A winless road trip, who could’ve thought.

The Vancouver Canucks dropped the final game of their road trip by a 4-1 scoreline to the Columbus Blue Jackets. There really wasn’t a whole lot to like this game. Veterans playing poorly, the team looking in tatters and shambles. Honestly, Brock Boeser’s goal to break his goalless streak was probably the best thing to come out of last night, and even that is merely consolation for how bad the product on ice is. Regardless, the Canucks have definitely shown management enough (or should’ve at least) that they’re in desperate need of a deep clean rebuild, from the ground up.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

The game flow was heavily skewed towards the Blue Jackets, and for good reason. They started the game off strong, dominating Vancouver to the tune of 62.96 CF% and 67.79 xGF%, racking up 2.15 raw xGF off an 8-3 high-danger chance advantage. That was all they needed to secure a hefty statistical advantage, and they didn’t let the intermission break that momentum either. While the stats would shift relatively more in Vancouver’s favour, Columbus never dropped below 50.00 CF% or 52.00 xGF%, keeping the Canucks very much at bay and on the back foot. And as has been the case all road trip, the Canucks simply didn’t have an answer when challenged whatsoever.

The scoring chances weren’t even close. At 5v5, Columbus had a 37-21 scoring chance lead with a 19-10 high-danger chance advantage. There was absolutely nothing that really went the Canucks’ way in all honesty, and the heat map reflects as much. There was a lake of fire in front of Vancouver’s own net while there wasn’t much to speak of on the offensive side. Not many signs of life, to say the least.

Corsi Champ: Drew O’Connor led the Canucks with a 65.22 CF%, one of only three skaters to finish above 50.00 CF% on the night. Somehow going up against Adam Fantilli’s line for the majority of the night, the winger didn’t get caved in and actually finished with a 7-3 shot difference at 5v5, one of only two Canucks to finish with a +4 or better shot differential and 6 Canucks to have a positive shot difference. Definitely a good thing considering how rough the rest of the game went for the team.

Corsi Chump: Victor Mancini was at the bottom of the Corsi charts again last night, tallying up 33.33 CF% and finding himself at a -13.18 CF% rel to team average. The rest of his numbers weren’t pretty, as the young defenceman posted a team-worst 15.78 xGF%, on ice for a 4-9 scoring chance difference and producing a team-low 0.18 xGF. Mancini lined up alongside Tom Willander, which again was puzzling to say the least as neither of them were really put into a position to succeed.

xGF: O’Connor again found himself leading the charge when it came to xGF%, posting a team-high 70.64 while also managing to be the only Canucks with a positive split in overall scoring chances at 6-4. He was also one of two Canucks to record a positive high-danger chance split, coming in with a narrow 2-1 lead in that regard. Again, it’s great that O’Connor has been playing better and contributing positively at 5v5, but when he’s leading the team in these categories, things are probably not going the best for Vancouver as a whole. O’Connor’s raw 0.74 xGF was the 6th-best tally on the team as Marcus Pettersson led the Canucks with a 1.14.

GSAx: The fact that Kevin Lankinen finished with a positive GSAx despite giving up 4 goals should show the extent to which the Canucks got dominated last night. The Blue Jackets put up 4.81 xGF in total against the Finn, meaning that he finished with a 0.81 GSAx with the goals being split at 2 apiece between high-danger and middle-danger chances. Again, it could’ve been a lot worse if Lankinen wasn’t playing as well as he did last night.

Rough night for DeBrusk – Pettersson – Karlsson: It seems that teams are cueing in on the Canucks’ top line. DeBrusk – Pettersson – Karlsson got hammered on the stat sheet in their 6:37 TOI together, posting a 29.41 CF%, which was a team-worst amongst all lines with over 4 minutes of TOI. Their xGF% also suffered too, sitting at 27.01, which was again a team-low as well. The trio sat at a 1-7 hole in terms of scoring chances, with a 0-3 deficit in high-danger chances. It was interesting to see the numbers change quite drastically when Pettersson centered a line between Liam Ohgren and Brock Boeser, breaking into a 53.33 CF% and 35.77 xGF% in 6:10 TOI together.

Veteran Defencemen?: The Canucks are going to need a lot more out of the more experienced members of their back end in order to win games. Marcus Pettersson has been tasked with a lot this season and with Quinn Hughes gone, the weight has only gotten heavier. It’s starting to crack the Swedish defenceman as he was on ice for 2 goals against, having to take on heavier minutes with difficult matchups that he’s just conceding too much against. Despite that team-best xGF, it was pretty much wiped out by the 1.42 xGA that Pettersson was on ice against. That wasn’t even the worst mark either – Tyler Myers was on ice for a 1.92 xGA, managing to give up a 9-17 scoring chance deficit with a 3-12 high-danger chance hole. Simply put, that’s not a good recipe for success, and it is no wonder Vancouver was so permissive last night.

The Canucks are just simply not a good hockey team. At this point, it feels like they’re still trying to win, but there’s just nothing to get out of this team, nothing that can help them deliver a result or two. There’s no top-end talent to break open a game, there’s not a single thing that this team does well, and even with goaltending not being an issue, there’s nothing in front of them to score goals. Adam Foote is a hockey terrorist, and the product on the ice is absolutely horrid.

Vancouver returns home to face the Edmonton Oilers tomorrow night.