If you are waking up after a New Year’s Eve celebration and are starting 2025 by reading about the Vancouver Canucks’ 3-1 loss to the Flames, I apologize.
We knew a game missing Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, and Fil Hronek was going to be a tough mountain to climb for the Canucks, but the latest loss still felt like a let down.
I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that the bulk of the Canucks’ offence doesn’t look all that different from when their stars are playing. Don’t get me wrong, when Quinn Hughes is on the ice, he creates magic wherever he goes, but the rest of it? Oddly familiar. Like a soft blanket you remember throwing out in the trash but it somehow finds its way back to your bed. With the stench of garbage floating heavily in the air you reluctantly embrace the warmth of the blanket because it’s better than being cold. You think so, at least.
Whether its the make up of the roster, or the coaching of Rick Tocchet, or some combination of the two, the current Canucks team excels at making generating offense look very difficult. It involves an awful lot of dumping the puck and then either going for a line change, or hopefully grinding out a shift long enough to feed the puck to the point for a potential long distance wrist shot into traffic. You find yourself saying “atta boy Tyler!” when Myers finally gets a shot on net before you quickly realize how far your life has fallen. The second you find yourself proudly saying “Wow, what a great chip off the glass and out!” you clearly see how low the bar has fallen for exciting hockey.
Quinn Hughes’ importance to the team has always been known, but there is something almost vulgar about the way that fact has been shoved into the spotlight during his absence. This is where we dive into the talk about whether its the roster or the coaching, and while I don’t doubt another coach could probably figure out a way to move the puck better with this group, the fact remains that can only go so far with this team; At the end of the day, their depth and lack of puck movement on the back end is absolutely killing them on the ice.
It’s highlighted even further when the Flames defenseman are making moves to dangle around the Canucks on scoring plays, whereas with Vancouver’s defense, you’re lucky to get a clean zone exit.
So yeah, losing to the Flames 3-1 with three of your best players out? Perfectly reasonable. In a way, almost expected. Certainly nothing to lose sleep over.
But the overall picture of this team having defensive depth issues, issues that as David Quadrelli pointed out have not been owned up to by management? That’s something not even the return of Quinn Hughes is going to fix.
All of which just makes the off-ice issues sound so much louder than they probably should be. It’s one thing to have a locker room figuring its shit out, its another thing to have them working through their issues struggling in a season loaded with expectations.
Which is where we find ourselves now, watching a Canucks team, and wondering just who they are.
If they are nothing more than a figment of Quinn Hughes imagination, then they clearly have to upgrade the roster for him. They have to find a way for this team to handle non Quinn Hughes minutes if they want a chance to survive this season.
Otherwise we are doomed to repeat history by continuously dumping the puck down the ice, and going for a line change.
With the occasional icing.
And if all goes well, a point shot into traffic.
Dream big, kids.
Best grind it out
A quick summary of this game was a sloppy first period, a bunch of “fights” in the second, and then a third period in which scoring a single goal was the notable achievement on the night for this team.
Kevin Lankinen had a very solid night stopping 26 out of 28 shots, and wasn’t an issue in the loss. As usual, Kevin looked calm and collected in net, and was tracking the puck well right from the drop of the puck:
We’re still in the waiting stage for Thatcher Demko to find his groove again, and while he will certainly continue to get more starts than Lankinen, it’s not offside to suggest you feel more comfortable with Kevin in net. Kevin is the reliable step-dad who shows up to pick you up from school, while Thatcher is your real dad who Mom kicked out of the house years ago, and occasionally shows up on a motorcycle to ask if he can borrow $20.
Which isn’t an indictment on Demko, it’s just a fact of life that Lankinen has been playing all season and has been playing well, so he’s kind of locked in, which was easily explained by the latest divorced parents metaphor.
Best playing with an edge
JT Miller’s line consisting of Jake DeBrusk and Brock Boeser was the best trio on the night for the Canucks, which shouldn’t be too surprising.
No, they didn’t generate more than a single goal, but for a team struggling to look intimidating on offense, at least his line was keeping the puck out of their end for the most part, and getting some shots on net:
All things considered, that’s a really slick save from Flames netminder Dustin Wolf. That pad save stopped what looked like a sure goal, even if it was while wearing Temu branded Skate jerseys.
Best horseshoes and hand grenades
The other best chance from the first period? Teddy KGB getting absolutely stoned by Dustin Wolf right out in front off a nice pass from Kiefer Sherwood:
The key takeaway from that rush is that it was one of the few times the Canucks entered the zone with control of the puck, which is why it kind of feels magical. I feel like Danton Heinen was almost taunting the Flames as if he WAS going to dump the puck in, only to hold onto it and take it in himself.
