters. “When things start to go in and you're rewarded for your effort, then, you know, it doesn't feel like that.
“It just feels like an uphill climb a lot of the time. Guys are working hard, guys are battling, and you know, maybe not getting rewarded. But I think you really have to dig in and work that much harder to pull yourself out of that... whatever you want to call it.”
O’Connor may have been describing the third period when the Canucks outshot the Flyers, who are enduring their own late-game nightmares, 13-2.
But if players actually worked and battled harder from the start, nights like Monday wouldn’t happen. Losses would still happen, but not these disillusioning games devoid of execution, intensity and any admirable identity.
The Flyers are a mess. But playing for the second time in 24 hours after the Canucks rested on Sunday, the Flyers handled Vancouver far more easily than the mighty Edmonton Oilers did on Saturday when the Canucks actually, you know, played.
“The most frustrating part was our start,” Canucks coach Manny Malhotra said. “When... the topic of discussion (before) the game is you want to stress a team early that's coming in on a back-to-back, and the message is we have to have that same level of intensity that we played with the other night, to come out as flat as we did and make the same mistakes and take dumb penalties, it's concerning. It's frustrating. It's becoming a problem.
“We knew what we were getting into throughout the course of the season. Mistakes... they're going to happen. We understand that. But when we keep seeing the same mistakes, it's problematic. They’re addressed daily, they're addressed post-game. And when you don't see the proper response to those corrections, the end result is what you saw tonight.”
There wasn’t time to canvas the Canuck players post-game, nor would it have been humane to do so, but we strongly doubt any of them have gone through a 16-game stretch at the professional level and won once. Brisebois and O’Connor haven’t.
The team is 1-8 on home ice this season and that lone win was 37 days ago.
But one of the most remarkable aspects of a season that has started far worse than anyone expected, is the ongoing embrace of its fanbase – not only for the rebuild that was overdue, but for the team itself on a nightly basis.
Sure, the retail market is flooded with discounts these days, but 17,000 people still turned up at Rogers Arena on a miserable, rainy Monday night to watch the last-place Canucks play the team that is 30th.
And even after enduring six shots through two periods for the home team, most were still in their seats when a late, dumb penalty by Philadelphia goalie Joseph Woll for peeling off his mask to get a whistle allowed Vancouver to attack six-on-four.
“We're very grateful for the energy and support that our fans give to us,” Malhotra said when asked about the fan phenomenon. “They're intelligent hockey fans; they understand what's going on here. At the same time, we want to put forth an effort that's worthy of their cheering and their praise and their commitment to the team. And when we don't see it from our group, it's frustrating to us as a staff. But we fully understand the frustration of the fans when they don't get the effort that they deserve to see on a nightly basis.
“So my message to the fans would be: We greatly appreciate your support and ask you to stay with us. And we're doing our best to get out of this.”
