Canucks player grades: Losing streak rolls on in 6-0 loss vs. Oilers

Article content

The Vancouver Canucks were always going to be up against it facing the Edmonton Oilers.

Article content

A team that’s soaring, sitting second in the division, or a team that’s dragging the bottom, that’s won just one time since Christmas; which one do you pick?

Article content

Article content

And here we are, sitting around pondering how the Canucks utterly fell apart in the second period and lost 6-0.

Inexperience, lack of execution, repeated errors.

Those are just about it.

And an opponent that can bury the puck.

“There are some big mistakes there,” Adam Foote said about the game. “That’s when we’ve got to be able to learn not to lose our heads and stay within what we know.”

That’s a hard way to learn.

No fight?

The tough part in the midst of the second period collapse was not seeing any real heart, just a collection of shell-shocked Canucks.

Foote, for his part, felt for his players in that moment

He recalled his own career, where there were nights where he’d made a series of mistakes.

“And I just wanted to go home,” he said. He said the veterans tried to regroup the team’s spirit in the intermission.

Article content

Article content

And in the end, this is an ongoing project. They’re in the dumps. They’re trying to learn. They are trying to believe there’s an end purpose here.

Not a record

The six goals the Canucks yielded in the second period was not a record, nor did it tie one.

The Canucks have given up seven goals in a period five times, most recently in that mad 11-7 loss to the Wild in February 2024.

They also gave up seven goals to the Islanders March 10, 2014, to Detroit Nov. 27, 1998, to Edmonton Nov. 8, 1985 and Oct. 19, 1983 also to Edmonton.

All those instances were in the third period.

Elias Pettersson D

Lovely move early. He’s got jump. A couple early shifts set the tone. And then he was awful in the second. Was -4 and that was a fair representation of his night, one of his worst in a very long time.

Liam Ohgren C

His speed should be a good fit on Pettersson’s wing but hard to show what you can do when your team is playing like a dog.

Brock Boeser D

Slow on early back check. Invisible the rest of the night.

Article content

David Kampf C

Really not a bad two-way night, but the team was still awful.

Evander Kane D

Kept skating into his teammates. Surprising lack of physicality given it’s his old team and you’d think he’d want to show his best every night given some team out there might want him.

Jake DeBrusk C-

Hard to get much done given who he’s skating with but did try when he could. Was too aggressive ahead of the fourth goal, leaving his defencemen covering a 4 versus 2.

Aatu Raty C

Really not a bad night. A lot happened with him on the ice — in a good way. And then it all fell apart for the team.

Drew O’Connor C

Skated hard. He always does.

Conor Garland D

Moved the puck well enough, but not often you get a night where he’s so generally invisible.

Max Sasson D

Tough night for a good guy. Got beat to the net on the first goal and the game collapsed from there.

Arshdeep Bains C-

Tried his best.

Linus Karlsson C-

The most invisible he’s ever been for the Canucks. And somehow he had seven shot attempts!

Article content

Defence

Marcus Pettersson C

His best game in ages and it didn’t matter at all. Swimming upstream as the current pushed him over the waterfall.

Filip Hronek C

The guy battles. Every night. He’s got pride and passion.

Zeev Buium D

Rough night defensively. Some brutal neutral zone reads. Will he want to watch the tape on this one or just start afresh?

Tyler Myers C

A really decent night for the veteran. But like the other three defencemen with experience, it didn’t matter.

Tom Willander D

Totally overmatched too many times. Does he maybe need a reset in the minors?

Victor Mancini D

Almost got cooked by Oilers’ Matt Savoie early in the first but recovered and made a smart recovery play to make the Edmontonian’s effort difficult. But the rest of the night was chaos.

GOAL

Nikita Tolopilo C

Hard to judge the kid given how rough the defending in front of him was. Oilers got to the front of the net with abandon.

Article content