Don’t get me wrong, guys battling along the boards and slathering themselves in GOTI while Rick Tocchet looks on with an intense gleam in his eye is fine hockey, but there is almost something taboo about it when the Canucks straight up carry the puck directly into the zone.
“Wait, they can do that??” you breathlessly whisper as you check the NHL rule books.
Best wheeling and dealing
The Canucks tried their hand at a controlled rush later in the first period, when Jake DeBrusk tried to feather a puck across to JT Miller on an odd-man rush counter attack:
Sadly they were denied by Matt Coronato, and if his nickname isn’t Coronato Street then I don’t know what we’re even doing here.
The first period was probably the best of the bunch for the Canucks, because those three chances you saw? That was like 1980’s Oilers hockey compared to how the rest of the game went for Vancouver.
Best sinking ship
The Flames opened the scoring when Noah Juulsen, noted shot blocker and thrower of big hits, completely forgot about the whole defense part of being a defenseman:
Not only does Juulsen let Jakob Pelletier set up a tent complete with an expensive Yeti cooler behind him, but Noah doubles down on this by then chasing the puck like a dog running into traffic to grab his ball, taking out Carson Soucy and getting in his own goalies way.
It’s one thing to let a guy get behind you, but now Noah is in full panic mode and leaves his side of the ice and takes Soucy out of the play, and prevents Carson from making a play  on the puck. The end result is Calgary walks in and scores what is essentially an empty net tap in.
Clearly Rick Tocchet like’s Juulsen’s game, exponentially more than Erik Braanstrom’s. Which hey, fair effs to the coach, he can do what he wants and if Noah fits his system better, have at it. Would I like to see if Erik’s puck moving would help the team out? Of course I would, but I also know Rick does not rate Braanstrom at all.
I just can’t watch Juulsen play and then listen to Tocchet talk about his team having to make better decisions under pressure when Noah struggles extremely hard at making plays under duress. I guess blocking shots and hunting down big hits goes a long way with the head coach and Adam Foote.
Best it’s all relative
The Canucks defense continued to struggle as the game wore on, but this time it was Carson Soucy sending a soft-serve pass to the middle of the ice:
This isn’t helped by Phil Di Giuseppe being absolutely flat-footed while watching the board battle. I assume the plan was get the puck in front of Phil, who in a perfect world would be skating into the puck, thus using the power of science and momentum to get it out of the zone.
Best number crunching
There is a certain sense of re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic when discussing what the Canucks should do with the current roster missing Hughes and Hronek, but there is just a part of me that can’t get behind the Noah Juulsen train. I get it, he plays Tocchet hockey in that he tries to protect the GOTI, but he doesn’t do a great job of it. He chases the game far too often, and for every solid game he has, it feels like he has three underwhelming performances between them.
Optically, I get it to a point. He throws big hits and no one is as willing to block a shot like he is. But those big hits he lands? More often than not he puts himself out of position to chase them. Those shots he blocks? It’s usually because he’s fallen behind the play or has lost his gap control.
That being said, there is very much a “Well who do you give the minutes to, then?” retort to be had to this, to which I respond with a loud, long suffering sigh, because I have no real answer. Even if I championed the Erik Braanstrom agenda, I still feel like the ceiling of improvement is pretty limited. I think I’m just really horny for watching a dude who can skate with the puck on his stick in a semi-competent manner that isn’t named Quinn Hughes.
Ultimately this is probably more of a roster indictment from me than anything else. In the off-season they spent 6+ million on Myers, Forbort and Desharnais, putting stock into size over puck movement, and now we’re seeing the results of it. I feel like the plan of “Soucy and Myers will have another fantastic season” while also losing the top level depth they had in Nikita Zadorov and Ian Cole was a risky move to say the least.
Again, any team would struggle with losing their top two defenseman. But even when Hughes and Hronek return to the lineup, you’re still dealing with a bottom four on defense that feels hauntingly similar to a sea of Granlunds.
Which begs the question, how involved is Rick Tocchet in the roster creation? Is he banging tables and demanding the Canucks sign Ents? Or did Rutherford and friends become size enthusiasts all on their own?
I mostly just want to know how this team watched Vincent Desharnais get played into a healthy scratch in the playoffs last year and decide “yes, that is the guy we want, nay, need, for next season.”
Best struggling to stay afloat
The next clip is the hockey equivalent of losing your paper boat down the drain, only for a clown to appear with a red balloon inviting you down for a visit:
I mean, full points for the flair Soucy put on that poke check? It felt like a combination of a fencing lunge mixed in with a fancy proposal? All I know is he dropped to a knee for a poke check while sliding out of the scene as Yegor Sharangovich danced around him.
