The Canucks are playing like hot trash right now.
Wait, no, that would mean they have some sort of heat.
The Canucks, who lost 4-0 to the St. Louis Blues tonight, are playing like congealed cheese on a pizza that’s been left out for a week.
If we want to use a relationship metaphor (and why wouldn’t we), the Canucks have stopped washing the dishes, wear nothing but stained sweatpants every day, and are pretty much just kind of hoping the season walks away and puts them both out of their misery.
It legitimately has gotten to the point where there is no real point of breaking down the games in any meaningful way.
Sure, we could dive deep and try and analyze each mistake tonight, but is that even useful? With the team playing like the Walking Dead, it’s almost impossible to tell where the “My god, let this season end already” mentality starts and where the actual skill of the players end.
Tonight was one of the worst games in terms of trying to figure out what was going on. The Canucks have never looked more passive in their play then they did tonight, giving acres of room to the Blues, possibly even offering up tips on how to beat them.
“If you go hard in that corner, I won’t lie, I’m not going to follow you.”
So with that being said, let’s just do our due diligence and record this game for posterity sake.
Also, let’s make it a Goonies themed recap. Sound good? Sounds good.
@TheStanchion The #Canucks at the bottom of the standings pic.twitter.com/uFeq887iPA
— Mike Paris (@thatmikeparis) March 25, 2016
@TheStanchion Pretty much sums up the season right here: pic.twitter.com/4pO2kzJ5uf
— Jay Gee (@Rozzy80) March 25, 2016
@TheStanchion getting the #1 pick overall would be like pic.twitter.com/fjEOWy7tzH
— Stephen King (@stephenVking) March 25, 2016
1. Truffle Shuffle
You ready for the best offensive play of the game from the Canucks?
There you go.
The Blues ended the night with 37 shots.
The Canucks? 15.
You don’t need to have a deep understanding of advanced stats to understand that the Corsi reflected the shots as well. There was only one player on the Blues who was a minus in Corsi at evens. One.
Kevin Shattenkirk was the guy, at -1. Way to ruin it for everybody else Kevin.
For the Canucks, Etem continued his “skate super fast, uh oh, what do I do now?” workout routine, landing at a solid -20 at evens in Corsi. Sportsnet even ran a highlight package of Etem because he was mic’d up for a game recently, and half of it was just of him getting hit in the back with a puck and swearing in pain for a while.
At one point Super Tiger Linden Vey made a blind pass with the puck to a ghost, which shockingly did not end well for Vancouver:
I never want to see Linden Vey in a Canuck uniform ever again.
— somebody (@Steve_May) March 26, 2016
That was the nicest thing I could find being said about Linden Vey on the play.
At one point Sportsnet needed to avoid getting rated R, so they edited out egregious mistakes on defence:
St. Louis passes the puck in one frame, then the next scene St. Louis has a breakaway. It was like Tarantino making parts of Kill Bill black and white to keep the rating lower.
The highlight of the first period? Alex Burrows and Shattenkirk engaging in a Truffle Shuffle dance off.
The good news? The gate opened after a delightful Rube Goldberg machine went off, involving Bartkowski laying an egg and Markstrom spinning around and around.
The bad news? They’re STILL trying to put a golf course on Rogers Arena!
2. Safety Committee of Culture and Veteran Advice
If there is one thing we know about the Canucks, when they go all in on a player, they go all in.
Sbisa and Dorsett have been two of the more contentious contracts of the new regime, and whether it’s simply defending their guys against negativity, or the fact they really truly believe it, ownership goes to bat for these guys.
Dorsett has long been defended as a “glue” guy, which I used to think meant they felt he made the team unite together in a common goal. Now I’m thinking they just meant his skating.
There’s Dorsett, letting up on the play, getting beat on the second goal.
I know I said it’s hard to figure out where “dead inside” starts and “skill” ends, but Dorsett has done nothing this season to really cement himself as a “glue” guy on this team. All we know is he leads the league in staged fights, which doesn’t really sell the tickets in this town.
Maybe it’s just the failure-colored glasses of this season, but since day one people have been questioning the need to pay a guy like Dorsett for this team, and that isn’t going to stop anytime soon with plays like that.
It’s like the Canucks have taken over a local diner and hidden a body in the freezer, and they expect us to act like everything is fine when we get trapped in there with it.
3. One Eyed Willie
Bartkowski led the Canucks in ice time tonight with 23:17 of ice time.
At first you want to get grossed out by this, but then you realize the teams defence consisted of Hamhuis, Bang Bang, Pedan, Tryamkin, Weber and Hutton. Someone has to play those minutes. The truly scary part is wondering if Bartkowski is going to be brought back next year.
Pedan and Tryamkin both struggled on the night too. Well, ok, everyone struggled, but Tryamkin’s play stood out because he had been playing relatively well as of late, and Pedan stood out because he looks so tentative out there.
Pedan, at his best, is a guy who can be physical and strong in the battles in his own end. Like a non overpaid Luca Sbisa.
The Pedan we’ve been seeing lately has seemed hesitant and has lost many a puck battle. He has struggled to make good decisions with the puck when he gets it.
Again, this could just be because the team has checked out, and there is only so much he can do on his own. It is worth nothing that he hasn’t stood out as someone you’re dying to see in the line up next year at all costs, however. He’s like the Jake Fratelli of the team right now, saddened that the team spent all their money on Sbisa’s toupee.
Sloth Tryamkin, for his part, was probably still recovering from playing almost half the overtime yesterday. Saddest moment of the game was when Tarasenko dropped Tryamkin like he was crossing a greased up log, and went on to score a goal:
All he wanted was a Baby Ruth.
4. Booty Traps
The posts are even conspiring for the tank.
— Brian Knotts (@brianknotts) March 26, 2016
Booty traps!
Booby traps!
That’s what I said!
I have no idea what else to talk about in regards to the Canucks lack of production. It’s just gotten really sad to the point where it’s not even fun to make fun of it.
It’s become a serious issue, one where we need to have an intervention to talk to the Canucks about it.
“Your lack of scoring goals makes me feel very bad about myself.”
In other news, I heard Brand and Andy made out. Rumor has it Andy felt braces on his teeth, though, which Brand does not have.
Yes, Mikey is much like the Vancouver Canucks. Unable to score and can only occasionally get a taste of it.
5. How Long Have You Guys Been Standing There?
Long enough to see there is very little defensive resistance.
6. The Treasure
Want Don Taylor back when he had hair?
That mullet tho @DonTaylor5 pic.twitter.com/zW8RpDl2PC
— Broken Canucks Fan🤦🏻♂️ (@glovesaveluongo) March 25, 2016
Glorious.
Want to see the goal support Markstrom has been getting?
Virtanen was last #Canucks to score a goal with Markstrom in net. Came in final minute vs WPG March 14th. EDM/WPG/STL since then
— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) March 26, 2016
Not so glorious.
Want to know what most people were doing instead of watching this game?
The scene right now. 90 mins before kickoff. #canMNT pic.twitter.com/5dgACXHBlD
— Marc Weber (@marcdweber) March 26, 2016
Canada took on Mexico at BC Place on Saturday night in a World Cup qualifying match.
Canada is currently down 2-0. And you fools thought you could avoid watching the home team unable to score goals.
Want to see Brad Fay sticking to his roots?
Born in Vancouver, Brad has the reaction we’d all have if the Leafs won the Cup.
Want to see the pump up speech Benning gave Coach Willie before the game?
Eight more games, folks!
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