On their first road trip of the season, the Canucks sputtered out of the gates and never were able to come close to the Lightning in a 4-1 loss. The Canucks are under .500 for the first time since the 2022-23 season.

Honestly, not much to say about this one. The Canucks played better than their previous two games, but after a bad opening frame they couldn’t find a way to climb back into the game.

“We know Vasilevskiy is all-world, but we weren't ready to play the first period,” Tocchet said after the L. “I know it was only 1-0, but I didn't think we won a battle. The second and third, we came. I thought we had some chances we didn't bury. But you can't give a team like that a two-goal lead.”

The Canucks played the Lightning even for the most part in terms of shots and attempts, but they couldn’t find a way to bury the puck, especially during some large stretches of pressure in the second period. Goaltending wasn’t the reason they lost this game, but I’m sure we’ll see Lankinen in for the next game as Tocc wants to keep both his goalies fresh.

Even though the Canucks are winless at this point of the season, there isn’t much panic in the team. They’re not playing at their best, and they know it…

“We just didn’t come out on time, which is unacceptable on the first game of a road trip and put ourselves behind the 8-ball,” said Garland. “We should have had one (goal) late in the second and that would have made it 2-1 and that’s a big difference against a team like that.

“We just have to get better, tighten some things up as a group and we’ll be fine.”

Tocc also knows they aren’t playing their best.

“We've got to start to win some battles,” he said. “There's pockets of the game that I liked and some pockets of the game I didn't. But we need some guys to dig out a little bit. We're kind of in the corners on the ends of our sticks. It's been happening a couple games now, and we've got to make sure that we get a little bit grittier in the corners.”

The Canucks haven’t done much 5 on 5 this year, and for that to change they need their big guys to step up. Petey gets a lot of the attention, but Hronek, DeBrusk, and even Miller need to elevate their game and drag the team more.

The boys are back in action Thursday night against the defending Cup champs the Florida Panthers. Let’s hope they’re ready out of the gates for this one.

Until then, comments:



Quotes from the Province and Sportsnet.

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