Two games into another road survival test, the Vancouver Canucks are neither sinking nor swimming but merely floating.
Yes, we understand that floating, technically, counts as swimming. But in their 5-2 loss Saturday against the Minnesota Wild, the Canucks failed to build on Thursdayâ€s gutsy, 4-3 shootout win in St. Louis. Vancouver has not won consecutive games in two weeks — since the teamâ€s injury crisis accelerated in Washington on Oct. 19 when centres Filip Chytil and Teddy Blueger were injured during a road win against the Capitals.
With eight skaters out of their lineup, the Canucks are 6-7-0. Saturdayâ€s loss stoked the pressure to win their trip finale Monday against the Nashville Predators, lest Vancouver descends two games below .500 for the first time this National Hockey League season.
Since returning home last week from a difficult five-game tour, part of seven games in 11 nights, the Canucks have alternated losses and wins over their last five contests.
Given the avalanche of injuries, this constitutes surviving. But even in a sputtering Western Conference race, teams can tread water at .500 for only so long before losing touch with the final playoff spot.
The most important Canuck on Saturday didnâ€t even play.
Team captain and game-breaker Quinn Hughes, who has headlined the injuries while missing the last four games, skated in Minnesota, should get on the ice again Sunday in Tennessee and could play Monday against the Predators.
It would have been nice if Elias Pettersson or Brock Boeser or Jake DeBrusk or Evander Kane was the most important Canuck against the Wild, but the scoring was left to checker Drew Oâ€Connor, whose pair of goals were his first ones of the season.
Even goalie Thatcher Demko couldnâ€t save his team and looked mortal in Minnesota after opening the season at a super-human level.
Demko spilled the puck into his own net on Jonas Brodinâ€s shot from an acute angle that made it 4-1 5:46 into the third period, just 99 seconds after the goalie was unable to cleanly catch Vinnie Hinostrozaâ€s shot on a two-on-one after the Wild forward easily bypassed rooted Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers in the neutral zone. Demko changed his catching glove after the second goal.
Brodinâ€s goal was poor but, Demko, on the whole, certainly was not. He made three sparkling right-to-left saves in the middle period to keep the Canucks in it.
But with everyone not named Kiefer Sherwood (and Oâ€Connor on Saturday) struggling to score, the Canucks canâ€t give up more than three goals and expect to win. Demko is now 4-4-0 in 10 starts this season, and in his four losses the Canucks have generated a total of four goals of run support.
Itâ€s hard not to be impressed by defence prospect Tom Willander. In his first three NHL games — at age 20 — the minor-league callup is displaying the composure, defensive IQ and mobility that make him the organizationâ€s No. 1 prospect.
In one sequence Saturday, Willander challenged the puck in the offensive zone on a Wild breakout and disrupted Kiril Karprizovâ€s outlet. But as the puck bounced fortuitously for the Minnesota star, Willander was already turning and pivoting to stay goal-side of the play and prevent an outnumbered rush.
Sure, Willander isnâ€t killing penalties and is getting some sheltering, but you can see why the Canucks have little appetite for trading the Swede despite the desperation for help at centre. He played 16:08 in Minnesota and led Vancouver skaters with a 66 per cent share of five-on-five shot attempts.
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Goal-less Canuck Evander Kane, the $5.125-million June pickup from the Edmonton Oilers, has been a non-factor much of the season but had no chance to be a factor Saturday when offsetting minor penalties with Marcus Foligno at 8:12 of the third period were followed by offsetting misconduct penalties at 10:28. So the Canucks†second-line winger, who had a goal taken off the board in St. Louis on a coachâ€s challenge, played 16 seconds of the final 13 minutes when his team was trailing 4-2.
Kane has five assists in 13 games as a Canuck. In fairness, he is far from the only top-six forward failing to make a dent offensively.
First-line winger Brock Boeser is pointless in four of five games since returning from a personal leave, although it was encouraging that he played Saturday after getting hit in the groin by a slapshot in the first minute in St. Louis (a game weâ€re not counting against him).
Aside from the shootout winner in St. Louis, winger Jake DeBrusk has one goal and no assists in the last eight games.
Top centre Elias Pettersson, albeit doing a lot of heavy lifting defensively against the oppositionâ€s best players, has no points and just four shots on net in the last three games. And top defenceman Filip Hronek, given a chance to run the power play in Hughes†absence, is also pointless in the last three.
The Canucks are still waiting for a skater other than Sherwood, who has nine goals this season but registered just one shot against the Wild, to step up and win a game for them during the injury crisis.
After looking like one of the more dangerous Canucks in three home games after Fridayâ€s trade from the Chicago Blackhawks, Lukas Reichel was missing in Minnesota, failing to generate a shot and finishing minus-two in 13:14 of ice time – his lowest in five games with Vancouver.
A fairer sample will be something like 50 games, not five, for the former first-round pick. But Reichel is getting a tremendous opportunity to earn an offensive role with a team desperate for goals, but has retreated in the first two games of this road trip.
Canuck Drew Oâ€Connor: “There’s some things we need to clean up defensively, help Demmer out a little bit more. I think there’s some things on the PK we can improve upon … things I can be better on on the PK. I thought we did some good things, but definitely some areas to work on.â€