{"id":541588,"date":"2026-04-05T05:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/541588\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T05:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:46:16","slug":"defence-goaltending-not-up-to-par-as-canucks-keep-bleeding-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/541588\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence, goaltending not up to par as Canucks keep bleeding goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 In their win-of-the-season Wednesday against the Colorado Avalanche, the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> proved they could succeed while allowing six goals. Once.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, they allowed six (plus another into an empty net) in a 7-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth<\/a>. A week earlier, the Canucks lost 7-3 to the Calgary Flames. A few games before that, it was 6-2 for the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n

Vancouver is 1-8 in its last nine games and has allowed a total of 47 goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This latest downward spike in performance secured for the Canucks last-place overall in the National Hockey League, an ignominious achievement the franchise had managed to dodge for the last 55 years despite some abysmal seasons along the way.<\/p>\n

Losing is hard on everyone except draftists. But it is the only outcome available to the Canucks as long as their goalies, blue line and overall team play are so routinely exposed by the opposition attack.<\/p>\n

Goalie Nikita Tolopilo<\/a>, a surprise starter due to a late-developing health issue for Kevin Lankinen that coach Adam Foote did not detail for reporters, was beaten six times on 23 Utah shots.<\/p>\n

And although there were deflections and some of the usual Canuck luck \u2014 these factors intersected when the first of three goals by Clayton Keller ticked in off Vancouver defenceman Zeev Buium\u2019s stick \u2014 \u00a0there was also a turnover by Tolopilo on Lawson Crouse\u2019s third-period goal, a missed backcheck by Marco Rossi on Liam O\u2019Brien\u2019s score, and another terrible line change and slack defending when Dylan Guenther finished into a semi-open net.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, of course, it’s been frustrating because there’s been some goals that have gone in that shouldn’t have gone in,\u201d Foote said, noting Tolopilo\u2019s misplay behind his net and Rossi being a step late on O\u2019Brien.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a lot of good things going on, but like you said, you\u2019ve got to take care of your own net. If we’re letting some in from the point \u2014 the goalies are letting them in \u2014 then we\u2019ve got to block them. We\u2019ve got to block them and get on their sticks and make sure we’re better at that. So it’s a combination of things. But, I mean, it’s frustrating because there\u2019s been too many going in. We\u2019ve got to be better for (our goalies), but they\u2019ve got to make sure they\u2019re doing their job, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolopilo wasn\u2019t expecting to do the heavy work until he arrived at Rogers Arena and found out about two hours before the game that Lankinen wasn\u2019t playing. Fourth-string goalie Jiri Patera was summoned from minor-league Abbotsford, an hour away, but did not appear in gear until after the warmup.<\/p>\n

Foote explained that although Lankinen wasn\u2019t feeling well Saturday morning, the team and goalie initially believed he\u2019d be available for the afternoon game.<\/p>\n

After not playing for two weeks, Tolopilo was hooked upon his return to the crease in Calgary for allowing four goals on 11 shots. But the minor-league callup, who has been with the team since Thatcher Demko went down for the season in January, stopped 34 of 38 shots in Thursday\u2019s 5-2 road loss to the Minnesota Wild.<\/p>\n

In eight appearances since February, Tolopilo, an undrafted 25-year-old, has allowed 32 goals on 194 shots for a ghastly save percentage of .835.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole year has been a challenge,\u201d he said. \u201cTwo weeks. . . it’s a long time without games. But we still, like, put a lot of work in (to be) prepared. And it wasn’t the start I wanted in Calgary. Like, weird bounces, maybe I can play a little differently on a couple. But then I bounced back against Minny. So I\u2019m feeling good, and now today, it was tough, too. Some unlucky bounces, tips, the second one off the stick of our D-man.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, like, I want to get better. I’m looking at goals I let in, and I talk with our goalie coach about what we can do differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of how much or little he plays, Tolopilo agreed it his responsibility to keep himself ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s part of my job,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery practice, every ice session we have. . . I just go there and try to do better. Even if I’m not playing, like, work on my things and prepare for opportunities. It’s part of my job to always be ready and get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Canucks, and especially a defence that lately has featured four first- or second-year players, hasn\u2019t offered enough help to Tolopilo or Lankinen.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, the magic number is three,\u201d veteran winger Jake DeBrusk<\/a> said of the team\u2019s goals-against target. \u201cKeep them to three and under and you have a chance every night. That’s how I was taught and brought up. Obviously, we haven’t been able to do that. Big breakdowns, bad changes, myself included, little details. We do it to ourselves sometimes. You try to slow down the damage for our goalies because it’s not like they’re letting everything in. They’re making some pretty big saves as well. So that’s on all of us as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeBrusk\u2019s 19th\u00a0goal of the season (and 16th\u00a0on the power play) shaved the Mammoth\u2019s lead to 4-3 20 seconds into the third period.<\/p>\n

But only 72 seconds later, Crouse scored from the slot after Tolopilo weakly rimmed the puck around the boards to Keller.<\/p>\n

Linus Karlsson<\/a> continued his strong rookie season by scoring twice for Vancouver, which outshot Utah 9-1 in the first 10 minutes and led 1-0 until a pair of turnovers late in the period allowed the visitors to take the lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike most of the games, we had some really good stretches during the game,\u201d Karlsson said, \u201cbut then we have bad ones, too. I don’t know, it feels that we play so great sometimes, and then we just fall back to the old sh–. So it’s kind of frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

With only eight wins in 39 games at home this season, the Canucks will have to win Tuesday against the Vegas Golden Knights and a week later against the Los Angeles Kings to hit double digits in victories at Rogers Arena.<\/p>\n

The team also has four road games remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 In their win-of-the-season Wednesday against the Colorado Avalanche, the Vancouver Canucks proved they could succeed while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-541588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-canucks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-vancouver","12":"tag-vancouver-canucks","13":"tag-vancouvercanucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116350522999508827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}