Welp.

The Vancouver Canucks were beaten at home by a 7-4 scoreline against the Utah Mammoth last night. Through 40 minutes, it at least looked like a contest, where this Canucks team actually was going back and forth with their opposition. Unfortunately for Vancouver, when Utah stepped it up in the third and added to their lead, there simply was no answer to get themselves back on level terms. But again, that isn’t exactly a novel revelation.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

The first period was actually a good start for the Canucks despite the score. Holding a solid 56.67 CF% and 58.44 xGF% share at 5v5 play, they had most of the flow of that opening frame in their favour. Unfortunately, they couldn’t capitalize on that early ebb, but the Canucks still played good hockey through the second to keep things neck and neck. The middle period finished pretty much 50/50 in all the share metrics between the two teams, but in this low-event affair, the Canucks managed to actually post a 3-2 high-danger chance edge in the frame. Unfortunately, in the third, after Vancouver struck to make it a 1 goal contest, they simply just ran out of gas. Utah saw a hefty 70.00 CF% and 75.20 xGF% share in the third at even strength, making a comeback pretty unlikely given just how little Vancouver saw of the puck.

For a 7-4 game, the heat map is pretty lame all things considered. The 5v5 scoring chances were pretty tame, standing at a 12-11 lead for the Canucks with a 6-4 high-danger chance advantage for the Mammoth. If you squint, you can probably see the difference, but other than that, the heat map is pretty unremarkable. It was interesting to see that Utah was trying a lot of shots from the blue line at even strength relative to chances from any other side, but otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot to remark about how these attempts were distributed.

Corsi Champ: Jake DeBrusk has been on a bit of a heater as of late, scoring four times in five games and a point per game in that span. Last night against Utah, the winger led the Canucks with a 66.67 CF%, on ice for a 5-0 shot advantage and managing to take the flow of the game to Nick Schmaltz’s line – not the easiest of opposition, that’s for sure. It’s been a rough year for DeBrusk offensively, just like the rest of the team, so a good little burst of play at the end of the season surely can’t hurt, especially heading into next year.

Corsi Chump: In a bit of a turn from the last couple of games, Drew O’Connor brought up the rear in the Corsi department, recording a team-low 33.33 CF% last night. This came with the winger being on ice for 2 5v5 goals against, tallying up a team-worst 24.38 xGF% on top of that as well. It wasn’t the greatest night for O’Connor, but is defintiely an anomaly with the recent stretch of good underlying numbers he’s put up.

xGF: DeBrusk also led the Canucks in xGF% as well, thanks to a team-best 0.08 xGA. It wasn’t as if his 84.58 xGF% was just because of good defensive numbers though, as DeBrusk was on ice for a 2-1 advantage in high-danger chances and an overall 3-2 lead in scoring chances. Considering how low-event the contest was, that’s not an insignificant chunk of scoring opportunities at 5v5 play. Leading Vancouver in raw xGF was Pierre-Olivier Joseph, of all players, who posted a 0.82 xGF and took full advantage of the lesser opposition he was deployed against.

GSAx: Nikita Tolopilo had to deal with a tire fire in front of him for the majority of the night. Facing just 2.09 xGF thanks to the low-event nature of this contest, the netminder’s 6 goals against make him look pretty bad statistically at -3.91 GSAx. However, Tolopilo had some absolute nightmares in front of him when it came to defensive coverage, and it wasn’t exactly a fun time for the young goalie to have when trying to bail out this team. Three of the goals were registered as high-danger, two as middle-danger, and one as low-danger. Hopefully, Tolopilo won’t pick up any bad habits that’ll carry on into next season, as he’s shown some good flashes of potential throughout this hellish year.

It was yet another game where the Canucks came out of the gate strong, looking promising both visually and statistically. Unfortunately, costly mistakes would halt any positive momentum that they managed to generate, and with some of those mistakes resulting in goals, the Canucks would dig themselves into a hole that they had no way of climbing out of. It’s a familiar recipe as of late, showing where this team is lacking compared to the rest of the league. Make no mistake, this group definitely deserves to be in dead last in the NHL.

Vancouver is back in action on Tuesday, taking on the Vegas Golden Knights after Easter.