VANCOUVER — Winning hockey games 2-1 is hard. And when you score once, it’s impossible.
The Vancouver Canucks played to their identity on Sunday against the Dallas Stars. They skated and checked, protected the front of their net, outhit the Stars 36-12, yielded only 19 shots on goal and were excellent on the penalty kill.
And yet, they lost 4-1 to the Stanley Cup favourites because they lost coverage on a rebound goal at the end of the second period, and turned the puck over inside the Dallas blue line to give up a three-on-two rush that they failed to defend early in the third.
Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet has talked several times about the key individual moments that decide games, and needing his players to generate more of those “moments” that can lead to victory. Even if you score only twice.
But with their offence gasping for air and the lineup being tapered towards defending, there is virtually no margin for error for the Canucks when they play good teams. Or any teams, but especially elite ones like Dallas.
“It’s obviously not ideal,” Vancouver winger Dakota Joshua said, “but that’s the group we have and we know that. It would be nice to get a few more (goals) every night. But regardless, we’ve got to find a way to be on the right side if it’s going to be low scoring.
“We didn’t make that many mistakes either, but they made less than us. There’s just no real weakness to their team.”
The Canucks’ main weakness has been apparent for a while. Over the last two months, they are the lowest-scoring team in the National Hockey League, averaging 2.17 goals per game. The Los Angeles Kings and Minnesota Wild are tied for the next fewest over that time at 2.42 — scoring one more goal than Vancouver every four games.
The loss to injury of leading scorer Quinn Hughes, the Canucks’ only true NHL star among skaters, has deepened the offensive crisis.
In 12 games since the night top forward J.T. Miller was traded — Hughes has missed nine of them — Vancouver has scored 26 goals, and not once more than three times in a game.
The Canucks have impressively managed to go 6-5-1 during this stretch, relying on their improved blue line and sound defending, goalie Kevin Lankinen and league-best penalty killing that has given Vancouver a 7-2 advantage on special teams.
But it looks some nights like a perilous way to play. A loss is often one mistake away, and the Canucks made a couple of them against the Stars.
After defenceman Derek Forbort’s first goal with the Canucks lifted Vancouver into a 1-1 tie halfway through the second period, unchecked Mikael Granlund scored the game-winner on a rebound with 26 seconds remaining in the frame when both Canucks defencemen, Forbort and Tyler Myers, converged in front of Lankinen on Mikko Rantanen. The Stars’ $96-million winger had won a faceoff from the Canucks’ $92.8-million centre, Elias Pettersson.
And in the third period as the Canucks were pressing, Joshua lost the puck on the rush inside the Stars’ blue line, springing Dallas on a three-on-two counter-attack.
“Just a dumb play by me,” Joshua said.
Vancouver defenceman Marcus Pettersson briefly hesitated over whether to veer towards Dallas puck-carrier Matt Duchene or stay in the middle of the ice with Jason Robertson, who skated past Pettersson and directed Duchene’s perfect pass into the open net behind Lankinen at 8:36.
Rantanen later added an empty-netter, giving him three points in two games since his stunning U-turn back to the Western Conference in Friday’s trade from the Carolina Hurricanes.
“I wasn’t sure if I should go and play the puck,” Marcus Pettersson explained of the three-on-two. “Once I made the decision, he was already by me. I should have given him a little shot so he couldn’t get around me. But when I made the decision, it was too late. I can play that better.”
On the game, he said: “We just couldn’t break through. I thought they had more guys in the battle areas, both in our D-zone and their D-zone, so they came up with a lot of loose pucks.”
“I liked our compete,” Forbort said. “Just a couple of mental mistakes to give them goals, and we just don’t have the firepower to give up those kind of mistakes right now. And it kind of bit us.”
The Canucks’ strongest offence came post-game from Tocchet when he defended the ice times given three of his top offensive players: Elias Pettersson (16:05, minus three), Brock Boeser (15:49, minus-two) and Jake DeBrusk (12:45, minus-two).
“You’ve got to earn your ice time around here,” Tocchet said. “That’s how you win. So you guys can stir it up all you want (but) you have to earn your ice time. I don’t care how long you’ve been here, you’ve got to earn your ice time. That’s the way it works. That’s how you win Stanley Cups.”
Sunday’s loss burned the Canucks’ game in-hand on the Calgary Flames, who lead them by a point in the wildcard playoff race with 19 games to go.
The Montreal Canadiens visit Vancouver on Tuesday before the Canucks travel to Calgary to play the Flames on a back-to-back.
