With only four wins on home ice in the 2025 season, it’s safe to say the entertainment value in Vancouver hasn’t been at the highest level this year. It’s a bit like going to dinner at Milestones, you have fond memories of it when you were younger, but you could have sworn it used to be way better, and oh my god why is it so expensive, how can they charge this much for what they’re offering.

And with the Canucks latest 6-3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night, I would wager that many season ticket holders New Year’s Eve resolutions would involve taking a good, long, hard look in the mirror and asking themselves why they continue to do this to themselves. Surely there are better ways to spend money then to watch the coach that quit on Vancouver walk away with another victory over his former club.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is the exact blueprint you want for a team that has a thirst for first. Getting a top five draft pick is basically the only end game this team needs to focus on this season, so coming out to a hot start like they did against the Flyers before eventually wilting away is pretty much the perfect tanking game.

But when you put that aside, you still find yourself feeling sorry for everyone having to watch this. A necessary pain right now, but it sure would have felt better had this team formulated a plan to surround Quinn Hughes with a winning team long term, rather then the current plan of “I wonder if we can get a stud player like Quinn Hughes in the NEXT draft to build around long term.” The Canucks are basically Homer Simpson with a mystery box in front of him at this point.

And this is the crux of the matter at the moment. The team needs to lose, it needs to rebuild, it just doesn’t take away the 10+ years of people who were right about how this should have been the end game many seasons ago. You watch these games for flashes of the future, but it just sort of reenforces how you’re not going to get anything back for all those years you were right about this team needing to do a proper rebuild for years.

Not even a gift card to Milestones.

Please note there will be a lack of social media interaction in this edition of The Stanchies because due to a scheduling conflict I had to start watching this game at 12:30 am in the morning.

The first action of the game confirmed what I have long suspected: Nick Seeler is the biggest coward in the NHL.

Why else would he pick Evander Kane for a fight, instead of taking on the Canucks current heavyweight champion Conor Garland?

Sure, Nick won the fight, but this was a glorified exhibition bout. This is Jake Paul taking on an aging MMA veteran in a boxing match levels of match fixing.

You want the crown? You come at the king.

Sad.

The Canucks were really good in the first period (for them), then were kind of ok but not really in the second, and then they sort of existed in the third period.

And when I say the Canucks were good (for them), those brackets aren’t meant to be mean. This isn’t a backhanded compliment like when I tell Quads I’m surprised he can pull off a bright purple sweatshirt. It’s just the Canucks being good usually involves either a high shooting percentage, or very good puck pursuit, or a combination of both.

When both are going off? You get that little winning streak the team had after the Hughes trade.

When just the puck pursuit game is on fire, it looks good, you applaud the efforts, but it’s not a situation where the Canucks are overwhelming teams with high danger chances, or creative offensive forays. It’s usually a lot of plays where the Canucks work hard on the forecheck and just try and get the puck to the point for a shot on net, or toss the puck into the middle of the crease and hope someone gets their stick on it.

There were flashes of nice plays in this game, at times, though. Early on Conor Garland set up Liam Öhgren on a quick give and go that resulted in a nice tip shot from the Swede:

I look at clips like that and I really enjoy Öhgren’s size. I have said in the past I have no issue with smaller players, and I don’t worry about height and weight as much as others do, but there is something nice about a player who has size and knows how to use it to their advantage. Like when you look at Marco Rossi and Liam Öhgren’s game tape with Vancouver so far, I have seen Rossi struggle with being pushed around, whereas Öhgren is the guy who knocks.

You also had the return of Jake DeBrusk (along with David Kampf, at the expense of Aatu Raty and Nils Hoglander) to the lineup, and although he didn’t get any points, there was noticeable jump to his game at least? You could just see he was driving hard to the blue paint and being more proactive with his speed, which he almost used to tap in this Tyler Myers rebound:

He still needs to be better, of course, but you could at least see he felt shame for being healthy scratched. That being said, Brock Boeser had another game in which I have barely seen signs of life from him, so I don’t know if this current Canucks team will ever get much out of its higher priced wingers. Drew O’Connor and Linus Karlsson are currently better scoring options than Jake and Brock and that feels like it’s not great?

