Oh man.

The Vancouver Canucks got absolutely pummeled last night at the hands of the San Jose Sharks, dropping a 5-2 decision. It wasn’t even close either, with the Canucks getting walked early, often, and heavily. There wasn’t much competition to be had, with the Sharks having heavy advantages in every statistical category. And sure, maybe the third was a little bit better, but it still didn’t move the needle much at all for the Canucks whatsoever.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

It’s genuinely not even funny how one-sided this game was. After the opening goal by the Canucks, the Sharks struck thrice quickly and set the tone for how the rest of the game would go from that point onwards. Never did Vancouver really challenge the flow of the game, ever managing to tilt it back into their favour. They never cracked 37.00 CF% in any period, and the best xGF% in a frame they had was in the third, at a mere 46.62 xGF%. In fact, until that point, they hadn’t broken 30.00 xGF%, which is pretty darn embarrassing.

Given how the expected goals shaped up for this team, it shouldn’t really be a surprise to see such an anemic heat map from the Canucks. At 5v5, they were hammered by a 31-12 margin in overall scoring chances, with San Jose managing an 8-3 lead in high-danger chances. Of course, only giving up 8 high-danger chances isn’t the worst thing in the entire world relative to the 31 overall chances that were conceded, but those gaps were not good. That much is shown in the heat map, where San Jose at least managed a smidgen of a hot spot from the low danger areas, while Vancouver didn’t have much of anything at all.

Corsi Champ: Marcus Pettersson led the team with a 51.72 CF% last night, which doesn’t sound like much, but was still a 26.72 CF% rel to team average, to give an idea of just how bad the rest of the team was. Pettersson’s 49.04 xGF% still put him as the 4th-best man in that regard, while managing a 2-3 split in high-danger chances. That meant that Marcus Pettersson was on ice for two-thirds of the HDCF that the Canucks managed to rack up all game, which is both a good thing when it comes to his own numbers, but a bad thing for the team as a whole.

Corsi Chump: Elias Pettersson brought up the rear of the pack when it came to Corsi, posting a 15.79 CF% while not on any particular matchup duties either. The ice was heavily tilted in the Sharks’ favour the entire time EP40 was playing, as the forward finished with a team-worst 7.86 xGF%, generating a second-worst 0.07 xGF and giving up a third-worst 0.77 xGA. Pettersson was on ice for a 0-11 hole in overall scoring chances as well, with a further 0-3 deficit in high-danger chances to boot. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t a banner night for him against the Sharks.

xGF: Aatu Räty drew back into the lineup and posted the best xGF% on the team at 58.93, which will probably see him get scratched again. He managed to even split a 6-6 scoring chance battle and a 1-1 high-danger chance margin, managing to do this while playing most of his minutes against the Macklin Celebrini line. As well, Räty only got 20% of his zone starts in the offensive zone, with just 35.71% of his faceoff starts in the attacking end as well, while winning 73.33% of his faceoffs. Räty’s 0.46 xGF was third-best on the team (which is a bit of a concern in and of itself for the entire roster), with Tom Willander leading the way with a 0.56 xGF.

GSAx: It was not a banner night for Kevin Lankinen, who got the start and was lifted just after a quarter of the first period. Facing just 0.56 xGF by the Sharks in 5:55 TOI, he gave up 2 middle-danger goals against and 1 low-danger goal against to finish with a -2.44 GSAx on the night. Coming in relief was Nikita Tolopilo, who faced 2.42 xGF and conceded a middle-danger goal and low-danger goal to finish his outing with a 0.42 GSAx. It wasn’t like the Canucks did much of anything in front of their netminders to provide them with much support, but Lankinen dug them very much into a hole that they weren’t able to play their way out of.

This team is not a good hockey team. The Canucks have flaws from top to bottom, and right now, they realistically only have one NHL contributor trying to drag them along in the shape and form of Filip Hronek. It’s hard to believe that this Canucks team beat these San Jose Sharks 10-1 just two years ago – and now, to see them lose in this fashion, to be walked with not so much as any resistance… it doesn’t reflect well on anything that this franchise has done in the last couple of years.

Vancouver hosts the Anaheim Ducks tomorrow for their next matchup.

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