Fun fact, Sharangovich’s line was extremely efficient on the night:
Fun fact #2, anytime I write a sports statistic my mind wanders to just how badly Terry McLaurin lost me my two fantasy football championships. I know nobody asked for this update on my psyche, but I’m not kidding, I am still struggling with what happened on Sunday.
How do you only catch one pass, man? How?
Best the struggle is real
Carson was supposed to be the reliable one, man:
For full context, yeah, Carson Soucy and Noah Juulsen were stuck on the ice for around three minutes before his play went down.
So you would think when Carson went hero mode and shoved aside all that fatigue to get the puck out of the zone, he would do the one thing the Canucks seemingly practice a hundred times a game: Dump the puck down the ice and go for a line change.
But no, instead he tries a pass to Nils Höglander?? The end result being that Soucy and Juulsen can’t make a line change, so they have to stay on the ice?
Like, what are we even doing here? Soucy’s game is all about reliable smart decisions, why is he out here, completely gassed, trying to generate offense with Nearly Nils? A Höglander on a stunningly ice cold streak of not being able to score at all?
If this was last year, maybe, maybe I give Carson some rope. Sure, pass the puck to the 5 on 5 goal scoring king, I don’t agree with the plan, but I can see the idea behind it.
But this years Nils? In this economy?
Just weird decisions being made all over the ice.
Best one final ingredient
Hey, don’t forget the point shot from Myers:
This is life with Rick Tocchet without Quinn Hughes. It’s the Phoenix Coyotes minus the financial uncertainty.
Best Fight Club commencement
At this point in the game, both teams just started getting annoyed at each other and started fighting. But not like, angry, impassioned fighting. This was beer league fighting, where people seemed upset about life but respected the fact that each guy has to work in the morning:
Full credit to Erik for knowing what Rick likes. Want to stay in the lineup? Protect that GOTI, throw a hit. No need to make a pass or beat a guy with speed when you can simply block a shot or throw a hit instead. They say winning a board battle is worth more than goals in many ways.
The fight itself? Ryan Lomberg landed a punch, maybe? Felt like both guys did their due diligence before heading to the box?
I don’t need to oversell fighting, I don’t need people getting CTE for my personal enjoyment, but if this was a purely ranking situation, the fights on the night didn’t amount to a whole lot other than dudes ending up in the penalty box.
Best sure, keep swinging
JT Miller would then almost immediately drop gloves with my fellow New Westminster King, the 6″6 Kevin Bahl, which sure, yeah, I guess was a fight as well:
There you go, points were made, lines were drawn, etc.
Again, I love a good fight, especially in games where the emotion is so palpable you can taste it. But on Tuesday, it just felt a bit bland?
This has just been a weird season, you know? The atmosphere of “Mom is angry at Dad” has sort of seeped into everything.
Best you didn’t kneed to do that
Hey, Noah Juulsen sticking out a knee because he was going to get beat chasing a hit, that’s probably not a good idea:
This resulted in the Canucks having to play shorthanded, but don’t worry, Tyler Myers would never put his team down two men.
Best Tyler Myers put his team down two men
Uh oh:
To be fair, TO BE FAIR, that’s straight up just Myers shoving Nazem Kadri to the ice with his glove, while his stick just happened to be in both hands. That’s not a cross check, he’s not using his stick to batter away at his liver, he’s just shoving a dude with his glove. Which when you’re tall, ends up being a penalty in the NHL at times.
Which to the Canucks credit, they had one of the best 5 on 3 penalty kills I have seen from this team in years. They shut the Flames down so efficiently I don’t even have clips of Calgary scoring chances. The Canucks three man crew protected the GOTI so hard that the home town fans started booing their team at one point.
To make matters even worse, when the first penalty expired, the Canucks got the best scoring chance from either team:
Kiefer Sherwood makes a heads up pass to Nils Höglander as he’s leaving the box, but at this point I have to assume he’s contractually obligated to never score a goal ever again.
Still, for a game lacking in offensive drama, this sequence of events was one of the more interesting moments of the night.
Best not done yet
Derek Forbort then fought Ryan Lomberg, I assume because he wanted to show him what a size mismatch felt like:
Which again, not a great fight, it ends up with two punches being thrown before cutting to the benches slapping their sticks against the boards.
Even in fights the Canucks struggle to generate shots, I don’t get it.
Best throw it on the pile
Vinnie Desharnais and Blake Coleman then drew roughing penalties, which sounds like it involves pencils but it does not:
Vincent got slashed, then both dudes just start jawing at each other, so I will just chalk this up to the NHL officials trying to calm this game down? Not quite sure how Desharnais got a penalty, but after Colin Campbell in 2011, anything feels possible.
