If it feels like you’d seen Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild play out before, it’s because you have. The overtime setback was the ninth time this season the Vancouver Canucks came up on the short end of the score when taking a lead to the third period. Officially now the Canucks are 27-1-8 this season when holding an edge after 40 minutes of play.
If Rick Tocchet is back next season, it’s clearly something he and the organization have to address. The team now has a -17 goal differential in the third period and, of course, has now been outscored 12-6 in overtime.
The Wild needed the win and played like it over the game’s final 22:47 while the Canucks are running with a skeleton crew these days including a lineup full of players that have spent the bulk of the season in the minors. So there is some context here that needs to be taken into account. And obviously, score effects played into it, too.
But Minnesota was also playing on the second night of back to backs after a disappointing loss in Calgary on Friday, and still possessed the puck for almost the entirety of the final period outshooting the Canucks 13-4 and scoring the two goals needed to force the game beyond regulation time.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the third period possession numbers were as crooked as can be. At five-on-five, the shot attempts were 25-10, the shots on goal were 12-4, the scoring chances were 12-3, the high dangers were 6-1, and the Wild’s edge in expected goals in the period was north of 80%. It’s hard not to feel the Canucks got exactly what they deserved based on the way they approached the third period.
“We were up 2-0 and stopped making plays,” head coach Rick Tocchet explained moments after the loss to the Wild. “Guys were getting antsy. It’s been a kind of common theme sometimes with our team, we need to relax. A lot of young guys in the line-up, we’ve got some Abbotsford guys, so it’s understandable. There are some plays there where we’ve got to calm down. I thought we were just kind of chipping pucks away when there was nobody around us. Those are the things you really have to work on how to deal under pressure.”
Minnesota’s comeback effort started with a Brock Faber goal just 22 seconds into the final frame. And from that point forward, the outcome felt inevitable because it followed a script seen far too often over the course of this disappointing season.
Saturday’s game felt so similar to a December 18th game in Utah when the Canucks took a 2-0 lead to the third period and wound up losing by that identical 3-2 scoreline. The Canucks also held a two-goal lead in Montreal in January and lost 5-4 in overtime. There was a 2-0 lead they squandered in Anaheim in a 5-2 loss to the Ducks in March. Add to that a 5-3 lead in Columbus that got away from them and last night’s loss to the Wild.
That doesn’t take into account blown three-goal leads against Calgary on opening night, versus Seattle on December 28th or the 3-0 lead in Columbus that evaporated.
The Canucks also salvaged wins in Buffalo, Seattle and Los Angeles when they led by a pair in the third period only to see those advantages disappear. So those results won’t go against their record of blown third period leads, but make no mistake they continued the troubling trend that has plagued the team all season.
Now, to be fair, the Canucks also just pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in NHL history when they stunned Dallas with three goals in the final minute of regulation time in Tuesday’s 6-5 overtime win. So, they are by no means the only team that has struggled to protect leads.
But the bottom line is that it has happened far too frequently to the Canucks this season and it doesn’t look or feel like they have learned from their mistakes.
In a season that has gone sideways, there are so many ways to look back and find valuable points in the standings that slipped through the cracks. The home ice record. The overtime record. And, of course, all those leads that got away. Unfortunately, on Saturday, all of those issues were rolled up into one and were on display for all to see.
The third period last night was a perfect example of why one team is headed to the playoffs and the other will be cleaning out its locker stalls and heading home for the summer by this time next week.
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