Well, that’s one way to bookend a week in the National Hockey League.

The Vancouver Canucks had an opportunity to regain some pride tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights after losing to them last Sunday in what was likely their worst manhandling of the season. Unfortunately, it would prove to be nothing more than an opportunity wasted.

Jacob Markstrom was given the start in net opposite Marc-Andre Fleury, though it would be Thatcher Demko who would finish the night for Vancouver.

The game also saw Jake Virtanen return to the line-up after missing 10 games with a fractured rib.

As usual, Jeff Paterson provided tonight’s rosters via Twitter:

If there were still fans out there holding on to the idea of making the playoffs this year, this game may have converted the last of them.

To put it mildly, the Vancouver Canucks were pushovers last week. They were pushovers Thursday night in Edmonton. And they were most certainly pushovers tonight in their rematch against a Vegas team that features one of, if not the, best top-six forward group in the NHL.

Pacioretty, Stastny, and Stone would easily be the top line on many teams in the NHL. For Vegas, they’re only the second unit, and tonight in Vancouver they started things off almost immediately. After Jacob Markstrom collected a hard Nate Schmidt dump in, he passed the puck along to Derrick Pouliot.

First mistake.

Pouliot was unable to carry the puck for more than a second or two, as Vegas quickly recaptured the puck behind the goal line. The Canucks appeared to panic, and were unable to clear it back out of their end before good puck movement by Vegas ended up in the back of the net, thanks to Mark Stone, just 1:32 into the first period.

Vancouver was left reeling as soon as play resumed. It was reminiscent of the previous match against the Golden Knights, as the Canucks just didn’t seem to have the extra gear necessary to keep up with the overwhelming Vegas attack.

They struggled to get the puck out of their own end, let alone carry it through the neutral zone successfully. A single decent chance came about when Josh Leivo used a great burst of speed to cut in through centre-ice, but he didn’t maintain control of the puck for very long.

A series of dangerous chances resulted in a handful of incredible saves by Markstrom in close as he dove forward to absorb a pair of shots at point blank range. Third rebound was the charm, however, and Alex Tuch made it 2-0 at 5:03.

Soon after, Cody Eakin added another tally to make it 3-0. The period wasn’t even half done and the game was already obviously well out of reach for the Canucks.

Just past the halfway mark of the first, Pettersson was able to get away on a nice breakaway attempt, managing to get in close to Fleury after a nice deke, but unfortunately his shot rang off the left post.

Vancouver would finally get on the board with a little over 9 minutes left to go in the first when Brock Boeser managed to nicely tip in a fantastic Biega shot from the blue line.

Whatever energy this gave the home crowd quickly disappeared, however, as Vegas was able to respond less than a minute later with a goal from Tomas Nosek, and another goal by Paul Stastny three minutes after that.

By the end of the first period, the game was basically over.

Bo Horvat managed to score early in the second to make it 5-2, and with probably the nicest shot of the game at that. Biega made a nice play to chip the puck free in his own zone to Antoine Roussel, who took off with surprising speed and slipped a pass over to a waiting Horvat on his right wing.

Sadly, Vegas would once again spoil any momentum gained from Horvat’s marker when Nate Schmidt scored exactly one minute later to make it 6-2 with over half the game still left to play.

They may as well have called it then and there. For a game with so much going on in the first half, by this point everything ground to a halt.

Nothing of significance really happened for the rest of the game. Vancouver didn’t even get their first chance on the power play until late in the third, when Jon Merrill tripped Josh Leivo.

Ultimately, the score of 6-2 would hold until the final, merciful horn sounded.

That’s pretty much all the summary that you need for this one.

There was basically a huge flurry of activity over the course of the first half of this game, and then almost nothing happened the rest of the night.

The data doesn’t necessarily reflect as poorly on the Canucks as last week’s meeting, but the same general sense of being completely overpowered and outmatched was present for the entire duration of the game.

It’s worth pointing out that a few Canucks did have relatively strong games. Jake Virtanen had a good game once he shook off whatever rust he was feeling. Alex Biega had a strong outing, and actually led the team with 2 points. Thatcher Demko managed to stabilize things after taking over the pipes from Jacob Markstrom. Pettersson, Boeser, and Horvat all managed to register a point. They just didn’t have the help, or the defence, necessary to have a fighting chance in this one.

Coming up next, the Canucks will host the New York Rangers at Rogers Arena on Wednesday night. Hopefully they’ll have better luck against an opponent more in their neighbourhood, points-wise. Puck drop is 7pm PST.