Canucks can’t catch a break as another solid effort ends in defeat

VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks have entered the despairing part of their slump, which feels like it is heading into its 15^th month but certainly covers the 2025-26 National Hockey League season so far.

Having found their way to the bottom of the standings by all the conventional means — injuries, slack defending, inferior special teams, not enough saves and a forwards group assembled like a donut (no centres) — the Canucks are now losing games while outplaying opponents.

This is a new phenomenon, but possibly the most discouraging path to defeat because there really isn’t much to fix. Except maybe some luck, and nobody has a foolproof formula for that.

The Canucks outplayed the Utah Mammoth on Friday and lost 4-1. Just like they outplayed the San Jose Sharks one week earlier and lost 3-2. The night after that, they were as good as the Los Angeles Kings but lost 2-1 in overtime.

Obviously, they’re still doing enough to lose. But they’ve lately been doing enough to win, and it’s just not happening.

Of course, it’s not.

The Canucks outshot the Mammoth 32-18 and were outscored in each period. High-danger scoring chances were 23-12 for Vancouver in all situations, and Natural Stat Trick’s election desk called it a 4-2 expected win for the Canucks.

Vancouver has lost seven of eight games (1-6-1) while playing well enough to be over .500.

That’s harder than just playing poorly and earning your losses.

“I think it’s harder,” winger Jake DeBrusk said. “I think I’ve had chances in all those games to score, Grade-As (chances) that didn’t go in, and we lose by one. We lose, you know, close ones. So you take that on personally. I’m not the only one, obviously, but yeah, I think it’s harder.”

“Well, you’d rather play well than play bad,” Conor Garland said. “But at the end of the day, you drive home, and it’s either a win or loss, so you’ve got to find a way to bury some chances, get some luck, whatever it is. We have our looks, and they’re just not going in. It hurts because, you know, it felt like we dominated them when we were down 1-0; we have three or four looks (and don’t score), and then they come down and tip one in. It’s tough to win when you don’t score.”

Coming into the game, Utah was 5-10-3 since Oct. 26, one loss worse than even Vancouver over that period.

On the Mammoth’s first-period goal, Mikhail Sergachev’s pedestrian point shot hit Canuck Elias Pettersson’s stick and Marcus Pettersson’s skate before trundling into the net at a mockingly modest pace as goalie Kevin Lankinen slid the wrong way. Had Elias Pettersson Junior been on the ice for Vancouver, the puck would have flipped him the bird, too. Sergachev looked embarrassed.

At least their second-period goal was an actual Utah deflection as Nick Schmaltz tipped in another Sergachev shot when the Mammoth made it into the Canucks end with the puck for about the first time in five minutes.

The Canucks, meanwhile, sharply deflected pucks into Mammoth goalie Karel Vejmelka (Brock Boeser) or off the crossbar (Kiefer Sherwood), missed a semi-open net (Boeser) and were, generally, just stuffed by Vejmelka on several excellent scoring chances.

Arshdeep Bains finally tipped one that missed the goalie, getting the Canucks on the board at 4:17 of the third period.

But among Utah’s two shots on Lankinen in the final frame, Kevin Stenlund stickhandled the puck around the Vancouver goalie during an outnumbered rush to restore the two-goal lead with 2:08 remaining, before John Marino fired into an empty net during what had been an inert six-on-four power play for the Canucks.

“We have to score some more goals, right?” Canucks coach Adam Foote summarized. “You guys can see the numbers yourself; you guys watch the game. We didn’t give them a lot, but we’ve got to make sure around the net that we’re getting our goals. It’s disappointing we didn’t come up with that one. We’ve got to find a way to get that game.

“I’m not frustrated because … I just watched all the chances for and against. We should have had that game 4-1 or 5-1. It’s that simple. I can’t get upset for what we’re doing. Hopefully, the goals start going in.”

The Canucks have scored just once in each of their last three games, and more than twice only once in their last seven. 

The Mammoth went 1-for-2 on the power play, while the Canucks finished 0-for-3. So it’s not like Vancouver really doesn’t have anything to fix. Their static power play, stuck at the top of the zone, is on a 0-for-15 hibernation the last four games after going on a 10-for-30 heater.

Still, Friday’s game was one where the Canucks were good enough at five-on-five that they could have won despite a one-goal deficit on special teams.

“Especially in the first and second, I think we were great,” winger Linus Karlsson, elevated to the Canucks’ top line, said. “Even the third, I think we had a good push. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the puck in.

“I think playing this way, we’re going to get some wins. We need wins right now. I mean, I think tonight we deserved, for sure, much better. It’s hard to see the positive things, but we’ll come in here tomorrow and watch some positives (on video) and just try to keep building on this effort. Clean some stuff up, but I think we played great tonight.”

They did. That’s the depressing part.

The Minnesota Wild visit the Canucks on Saturday night.

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