Vancouver Canucks

Vancouver Canucks home losing streak up to 11 games after loss to Sharks
April 3, 2017, 2:49 PM ET [327 Comments]
Carol Schram
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Sunday April 2 - San Jose Sharks 3 - Vancouver Canucks 1

The Vancouver Canucks outshot their opponent for a second straight game and made a strong late push, but the San Jose Sharks extended their five-plus year winning streak at Rogers Arena with a 3-1 victory on Sunday.

Here are your highlights:



I got excited about the prospect of seeing the much-anticipated four-goal performance from Tomas Hertl after he put his team up 2-0 by the 12:51 mark of the first period. Hertl got the start for the Sharks on a line with an engaged Mikkel Boedker and a fired-up Jannik Hansen—and when you're playing the Canucks, two goals is enough to pretty-much ensure the win.

Hansen assisted on Hertl's first goal, drew a penalty on a breakaway, and had three shots on goal—a solid night's work.




The Sharks outshot the Canucks 11-7 in the first period and looked like they were going to snap out of their rough patch with a blowout win, but they seemed to lose momentum when Joe Thornton was injured on a collision with Michael Chaput late in the opening frame.




Thornton has come back to earth on the stat sheet this year—he has 50 points, compared to 82 last season. But the Sharks will be hoping for good news when he's evaluated by the medical team today. They need him for the playoffs!

Both teams seemed to be mostly going through the motions through the second period and into the late stages of he third, when the Canucks got interested. Sven Baertschi solved Martin Jones for the first time with 3:53 to play for his 18th of the year, leading to a frantic late push to tie the game. That's where it became easy to see that the Sharks have been struggling. They showed plenty of panic in their own zone before Patrick Marleau was finally able to ice the game with a long-range empty-netter just before the final buzzer.

By outshooting the Sharks 15-8 in the third period, the Canucks hit the 30-shot mark for the third straight game and kept Ryan Miller's workload under 30 for the second game in a row.

But after going 0-3 on this homestand, Vancouver's overall losing streak has now stretched to four games and they're 0-8-3 at Rogers Arena since February 19.

With just one home game left on the schedule—against Edmonton on Saturday—it's perfectly possible that the Canucks will start next season nearly eight months after their last win on home ice.

I was also wondering if/when the Canucks had ever gone an entire calendar month without a win at home? Looking back as far as the late 90s, I can't find another such situation.

According to Rauzulu's Street, the longest home winless streak in franchise history came between December 18, 1970 and February 6, 1971—in the first season after expansion! So yes, they went the entire month of January without a win—they had 10 home losses and a tie over that span.

It looks like the current streak of six outright losses also ties the team record.

Saturday's final home game of the season could set a new high-water mark for futility. I hope you're happy, #TeamTank.

The Arizona Coyotes moved within two points of Vancouver on Sunday night, officially knocking the Los Angeles Kings out of playoff contention. The Canucks will travel to Glendale on Thursday in what could very well be a battle for 29th place.

The other big news on Sunday: just before gametime, the Canucks announced a one-year contract extension for impending unrestricted free agent Jayson Megna, as he got back into the lineup after missing five games with an upper-body injury.

Ben Kuzma of The Province reports that Megna also recently got engaged, and points out that the contract will make Megna eligible to be one of two forwards exposed by the Canucks in the expansion draft.

Kuzma also says of Derek Dorsett, "His neck surgery was not considered career threatening and that also makes him eligible to be exposed because he’s under contract for two more seasons."

Megna's new contract is a one-way deal with a cap hit of $650,000.

I wasn't surprised to see Nikolay Goldobin scratched on Sunday to make room for Megna in the lineup. Willie Desjardins explained his thinking to Kuzma after the game—and didn't give Goldy any wiggle room as far as recovering from his illness.

“I’m not sending a huge message,” Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said of Goldobin. “He’s a skilled player and you’ve got to get your skill working hard. I didn’t think he worked hard enough last game and he’ll be back in (Tuesday in San Jose). He needs to prove that he can go hard at this level, but he’s got to go hard.

“It’s a two-way street. It’s not that I don’t play young guys like (Brock) Boeser. If they come in and they’re going, they play. We just have to get him (Goldobin) more engaged.”


Here's how the lines look at practice today. Still no sign of Loui Eriksson, and Alex Biega has moved back to the blue line to sub in for an absent Luca Sbisa.




To finish up today:

The defending Memorial Cup champion London Knights have battled back from a 3-1 series deficit to force Game 7 in their first-round playoff series against the Windsor Spitfires on Tuesday.

There was some talk over the weekend that Canucks prospect Olli Juolevi would be eligible to join the Utica Comets if and when the Knights are eliminated, but that idea has now been kiboshed.




The Comets are doing just fine defensively on their own, actually. They beat Wilkes-Barre Scranton 3-2 in a shootout on Sunday to move into a tie with the Albany Devils for fourth place—and the last playoff spot—in the AHL's North Division. The Penguins were a tough opponent, too—tops in the entire AHL with 98 points (Utica has 75).

Albany does hold the edge over Utica in the playoff tiebreaker, with one more regulation/overtime win—but momentum is on the Comets' side. Utica is 6-4-0-0 in the last 10 games, while Albany is 2-5-1-2.

Jordan Subban was eventually awarded his 16th goal of the year on this play.