During this season's Preseason Prognosis, I commented on the Vancouver Canucks that while the Henrik and Daniel Sedin have historically carried the team to success in the past, their ability to do so has been fading over the past few seasons. Despite some man-games lost this season, it appears that things are as ugly as they initially seemed in British Columbia.
Since the calendar flipped to 2014, the Canucks have been caught up in a freefall down the standings. They have gone 5-15-3 in the new year and are currently in the midst of an 11-game stretch with a 1-9-1 record, beginning on January 27. Through that date they have been overwhelmed by opponents, being outscored 32-15. They lost by a single goal twice in that stretch and the lone overtime loss came in a shootout against Minnesota on Friday following a 1-0 win, their only one, over St. Louis.
To be fair, the Canucks have had some key pieces face injuries in the recent days and months. Second-liner Mike Santorelli hasn't seen the ice since January 16, top-line centre Henrik Sedin sat out for eight out of ten games leading up to the Olympics as well as the Olympics itself, and brother Daniel left Sunday's game after only 10 shifts. It's not like these players have been difference-makers leading up to being sidelined, however. Santorelli has only two goals in his past 12 games, spanning back to December 20, before which he had five assists in 4 games and three goals and nine assists in 11 games. Henrik hasn't registered a point since January 10, a stretch of 11 games for the pivot, and Daniel's last point came 13 games ago on January 21. Still, injuries affect every team in the league and can't be the go-to excuse for poor play.
The team's woes have mainly come from a complete lack of consistency. First line winger Alexandre Burrows has been rendered completely ineffective having only been healthy for 32 games and registering a deplorable 5 assists. The second line clicked earlier in the season but have only accounted for 12 goals and 13 assists through 23 games in 2014 between the trio of Santorelli, Ryan Kesler, and Chris Higgins. In 41 games prior to that, they had racked up 35 goals and 41 assists, a point-per-game average of 1.85 versus 1.14. The defence and bottom-six has only made the occasional appearance on the scoresheet during the skid.
All this has resulted in a struggle to remain relevant among their peers in the Pacific Division. On December 31, they sat in the first Western Conference Wild Card slot at 4th in the Pacific, 8 points back of 1st place Anaheim, 3 points behind San Jose in 2nd, and 6 points ahead of 5th place Phoenix. The gap has widened significantly approaching today, where they have stumbled back to 5th in the division and have slid 10 points behind Los Angeles in 3rd place and 1 point behind Phoenix in 2 more games played. With Minnesota showing some strength in the Central while Dallas and Winnipeg mount playoff pushes, Vancouver now lies on the outside looking in.
This brings us to the Heritage Classic. Vancouver looked good out of the gate, scoring two goals in the first eleven and a half minutes of the game. At 15:15 of the first period, Ottawa started to crawl back when Clarke MacArthur deflected a shot past Eddie Lack while the five Canucks looked confused about their coverage. Less than two minutes later, Erik Karlsson buried one on the power play to tie things up. The Senators would take the lead in the second and cap things off with an empty-netter in the final minute and a half.
This isn't to say Ottawa had a spectacular game either, but they stuck with their system and overcame the early deficit. Vancouver practically disappeared once they notched the early lead. When the most memorable player from the game was Tom Sestito, and only because of his engagement in verbal jousting with Chris Neil, there must be something going on.
I questioned Vancouver's standing entering the trade deadline and now that it has come and gone, I couldn't tell you if the team is posturing for a playoff run or just waiting for the final games to fade off the schedule. They sent Roberto Luongo back to Florida in exchange for goaltender Jacob Markstrom, who could never lock down the Panthers' starting job in the past 3 seasons, and Shawn Matthias, who has only managed single season career bests of 14 goals (2012-13) and 24 points (2011-12). The only other move of consequence they pursued was sending recently acquired Raphael Diaz to New York for a late pick in the 2015 draft.
They did nothing to bolster themselves and are placing a lot of weight upon two netminders with 69 games of experience between them. The only indication that they aren't completely mailing it in this year is they didn't move Kesler like was highly speculated. Still it seems like the team is sitting back and waiting for their fortunes to turn and time is slowly starting to tick out of their favour.
If I were to make a guess, I would say that Vancouver is waiting for this year to play out and hoping to move up a couple spots in the draft. They signed the Sedin twins to matching 4-year, $28 million contracts set to kick in next season so I expect them to recommit to a winning culture over the summer. I would not be surprised if they kick the tires on Kesler in the offseason and, now that Luongo is off the books save for $800,000 per year in retained salary, they have a compliance buyout to work with to free up some cap space and address their needs. This is the only way I see them salvaging their situation because they took a huge step back over the course of 2013-14.
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