Speaking of people trying to score shame Brock and Jake, David Kampf got his second goal of the season after the five on five production savant Drew O’Connor showed that he might be ready to be the next winger who gets paid too much and can’t live up to the contract:

The line cycled the puck really well, and DOC is basically the bottom six Jesus of the Canucks right now, the man can do no wrong and can turn water into David Kampf goals, truly a miracle worker.

I will give full credit for Kampf setting up in the crease and getting into position to get that shot off, I am just still in shock that Drew O’Connor is only one point behind Boeser and DeBrusk halfway through the season.

The Flyers hadn’t even gotten a shot on net at this point in the game, and this is where if the Canucks had a high shooting percentage heater on their side? Maybe they win this game.

Maybe when Drew O’Connor is taking baseball swings at a couple of these passes, the Hockey Gods give him a little love and he bats one in:

The Flyers looked absolutely dead on their feet as Vancouver kept pressuring them into turnovers, and were flinging the puck on net with glee.

The problem is, as we went over earlier, the Canucks “good chances” just aren’t as lethal as other teams. For all the pressure and all the momentum they had, they couldn’t find a way to get a second goal, which meant the Flyers only needed one shot to tie this game up.

That’s called foreshadowing, I learned it in gym class playing dodgeball.

Noah Cates crashed the party when he took a seemingly easy looking shot that found its way past a surprised Thatcher Demko:

Maybe Demko wasn’t surprised. Maybe he was flummoxed. Or irked. Definitely irked.

Liam Öhgren did fling out his stick and appear to hit the stick of Cates, so it’s possible he changed the trajectory of the shot, which would explain why Demko seemed fooled by it. All I know is Mike Fountain stops that in his first NHL game (and then becomes wildly mediocre the rest of his NHL career).

And hey, maybe if the shooting percentage gods were in their favour, Jake DeBrusk’s shot goes in on this next play instead of hitting iron:

Good teams don’t need high shooting percentage benders to win a lot of games, but that’s kind of where Vancouver is right now as a bad team; They need luck to win even a few games at this point.

Voted as the fourth most punchable face in the league, Garland earns it mostly by being really annoying to play against. He just works really hard and has never turned down a shove when it presents itself. He is truly the epitome of that guy who tries way too hard in beer league and gets you really angry because he makes you look in the mirror and ask yourself why can’t you put in that much effort:

The start of the second period signaled the fall of the Canucks, as the Flyers started generating more and more dangerous looks on net. Not just throwing the puck on net from the point, now they had Matvei Michkov streaking in on a breakaway after Zeev Buium skated himself into trouble:

Not a great look for Zeev on that play as he basically wandered into traffic and got hit by a car, but he’s young and these are the growing pains that come along with it. You take away his Toon Blast privileges at night and just hope he does better next time.

Next you had Sean Couturier getting into position in the crease and getting a dangerous shot off in close off of a faceoff:

You compare it to the Canucks chances in the first period, and you get the idea. Just a higher level of danger from the Flyers side of the ice as the game wore on, and it was punctuated by Carl Grundstrom’s seventh goal of the year after the Flyers hemmed the Canucks in their own end for over two minutes:

Jake DeBrusk does the high flip but doesn’t get enough juice on it, and with it being the second period and the long change, the Canucks can’t make a full line change on the zone exit. The end result is an exhausted PO Joseph, subbing in for the struggling defensive minded d-man Elias Pettersson, just sort of turns around and prays things go his way.

Should Demko have had that? Maybe. All I know is a young Frank Caprice flashes his mullet and stacks the pads to make the save there.

The Canucks output in the offensive zone was few and far between in the second period, with one of the highlights being Jake DeBrusk and Linus Karlsson generating a scoring chance off of the rush:

DeBrusk was at least noticeable for some good reasons on this night, even if we’re at the point where you found yourself wondering why Linus Karlsson didn’t shoot the puck there. That’s the world we live in now.

The Flyers, on the other hand, continued to create breakaways, even while shorthanded, as Christian Dvorak jumped up into the rush after Elias Pettersson fumbled the puck along the boards:

The Flyers were at the point where Trevor Zegras was trying between the leg passes just for shits and giggles, so you kind of knew they were feeling it?

I honestly love him trying that, even if it failed horribly. Give me more attempts at hot dogging versus a quick dump in and line change, I am absolutely here for it.

Marcus Pettersson wants to try and bust out a 360 on a zone entry? Let’s. ****ing. Go.

