Another bus-driving highlight-reel-goal night by JTM was spoiled by some sloppy play as the Canucks lost 4-3 in OT to the Pens. The good thing is the Canucks clearly have a standard for themselves that is reflected in their position in the standings, the bad thing is they aren’t playing up to it right now. Here are your highlight from last night:
After their dominant win over Boston on the weekend, the Canucks kept that pace up for 20 minutes, building a 2-0 lead on goals by Hoglander and Boeser. Then, they let their foot off the gas and it all came tumbling down.
“Honestly, it’s frustration,” Miller said of the loss after the game. “We had a pretty good first period and proceeded to turn the puck over and get loose. If we had the mentality of winning the game, we could have killed them in the second period and instead of letting them back in the game. It’s frustrating.
“That’s the next level we need to get to as a group. When we’re up 2-0 at home, that should be the lockdown point. We don't need three, four, five and six goals at that point, and we let them back into the game and, inevitably, they won the game.”
There were a lot of turnovers, penalties, and missed assignments in the second. The Canucks seem to have this weird kink of putting themselves in a 5-on-3 situation, and it happened again Tuesday night and led to the 2-2 tying goal. Those stick penalties Tocc has harped on need to be cleaned up, along with a few other things/players:
“There was sloppy stuff, details stuff and some guys looked tired out there,” Tocchet said. “We give them the third goal on bad coverage. There were a lot of average guys out there. Millsy drove the play again and he was very good.
“We need some individuals to up their game. Some guys are just OK and it’s been OK for a while but some guys have to contribute — not just goals and assists — but making sure you get the puck in deep and are good defensively. Hope we get some of the legs and the brains back.
“Our defence was holding on to pucks too long and sloppy and we paid for it.”
Shooting yourself in the foot is never good, but at least you can remedy it.
“It was a lot of turnovers,” Tocc continued. “We were self-inflicted – turnovers. That's really what it was. They made some turnovers, too. It was a turnover-fest in the second period. It was going (to be) who's going to make less turnovers. They won.”
People talk about managing losses, and hopefully that was just this for the Canucks. They have a day off until they host the Kings tomorrow in what should be a great Pacific showdown. Thankfully they have a lighter schedule over March, which should help some, at least according to Tocc:
"The schedule is in our favour (in March) ... that we're not going to be playing as many games. So hopefully, we get some guys’ legs back, and some of the brains back again because we're a little sloppy.”
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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