It’s the middle of January, and the Vancouver Canucks have seven wins on home ice. Nothing else the team does between now and the end of the schedule will matter unless the club gets its act together at Rogers Arena. It’s as simple as this – there will be no playoff hockey in Vancouver this season unless this group figures things out as the home team.
Starting Thursday against Los Angeles, the Canucks play three straight and five of their next six on home ice. Seven of their 12 remaining games before the 4-Nations Face-Off are in Vancouver. Overall, they have more home games (20) than road contests (19) remaining on their schedule. Not that that’s necessarily a good thing.
The Canucks weren’t exactly powerhouses on their one-win road trip that wrapped up with Tuesday’s 6-1 debacle in Winnipeg. But the road record this season is the only thing that has the Canucks within an arm’s reach of the playoff bar.
The Canucks have fumbled and stumbled to a record of 7-8-6 in their first 21 games on home ice. Only the Utah Hockey Club has fewer wins in front of its home fans.
Only Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit and San Jose have permitted more goals at home this season, and if you know anything about the seasons the Penguins, Sabres, Wings and Sharks are having, that’s not exactly the kind of company you want to be keeping.
To underscore the Canucks issues, the team has allowed five (or more goals) on 11 occasions this season – eight of them have come in front of the home fans. On the flip side, the Canucks have only managed to score five goals at home twice – and they lost one of those games on opening night.
Quinn Hughes has 20 points in the 19 home games he’s played. The captain’s not quite as productive as he’s been on the road, but he’s not far off. It’s others that, for whatever reasons, haven’t been able to generate at home.
Brock Boeser is the only double-digit goal scorer on home ice on this year’s roster. He has 10 goals, followed by Kiefer Sherwood with nine and Elias Pettersson with eight.
Jake DeBrusk has just five of his team-leading 17 goals at Rogers Arena. JT Miller has three goals – and his last one came into an empty net on November 16th against Chicago.
Conor Garland has matched Miller’s three-goal output. Nils Höglander, Danton Heinen and Dakota Joshua combined for a total of 59 goals last season – that trio each has one goal at home so far this season. That has them tied with Arshdeep Bains. And Daniel Sprong.
And at 5-on-5, it’s worse. Jake DeBrusk has just three goals in that game state which just happens to be as many as Pettersson (2) and Miller combined (1).
As a team, the Canucks have a -14 goal differential in their 21 games at home so far this season.
But it’s not fair to put the struggles entirely at the feet of the skaters. After all, hockey is a team game, and no one position is more impactful or important than the goaltender. And, quite frankly, none of the Canucks three goalies this season has measured up at home.
Kevin Lankinen has won four of his 12 starts on home ice. He has a 3.05 GAA and a .889% save percentage at Rogers Arena. Only one of his four shutouts on the season has come on home ice. Plus, the one time he was given the hook was a November 9th home game against Edmonton.
Thatcher Demko has two wins in five tries at home so far this season. But his individual stats certainly leave something to be desired – a 3.56 GAA and a .873% save percentage.
But those numbers look considerably better than the ones Arturs Silovs has posted. Silovs, the opening-night starter, has won just one of four home starts while struggling with a 4.12 GAA and a .851% save percentage.
The Canucks could certainly help their goaltenders by spending less time in their own zone. The team is dead last in the NHL, averaging just 24.9 shots per game on home ice. In only three of 21 games have they crested 30 shots in a game, and on just six occasions, have they outshot opponents. In stark contrast to those numbers is the fact the Canucks sit fifth in the league in 5-on-5 shooting percentage on home ice converting on 10.6% of their shots on goal.
Oh, and throw in the fact the Canucks have opened the scoring only six times and gone on to win just two of those games at Rogers Arena, and you can start to see the patterns that have emerged that have made life miserable in front of the home fans on so many nights this season. It’s no wonder the Canucks have yet to win consecutive games at home this season – something that simply can not continue if this team is going to get any traction in the second half of the schedule.
A quick glance at the top of the NHL standings shows that of the 16 teams currently occupying playoff spots, Minnesota has the fewest home wins with 11. But the Wild has 16 road wins to compensate. The rest of the teams above the playoff bar have all been solid to sensational on home ice, whereas the Canucks simply have not.
And so now they are home off a gruelling five-game road trip with almost all of their injured bodies back. There are no more excuses. None. It’s time to get their act together and find ways to win at home.
If things don’t change – and results don’t follow – the math simply won’t add up to ensure there is playoff hockey in Vancouver for a second straight spring.
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