Welp.

The Vancouver Canucks fell 4-1 to the Utah Mammoth last night. It was one of their best games all season when it came to chance generation, deserving a lot more than just the one goal they got, much less a loss. There’s only so much lifting a moral victory does at this point in what has rapidly turned into a dumpster fire of a season. Yes, the Canucks played good hockey. Yes, the Canucks were right there with them. Yes, the Canucks played a close game. With how many times those phrases have been said this season, one should expect better than 32nd place in the league.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

The only period where things relatively hung in the balance was the first period. Both teams went back and forth, with the Canucks coming out ahead in a 1.16-0.96 xGF battle while holding a commanding 65.00 CF% share. It was the middle frame that saw Vancouver absolutely crank out a performance, racking up 66.67 CF% and 77.42 xGF%, with plenty of expected goals at 1.67 off of 6 high-danger chances alone in that period. However, they couldn’t capitalize on all those good things, and while the share metrics were still good in the third period, the quantity went way down as Utah locked down the game. It’s a frustrating chart to look at, given just how well this team played as a whole – but that is what happens when you don’t take advantage of your opportunities.

Chance-wise, there was no question that the Canucks were the better team last night, which has been a rare occurrence all season. They were all over the Mammoth by a 36-17 margin at 5v5, and a 17-9 high-danger chance edge only further cemented that superiority. Yes, the Canucks had the same amount of high-danger chances at 5v5 action as Utah had total scoring chances. It’s all the more reason why the loss is so frustrating, because they were doing a lot of the right things. Unfortunately, this team just seems unable to deliver on anything that they do.

Corsi Champ: Leading the way in the Corsi department was David Kampf, the German racking up 75.96 CF% on the night centering the second line once more. It was a very solid night for him as he posted a 64.37 xGF% to go with his Corsi number, which was actually slightly below xGF% rel for team average as a gauge of how good last night was overall for the Canucks. Kampf was on ice for a 10-3 scoring chance lead, but only a 4-2 high-danger chance edge. Ideally, you’d like to see a little more high-danger opportunities from your second line, but it’s definitely tidy work in general.

Corsi Chump: Max Sasson was bumped up to the third line and ended up a little overmatched against the Mammoth last night. Posting a team-low 38.10 CF%, the forward finished with a team-worst 14.53 xGF% thanks to a 0-5 hole in high-danger chances. Those aren’t ideal numbers, and especially with Kiefer Sherwood and Drew O’Connor on the flanks. That being said, those two have also been slumping as of late themselves, and they probably didn’t help matters all too much.

xGF: It was a big statistical night from Jake DeBrusk, as the winger profited massively from the new-look first line. DeBrusk held an 88.23 xGF%, good enough for a 43.38 xGF% rel to team average. His 2.05 xGF was 4th on the team, while a 0.27 xGA was the 6th-best mark amongst all 5v5 skaters. That’ll happen when you’re out on ice for a 19-4 scoring chance edge and 10-1 high-danger chance edge. The most unfortunate part of this was that DeBrusk still came up empty despite all of these opportunities. Filip Hronek led the team in raw xGF at 2.29, holding a huge 24-9 lead in scoring chances himself.

GSAx: Because the Canucks were that much better than Utah, the expected goals that Kevin Lankinen faced resulted in some subpar numbers. Against 2.14 xGF, Lankinen let 2 high-danger chances past him and 1 middle-danger chance. In isolation, that isn’t bad, but against the chances that the Mammoth had, it dragged his GSAx to a -0.95. That wasn’t the sole reason why the Canucks lost, as they simply didn’t offer Lankinen much run support in the first place. However, a -0.95 GSAx is nearly a full goal in the hole, which is also not great.

How about that first line: With Evander Kane out of the lineup, the first line saw a bumped-up Linus Karlsson alongside Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk. As briefly mentioned before, this unit was absolutely dynamite, and their advanced stats weren’t even close to the rest of the team’s. A 70.83 CF% was second-best to the Garland-Kampf-Boeser line’s 71.43, but that little margin didn’t seem to matter for Karlsson-Pettersson-DeBrusk. Those three put together 1.20 xGF, with a massive 16-2 scoring chance lead and 10-1 high-danger chance edge. Their xGF% together was 85.45, with the next highest mark on the team being 68.08. The next highest raw xGF amongst forward lines was Garland-Kampf-Boeser’s 0.48. Again, Karlsson-Pettersson-DeBrusk didn’t find the scoresheet, but one has to love the performance that they turned in analytically.

From all the numbers, the Canucks deserved to win this game. However, they didn’t, and that’s really all that truly matters. It’s frustrating because this team actually put together a really good game on paper and did plenty of good things, but for one reason or another, just simply aren’t able to deliver results. That lack of finish drops them right to the bottom of the league, and as other teams that were rebuilding in the mid-late 2010s emerge on the other side of their bad years with young, exciting, talent-filled teams that are actually winning… it’s hard to watch this group spin their tires.

Vancouver is right back in action tonight, hosting the surging Minnesota Wild.