Another rough season for the Canucks

Well, baring some major turn-around, it’s looking like another lost season from the Vancouver Canucks. As someone from Ontario, I have no affiliation to teams out here, in fact, I’m happy the Canucks stink this year.

I’m living in B.C. now though, so it would be unfair to not at least watch province’s lone NHL team, and boy has it been disappointing so far.

The problems came to a head on Sunday, Nov. 21, when Vancouver was shutout by Marc-Andre Fluery and the lowly Chicago Blackhawks, for their 10th loss in 13 games.

We’re still only at the quarter mark of the season, but being five points out of a playoff spot is a deficit that has almost always proven to be insurmountable for teams heading into December.

The problem is, they’ve actually been playing well and still figuring out ways to lose games. I’ll go back to the Nov. 21 embarrassment to the Blackhawks. Vancouver had four power-play opportunities, generating 13 shots on goal. I’ll even go one further, they out-shot Chicago 30-13 and still lost by a goal.

Moral victories do exist in sports, and positives can be drawn by that kind of performance offensively. Ultimately though, you gotta score to win hockey games, and a team with this much young talent needs to step up and put the puck in the back of the net.

The issues lie with Bock Boesser and Elias Petterson, two of the team’s supposed best offensive players, who are making a combined $13 million annually. The duo currently has just seven combined goals thus far this season.

There have been some bright spots, particularly the play of J.T. Miller and Conor Garland, both of whom have had outstanding offensive production with 19 and 14 points respectively.

The Canucks have plenty of offensive talent, even with the slow starts of Petterson and Boesser. Thatcher Demko is solid in net, even though he hasn’t played all that great this year, and they have plenty of young weapons at their disposal.

So why is it the same old story with the Canucks? For a team with just one series victory since the cup final run in 2011, that question is getting old quick.

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