After the Vancouver Canucks’ 5-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday, marking their ninth straight defeat, Brock Boeser did not mince words about his team’s performance.

“I mean, it’s the same stuff game after game. I don’t know where the disconnect is,” Boeser said. “If guys in here aren’t listening to what the coaches are preaching on our style of play, or some of our structure is not working, or what it is. But it’s embarrassing.”

Boeser has seen this Canucks team through all of its peaks and valleys over the last decade. Twelve games into this season, and he already feels things are going worse for them than their last-place finish last season.

“We are a way better hockey team than we’re playing, and to consistently show up to the rink and be disconnected out there,” Boeser said. “Like we might play as a team, like a five-man unit out there, maybe a period here and there, and I don’t know. We showed that we were a better team last year than what we’re playing right now.”

Boeser was determined to hold himself and the team accountable. When given the opportunity to point to their better play at points on the road trip, he refused to take the exit ramp.

“Even in those games, something still feels off. We’re still not generating offence, not getting enough shots, so something’s not working, and I don’t know if guys don’t listen or, like I said, something in the structure we need to fix or what it is. But we definitely have a lot better in this room.”

The frustration for the assistant captain and veteran is mounting. As a leader, he’s not sure what else he can do to point teammates in the right direction that he hasn’t said before. “You try to talk to guys out there when they make a mistake on what the right play is, but you can only talk to guys so many times about making the right play, and it’s just frustrating.”

On Thursday, a lot of the Canucks’ worst tendencies shone through. They went shotless in the second period, and seemed completely out of ideas on how to stifle a Red Wings attack that mowed them over for the better part of 60 minutes. Boeser noted that the fragility of the group was on full display as Detroit poured it on and the Canucks sat back. After the fourth Wings goal, Boeser was noticeably upset, slamming his stick in frustration.

“We have some bad changes, and we don’t set each other up, and you know it’s small details,” Boeser said about the team’s lack of compete. “All these things I’m talking about are little details of the game and helping you know roll lines over and create momentum and stuff. And I feel like we’re constantly just sitting back on our heels and they’re just coming down our throats.

“I think tonight we probably got down and we started to feel it, and it’s hard right now. It’s rough, and I know there’s going to be growing pains, but yeah, we got to dig a little deeper right now.”

With Sunday’s all-important matchup against former captain Quinn Hughes and the Minnesota Wild looming, we’ll see if Boeser’s candour lights a fire under his teammates to live up to the moment.