Make it nine straight losses.

The Vancouver Canucks looked dazed and confused as they dropped a 5-2 decision at home to the Detroit Red Wings. While expectations were low for this group going into the season, this game just seemed to be even more demoralizing than usual. Going nearly 40 minutes without a shot is another matter entirely and just seems to put yet another underline on the myriad of struggles that the Canucks have gone on to start the season. Not much to like in this one, unfortunately.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

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

There really wasn’t a lot that swung in the Canucks favour. The only period where they managed to crack 30.00 CF% was the third, posting a 55.00 CF%, but that was pretty much the only statistical highlight. They got buried across the first and second, with 27.59 CF% and 25.71 CF%, respectively, which resulted in xGF% shares of 29.03 xGF% and 19.25 xGF% as well. By the time the Canucks scored their second goal of the game in the third period, the contest was functionally over. Detroit was more than happy to sit back and defend the lead that they had accumulated, deservedly so by the numbers. Only then did Vancouver even look like they were on the same playing ground as the Red Wings.

Considering that the shots were 26-10 at 5v5 play, this heat map looks bang-on with the eye test from last night. Detroit doubled up on Vancouver in overall chances at 30-13, with a massive 13-3 edge in high-danger chances. It’s pretty darn clear by the hot spot that the Red Wings had plenty of cracks in the slot area, while the Canucks simply didn’t have anything at even strength. By far the worst period was the second, when Vancouver was out-chanced 15-5 and gave up an 8-2 deficit in high-danger chances, with the xGF battle standing at 1.39-0.33 for the Red Wings. Not good enough, to say the very least.

Corsi Champ: Max Sasson was the relative pick of the litter in this one, recording the team’s best CF% of 43.75 while going up against Nate Danielson for the majority of the night. It was quietly unremarkable for the forward, being on ice for just a single goal against at 5v5 play. Considering how the entirety of the game was tilted in Detroit’s favour, though, an unremarkable performance was exactly what Sasson needed to turn in; not being a liability against the Red Wings was a welcome gift for the Canucks, who struggled up and down in this one.

Corsi Chump: Marco Rossi assisted on the Jonathan Lekkerimäki tally, but otherwise his stats were putrid. Against the Wings, his CF% of 11.76 was the worst on the team, and he played a team-low 7:49 TOI last night as well. Rossi’s xGF% of 16.70 was the second-worst among all skaters, giving up a 2-9 hole in overall scoring chances and a 1-5 high-danger chance deficit as well. There wasn’t much to say about his performance beyond that; it was unremarkable, with some very poor advanced stats. The two goals he was on ice for were very much the expected result here.

xGF: It’s like trying to find a needle in the haystack when it comes to positives in this category. Sasson led all skaters with his 55.92 xGF%, which was a staggering 31.72 xGF% rel to team average. He actually kept it relatively tidy, on ice for a 4-3 lead in scoring chances and a 0-1 hole in high-danger chances. Considering how the team played around him, this seriously wasn’t that bad of a result, and this was also coming with 0 shift or faceoff starts in the offensive zone. In terms of raw xGF, Zeev Buium led the Canucks with 0.53, which shows the complete lack of offensive production this team managed last night.

GSAx: Considering his past outing, Kevin Lankinen’s game against the Red Wings could’ve gone a lot worse. He started out rough early but managed to somewhat dial it back in, giving up 5 goals against on 3.41 xGF for a -1.59 GSAx. Again, not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but considering that Lankinen at one point sported a .333 SV% during the game, this was a welcome finish. Of the 5 goals, 2 were recorded as high-danger, 1 as middle-danger, and the remaining 2 as low-danger. All in all, not the best, but certainly could’ve been worse. Not like the Canucks did much in front of him to help.

That game sucked. It wasn’t fun to watch, and the Canucks simply didn’t look good either. Usually, there’s a couple of interesting things to keep track of, or some fun moments, but besides an Elias Pettersson one-timer, not much really got people out of their seats. It’s a young, rebuilding team, and struggles are to be expected. But games like this, where the quality was just so poor, are a letdown no matter how you look at it.

Vancouver welcomes Quinn Hughes in his return to Rogers Arena on Sunday.