Best give and go
Best football moment
My favorite moment of the second period? Tyler Myers just booting the puck instead of settling it with his stick and making the pass:
Chaos Giraffe doesn’t want to be fed. He wants to hunt.
I just laugh every time I watch this clip. Myers sees the puck coming at him and is just like “eff it, gonna kick this puck” and yup, sure enough, boots it down the ice.
Best out of nowhere
Derek Forbort is out here trying to do his best to stop that by making a high level elite pass through both teams right onto the tape of JT Miller and yes I just wrote that all out and it’s all very true:
I have to tell you, after watching games in which any defenseman not named Hughes cannot make a three foot pass to save their lives, watching Forbort drop back like Josh Allen to thread the needle over to JT Miller was absolutely wild to me.
Best contract hunting
The Canucks lone goal on the night came off the powerplay, after Conor Garland’s zone entry and subsequent puck twirling led to a JT Miller shot that Brock Boeser deftly tipped in:
I feel like shooting the puck in the general direction of Brock Boeser and Jake DeBrusk is something that would even get me an assist in the NHL at some point. The ability of Brock and Jake to work the blue paint and front of the net has been one of the few offensive highlights on the season.
Best annnnnnnnd it’s gone
Hey, you know what’s not protecting the GOTI? Dakota Joshua standing absolutely still in the middle of the ice, letting Martin Pospisil skate right on into the Canucks zone without being touched:
Absolutely brutal coverage from Dakota, and while Vincent Desharnais screens his goalie on the shot, it’s a play that never should have happened if Joshua simply skated hard on the back check. That’s not a case of defensive depth, or missing Quinn Hughes, that’s simply failing at your job during a shift.
Which hey, mistakes happen in the NHL all the time. That’s sort of the name of the game on a lot of goals, someone makes a mistake, or screws up, and they end up paying for it. It just seems to be happening a little too much for Vancouver as of late.
The play itself was actually started after MacKenzie Weegar avoided Conor Garland’s forecheck, which deserves praise because Corolla is one of the best Canucks players at hounding the puck:
Vancouver just made it too easy for Calgary on that goal, you know?
Best the beatings will continue until morale approves
Moments later Vincent Desharnais stepped up despite having three forwards below the goal line, and yep wouldn’t you know it, Calgary turned the puck back the other way for an odd man rush:
Kiefer Sherwood was skating back to cover, but I don’t know if he didn’t realize the potential danger, or simply didn’t believe it was going to play out that way, because he also kind of coasted along until it was too late. He made a spirited beeline to get back into the play, but by then it was too late and we’d seen everything.
Best working 9 to 5
I will say that JT Miller’s line tried to keep bringing it throughout the night, even if their offense consisted of grinding the puck and hoping to somehow get it on net:
Best line for the Canucks, but they didn’t manage to create dangerous looks on net too often. It really felt like the game plan was grind out the puck and hope a point shot goes in or a rebound gets tucked in past Wolf. Which in a 2-1 game, I guess have at it? We knew these games without their top players wasn’t going to be pretty.
Best put it out of its misery
With the goalie pulled, and the last chance to tie the game quickly fading, JT Miller stepped up and, well, turned the puck over:
To his credit he busted his ass to get back into the play, which is all you can ask from him in that scenario. We’ve seen the JT Miller who doesn’t give a shit about back checking, and this wasn’t that guy. He made his mistake and he made sure to make up for it so it didn’t cost the team.
Carson Soucy on the other hand:
I don’t know.  I mean.
It’s just.
Why there?
Of all the times to try a no look backhand pass to the boards, why there? You’re not that guy, pal.
I truly have no idea why he’s saucing it in that situation, which again, goes against everything that makes Soucy a top four defenseman: Reliability.
When you want someone to come in and put on a show and shoot a bunch of bad guys, you call John Wick, not Carson Soucy. John Wick wants to pass there? Have at it, I won’t deny him that. Carson? Let’s think this through first.
You call Carson Soucy when your car breaks down because he probably knows how to fix it, you don’t call him to drop a no look pass with an empty net.
It’s just sloppy hockey from a team that made an identity out of iron-clad GOTI hockey last year. This is a mistake where Soucy HAD time and space, and he still ends up making a turnover. It’s hard to win games doing things like that.
And that’s how 2024 ended for Vancouver. It went out with a whimper and a soft shake of the head from a fan base wondering what 2025 has in store for them.
This was supposed to be the easier part of the schedule. What’s going to happen with the back to back games on Thursday and Friday?
At this rate who knows what’s going to happen on or off the ice in the new year.