Games like this make you lament short-term thinking.
I don’t want to rehash all the reasons why the Vancouver Canucks never should have traded for Oliver Ekman-Larsson five years ago. I provided those reasons prior to the trade, immediately after the trade, and after he was bought out just two years later.
But it’s hard to avoid thinking about that trade when Dylan Guenther, drafted with the ninth-overall pick that the Canucks traded to get Ekman-Larsson, tallies a goal and an assist.
The goal was Guenther’s 38th of the season.
Boy oh boy, would it be nice to have a 22-year-old 38-goal scorer instead of a $4.76 million cap hit from Ekman-Larsson’s buyout and second and third-round picks from the Conor Garland trade.
Again, I don’t want to rehash anything, but those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. And, as the Canucks embark on what they swear is an actual rebuild — for realsies this time, cross my heart and hope to die — they need to avoid shortcuts.
That means avoiding not only the obvious mistakes, like the Ekman-Larsson trade, whose obviousness I cannot emphasize enough, but also the ones that are harder to discern. The Canucks have to be focused on long-term success and avoid the lure of short-term improvements.
This management group has succumbed to that lure, flipping first-round picks acquired via trade for defencemen to give them a more immediate boost. That was more understandable given the team’s previous circumstances, as they pushed to make the most of the core they inherited; now they need to prove they can think long-term — assuming this management team survives the season.
I couldn’t help but think of the past when I watched this game.
I’ll give this to the Canucks: their recent games have been pretty dang entertaining. Fans who pay their money to see the Canucks right now have good odds of seeing a lot of goals. Sure, most of those goals will be scored by the opposition, but a 7-4 loss is usually more fun than a 1-0 loss.
Okay, okay, the Canucks haven’t had a single 1-0 loss this season. In fact, they’ve only held their opponents to one or fewer goals in five of their 76 games. Woof.
This game started off well enough for the Canucks, as they scored the opening goal just two-and-a-half minutes into the first period. It’s just that they then conceded seven goals, which is not conducive to winning.
Like people trying to jump without bending their knees, the puck took an odd hop on the opening goal, skipping right over Logan Cooley’s stick along the boards. Linus Karlsson took full advantage, immediately driving into the middle of the ice, where he hoisted a backhand past Karel Vejmelka to open the scoring.
I haven’t seen a backhand that smooth since Slim Gaillard.
It took some time for the Mammoth to respond — they were appropriately glacial compared to some of the Canucks’ opponents this year — but they found the tying goal ten minutes later. Victor Mancini tried to ring the puck around the boards, but his pass had less juice than a Juicero packet and was picked off by Logan Cooley. He threw the puck toward the net, where it was tipped neatly by Kailer Yamamoto through his own legs.
Five minutes later, the Mammoth took the lead. Filip Hronek and Elias Pettersson got their wires crossed and turned the puck over in the neutral zone, and Clayton Keller counter-attacked off a drop-pass by Laweson Crouse. As Crouse ran interference on Zeev Buium, Keller had plenty of space to lean into a wristshot and beat Nikita Tolopilo, with help from a fluke deflection off Buium’s stick.
I didn’t love how Hronek and Buium defended this regroup. Hronek needed to recognize the danger and close far more quickly on Keller. Buium needed to get his feet moving and either get past Crouse or draw an interference penalty. Both defencemen were far too passive.
I had to laugh at John Shorthouse’s real-time assessment of Karlsson getting called for embellishment: “This call is a bit rank…Actually, you know what, it’s a pretty good call.” A willingness to change one’s mind based on new evidence is a sign of a confident person.
Like the evils unleashed by Pandora, Karlsson could not be stopped when he came out of the box. First, he tried to flip the puck over the net and off Vejmelka’s back. When that didn’t work, he darted into the slot and deftly deflected Victor Mancini’s point shot, sending it bouncing off the ice and past Vejmelka’s blocker to tie the game 2-2.
The Mammoth regained the lead five minutes later on the power play, as Keller somehow got his stick on a one-timer bomb by Guenther. The goal was initially waved off for being contacted with a high stick, but the stick was ruled to be completely sober after a league-initiated review, and the goal was allowed.
The Canucks had a chance to re-tie the game on the power play, which has been lights out of late. Instead, they gave up two shorthanded breakaways, which is mildly embarrassing. The only reason they didn’t give up a shorthanded goal is that Utah hit the post on both breakaways. They got really creative on one of them with a drop-pass-give-and-go, but still: post.
Of course, after narrowly avoiding two shorthanded goals, the Canucks immediately gave up the 4-2 goal after the power play ended. An absolutely dreadful line change created a 4-on-3 situation for the Mammoth, and they picked apart the Canucks’ scrambling defence to give Dylan Guenther an open net. He didn’t miss it.
The Canucks’ next two power plays were a lot better. 20 seconds into the third period, Jake DeBrusk shook free of Mikhail Sergachev through the clever tactic of allowing Sergachev to skate away from him, then went to the side of the net and deftly deflected in Hronek’s point shot to make it 4-3.
That was DeBrusk’s 16th power play goal of the season, which is tied for third in the NHL. He has 19 total goals. What a weird season.
A minute later, the Mammoth restored their two-goal lead. Tolopilo played the puck past Buium up the boards, where it was picked off by Keller, who found Crouse, who had enough space to snipe the top corner. I feel for Tolopilo, who couldn’t do a lot about any of the other Mammoth goals, but made a clear error on the one goal that turned out to be the game-winner.
The Canucks kept things close with another power play goal. Marco Rossi rotated to the top of the zone and threw a puck on net that got tipped in by Sergachev in front. Honestly, it was an incredible tip by Sergachev, with the only issue being that it was into his own net. Get him to the net front on the power play, Utah.
The goal was initially credited to Brock Boeser, thought it should have been immediately clear that he didn’t touch it when he looked utterly befuddled in the post-goal celebration, saying, “Really? Me? Oh, wow, okay.”
Boeser still had the secondary assist on the goal, which means he still tied Pavel Bure for the eighth most points in franchise history. Bure did it in 195 fewer games, but Boeser is still putting his name in the Canucks’ record books.
Liam O’Brien was being a complete dillweed all game, slashing and throwing late hits, and just generally being a nuisance. So, it was particularly aggravating when he scored to make it 6-4. Brandon Tanev won a race to a loose puck and spun it to O’Brien, who immediately lost the handle, but barely managed to pull the puck to the backhand before Tolopilo could snag it. He hit the post, but the puck bounced off Tolopilo and in.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the Canucks gave up an empty-net goal. Not only that, but it completed Keller’s hat trick. There’s no need to break it down: the Mammoth got the puck, the Canucks didn’t have a goaltender in the net, you can put it together from there.
Six games remaining. Only six. We can get through this. Together.
Thanks for reading Pass it to Bulis! This post is public so feel free to share it.