VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Canucks look like a young team unaccustomed to winning.
Because they indeed are a young team unaccustomed to winning, sustaining any kind of success is presently a foreign concept to a National Hockey League crew that has lost 24 of its last 28 games.
Buoyed by their comeback win Thursday against the Nashville Predators, the Canucks brought energy and enthusiasm into Saturday’s game against the Seattle Kraken.
They played with pace and authority for stretches. But although they needed more saves from goalie Nikita Tolopilo, who let three shots get through him, including a morale-buster late in the first period that put Vancouver behind for good, the Canucks weren’t as connected and cohesive as they were against the Predators. They were sloppy on line changes and careless at times with the puck and lost 5-2.
They didn’t absorb pressure very well and didn’t do enough to deflate it.
The Canucks kept working and tried to the end, but they simply made too many mistakes to beat a good team.
We’re not even sure the Kraken qualify as a good team, having lost six of eight games since the Olympic break before Saturday to slip into the mosh pit of turtles that is the Western Conference wild-card race.
But the Kraken were quicker and sharper than the Canucks, who have not won consecutive games in nearly three months and have followed six wins since then with six losses, four of them in regulation time.
As former Canucks president and always-Canucks-icon Trevor Linden told Hockey Night in Canada’s After Hours when asked about the rebuild that has started in Vancouver: “There’s no linear path to success. It happens in different ways.”
There are going to be many more nights like Saturday for the Canucks. But it’s possible there will be many more games like Thursday’s, too.
This is what a young team looks like.
“You get a couple go in quick like that (against you), it's mentally hard at times,” Canucks coach Adam Foote said. “But they were fighting through it. They were pushing (but), like I said, it's against a real desperate team, and you can't give them a head start like that with a couple of those goals.”
Shots were 8-2 Seattle in the first 10 minutes, 12-0 for Vancouver over the next eight.
The Canucks could have been leading but were tied 1-1, Evander Kane’s pretty backhand finish on a breakaway offsetting an early goal for the Kraken by Jared McCann, who shot through Tolopilo from the slot after one pass from Brandon Montour stranded four Vancouver skaters.
But the pivotal goal came with 49.9 seconds remaining in the period when Bobby McMann’s unscreened shot from the left-wing boards was played into his own net by Tolopilo, who was moving backwards in his crease while guessing the puck might be redirected.
At 5:06 of the second period, and after a failed power play for Vancouver, Seattle made it 3-1 when defenceman Jamie Oleksiak lasered a shot into the top corner to cap a four-on-two rush made possible by poorly-timed changes by Canucks Liam Ohgren and Max Sasson and an unwise challenge in the neutral zone by Teddy Blueger.
In the third period, McMann scored on another outnumbered Seattle rush before Matty Beniers made it 5-1 for the Kraken at 9:58 by shooting between Tolopilo’s pads after the goalie, left with limited options by another Canucks line change, rimmed the puck from behind his net straight to McMann.
With 20 seconds remaining, Canucks forward Marco Rossi scored a goal that mattered only to him and Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer, shooting into an open net when Oleksiak’s pass deflected into the Seattle slot after Ohgren was stopped on a breakaway.
“Obviously, (allowing) five goals is never a recipe for success,” Kane said. “Everybody's good at defending, but when you're in there (in your zone) for 30, 40, 50 seconds, you're going to get tired and they’re usually going to take advantage.
“We definitely could have had better changes tonight. But I think it’s absorbing the pressure, making plays under pressure, taking hits to make plays, those little details on the breakout and good support from all five guys on the ice make a big difference.”
It’s about gaining experience and building dependability.
The Canucks complete the first half of their eight-game homestand Tuesday against the Florida Panthers.
ICE CHIPS — One of four first- or second-year defencemen in the Vancouver lineup, Elias Pettersson (Junior) left the game in the second period after getting hit by a shot on the foot or lower leg. Foote said Pettersson would have medical scans on Sunday to determine the extent of the injury. Vancouver hasn’t been carrying any extra defencemen... The team’s original Elias Pettersson had a rare display of anger in the second period when he shoved Adam Larsson after the Seattle defenceman pushed the Canuck’s head down, knocking off his helmet, during a post-whistle scrum... Blueger finished minus-three for Vancouver while winger Brock Boeser was somehow plus-one in the three-goal loss... Drew O’Connor had six shots for the Canucks... Nils Hoglander was healthy-scratched by Foote a second straight game... Winning 4-3 against Nashville earned Tolopilo, a minor-league callup, another start, but Kevin Lankinen almost certainly will be back in goal on Tuesday.
