Let’s be honest.

Last night was not very fun. The first 20 minutes? Absolutely. The final 40 minutes, though? Not so much. Despite the unfortunate result, there are positives and negatives from last night’s contest. Let’s look at five from each category!

-Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek were phenomenal together. Sure, Filip Hronek got walked by Connor Zary on the overtime winner, but I did say together, didn’t I? The pairing was dynamite to open the season last year, and look poised to do that again with how they played last night. Hughes was buzzing all night long, and had the key shot block and stretch pass that allowed the Canucks to even get a point out of this game. He was dominant in the Canucks’ final tune up against the Oilers, and was undoubtedly the club’s best player on Wednesday night.

-JT Miller looked involved and dangerous. You never really know what’s going to happen when a player misses out on preseason games. While Miller certainly looked a step behind in the lone preseason game he got into against Edmonton, he was physical and engaged last night. Not to mention the beautiful clap bomb off the rush to send the game to overtime.

-The Canucks’ special teams looked great. The Canucks went 2-for-4 on the power play last night, and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill. On the power play, they got contributions from both units, something that has been a rarity for years now. It’s also worth mentioning that Jake DeBrusk appears to be a great fit on the power play. I mean, look at this feed and subsequent shimmy celebration.

-The fourth line had good energy. While the fourth line of Nils Aman-Teddy Blueger-Kiefer Sherwood was buzzing at times last night, there were multiple instances where they struggled to finish. The real positive is how much more interesting that line could get when Dakota Joshua returns and instead of Nils Aman, it’s Nils Höglander or Daniel Sprong — two players capable of finishing chances — on that line. Even Pius Suter might be an upgrade.

-Rick Tocchet didn’t really seem worried about things, so why should you be? At this point, we should all have a baseline level of trust in Rick Tocchet and his coaching instincts. And while he certainly wasn’t pleased with last night’s performance, Tocchet seemed very calm and sure about his team’s ability to get things back on track in a hurry. If they were going to have a meltdown like that this season, best to get it out of the way early, right?

*cracks knuckles*

-Elias Pettersson was quiet. Not bad, not good — quiet. Elias Pettersson looked eerily similar to what he looked like down the final stretch last season and into the playoffs. That might be unfair criticism after just one game, but it’s hard to give Pettersson the benefit of the doubt when this has been happening for a while now. You need your stars to be stars.

-Aatu Räty and Daniel Sprong’s ice time was limited. Daniel Sprong turned in a strong preseason where Rick Tocchet seemed comfortable going to him almost regardless of the situation, but on Wednesday, that changed, as Sprong was taken off Elias Pettersson’s line in the third period as the Canucks shook up their lines. Räty went through something similar, as Conor Garland and Nils Höglander were sent out without him on multiple occasions in the third.

-Arturs Silovs’ struggles with point shots are real. The book appears to be more than out on Arturs Silovs. Teams did it in the preseason, and the Flames did it last night — pepper him with shots from distance. For whatever reason, Silovs struggles to track shots from distance, and as we saw last night, it’s not even always shots through traffic that are beating him. It’s officially a problem, and it’s one the Canucks are going to need to hope Silovs figures out in a hurry.

-The Canucks had a Boudreau-era meltdown. Somehow, we got through three negatives without mentioning the fact that the Canucks blew a three-goal lead on two separate occasions last night. The Canucks set the NHL record for most blown multi-goal leads to open a season when they started the 2022-23 campaign with seven straight losses. Flashbacks…

-The Forbort-Desharnais pairing is a problem. Look, Adam Foote’s magic didn’t really seem to work on Tyler Myers or Noah Juulsen until about mid-November. If you remember, Myers had a very rough start to his season last year, but improved as the year went on. Fans are certainly going to be hoping for a similar impact on Vincent Desharnais and Derek Forbort, because the pairing was atrocious last night, with Desharnais posting a team-low 31.58 CF%. His xGF of 0.18 was the second-lowest on the team, while he gave up a 1-4 deficit in scoring chances, with one of them being high-danger.