You then had Michkov get by Tom Willander, but you have to ask yourself, can you ever truly get by Tom Willander?

Tom Willander biggest asset continues to be his speed, as that is basically a textbook example of doing as much as possible to slow a guy down on a breakaway without taking a penalty.

Travis Konecny would get the Flyers third goal of the game near the end of the second period after Conor Garland of all people lost track of him beside the net:

The Canucks losing their man in coverage is not a new problem, it’s in fact a familiar friend this season. The kind of friend who asks if they can crash at your place for a day, before throwing in some ellipses and ending the statement with “or two.” Before you know it they’ve been living rent free at your house for months and all you can smell is the overcooked pasta and heavy garlic on their Milestones leftovers while you are panic stricken googling about squatters rights.

It’s just not usually Conor Garland who leaves his guy open like this, which Travis uses to his full advantage by getting two shots off before anyone comes close to him.

Should Thatcher Demko have stopped this? Perhaps.

All I know is that a dashing middle aged Corey Schwab would have thrown his blocker in the general direction of that puck.

And it sort of continued like that for the rest of the period, with the Flyers generating scoring chances and the Canucks wistfully remembering that time in the first period when life felt so exciting and fun and full of hope.

At one point Travis Sanheim just sort of sauntered down the ice and almost scored off of the rush?

Thirst for first, baby.

The five on five assassin struck again for the Canucks, giving the home team a sliver of hope of making it tight, almost like a playoff game, when Drew O’Connor jumped on flubbed shot from Kampf that found its way into his feet:

Sherwood sets this play in motion with his forecheck in the corner, and Kampf adds the icing on the cake by biffing the puck in the general direction of Drew, which is as good a play as any these days.

The Flyers shut down any thought of a comeback almost immediately, however, when Marco Rossi oversold a Jamie Drysdale shove a little too much, leading to Michkov setting up Bobby Brink for a tap in goal on the ensuing odd man rush the other way:

All I am saying is if you go full Dolph Ziggler to sell a call, you have to either a) make sure you get said call or b) get up and skate your bag off if the play ends up going the other way.

I’ve yelled at a JT Miller backcheck for a lot less, that’s all I’m saying.

In case you were curious, yes, Garland’s face appears to be one that opponents want to punch as Noah Cates stepped up to the plate in the third:

The Canucks best chance in the third period, aside from their lone goal, was a breakaway for Evander Kane after the stick of Drysdale exploded:

That’s a pretty sick bank pass from Jake DeBrusk to get it up to Evander Kane, made even more dramatic by him flailing forward to get it off.

See, he didn’t go full HBK vs Hulk Hogan, he kept the selling reasonable.

With under three minutes left, three goals came in quick and heavy.

The first was with the Canucks goaltender pulled, as Owen Tippett managed to outskate Fil Hronek to get to a loose puck:

Again, this is the Canucks using the “throw the puck in the crease and see what happens” which can obviously work, but it’s also depressing when that’s like your A+ plan with the goalie pulled. Just not a lot of creative hockey being used these days in Vancouver.

I will say that I appreciate Hronek angrily slapping the puck back into his own net, though. That’s the therapeutic anger I want to live vicariously through in these moments.

The next goal was from Vancouver, and this time it was Tom Willander who stepped up and found a loose puck and buried it past Dan Vladar:

Just your every day, hard working goal, where everyone shoots the puck as many times as possible until the goalie falls over and someone puts it in.

And the final goal of the game was from the stick of Christian Dvorak, after David Kampf’s pass was intercepted in the offensive zone:

Yes, David Kampf was on the ice. In an offensive situation. With the goalie pulled.

I understand Kampf had two points on the night, and this is about as close as you’ll ever be able to say “ride the hot hand of Kampf” with a straight face, but I do wonder if that was the right choice if you were actually trying to tie the game up?

I assume it’s the coach rewarding players who scored, etc, etc, but it just feels like an odd choice either way.

You know what I do get, though? Kiefer Sherwood slashing Konecny down to the ice during that play. That shows grit, that shows heart, that’s clearly a player who is worth four first rounders.

Now, should that empty net have stopped that puck? Probably, but who’s to say.

All I do know is that Dan Cloutier would have, ok well he would have let that in as well.

See you all in 2026!