I’m starting to dislike 3-on-3 overtime. When I say that, I don’t the spectacle itself; it’s amazing hockey and arguably the best thing the sport has going for it right now. No, I mean this preseason fad of playing it regardless of the score in regulation. It’s stupid and the worst.

By stupid and the worst, I mean the Canucks double lost again, this time to the Calgary Flames.

To their credit, the Canucks had control of most of the first period and even managed to score a goal in regulation for the first time this preseason. This one came from Jake Virtanen, who was in the right place at the right time after Frank Corrado stopped the puck from crossing the blue line. Brandon Prust dropped the mitts with Blair Riley right afterward and took care of business. Things, for once, looked uphill from the beginning.

The Flames, however, weren’t planning on letting go easily, and before the period would close, actually ended up with the lead. Former 18-year-old Sam Bennett eventually found himself the benefactor of a strong rush from Dougie Hamilton, and Michael Ferland made the most out of a two-man advantage to give his team the lead.

Things got worse before they got better; in fact, they never got better. Sean Monahan widened the gap just before the midway mark of the second period with a boring goal, and Michael Frolik used some fancy footwork to help him finish off a no-look pass from Jiri Hudler with four minutes left in the period. While the Canucks kept much of the game in neutral ice afterward, they were never able to create an opportunity for a rally.

The NHL decided that this game had to go to 3-on-3 overtime, and it didn’t take long for the Flames to win that one too. Kris Russell took advantage of some less-than-preferable positioning by Linden Vey, Derek Dorsett, and Yannick Weber a minute and a half into the unnecessary frame and slipped a slick little deke past Markstrom to seal off the double loss.

Going to give this to two guys: Hunter Shinkaruk and Jacob Markstrom. Shinkaruk had a pretty solid game given the situation he played in; out of all the shifts he hit the ice for, he began in the offensive zone just 25% of the time. With that, he still managed to have a positive possession differential and put four shots on goal. No, he didn’t score, but nobody really has, and he was one of the guys who seemed to be putting an effort into doing so.

As for Markstrom, he was stellar, stopping 13 of 14 shots against him. Let’s be honest with ourselves as well; nobody really expected Jiri Hudler to have fancy enough feet to recover the puck before he scored that goal. If he keeps that up, he could play for the Whitecaps next year. Oh, and the Russell goal doesn’t count. The game should have been over and that was essentially a penalty shot.

Jake Virtanen knew that you were all hungry for a regulation goal. He got you one early. Everybody disappeared shortly thereafter.

This one goes to the referees. Aforementioned co-player of the Game Shinkaruk was sent to the box for a high stick, but as we see here, that was Taylor Fedun’s stick that made contact with the Calgary player. Actually, we can’t even truly see if it made contact. Its possible that it didn’t even do that.

But if it did, it definitely wasn’t Shinkaruk.

The Canucks return to the ice tomorrow night to take on the Flames once more; this time, at Rogers Arena. Puck drop is at 7 PM.