Missed opportunity vs. Utah haunts Canucks in loss to Vegas

The Vancouver Canucks lost a hockey game Thursday. But they lost their road trip the previous night.

Playing back-to-back on consecutive nights against rested teams, the Canucks were always less likely to win the second game against the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Golden Knights, strangely under-estimated at times but always powerful, are 12-3 in Las Vegas and have been devouring National Hockey League opponents in the third period. They did it again Thursday against the Canucks, scoring twice in the final period to beat Vancouver 3-1 after the visitors scored first and led 1-0 until late in the second period.

By any measure other than the final score, this was a good road game by a tired team against a formidable opponent. But it was still a loss — as it was always likely to be.

The regret that will linger from the Canucks’ two-game road trip is the point they blew Wednesday, when they let a 2-0 third-period lead slip away against Utah – another team people shouldn’t underestimate — and lost 3-2 in overtime when a series of mistakes allowed Mikhael Sergachev to win it 12 seconds before the shootout.

That was a game the Canucks “should” have won. Had they done so, they’d have played in Vegas on house money. Instead, there was an imperativeness about their visit on Thursday, a need to get something from the Golden Knights. And they certainly played well enough to get something.

But Canuck goalie Kevin Lankinen, outstanding since the season started, missed Alex Pietrangelo’s hard-but-unscreened 50-footer past his blocker when the Knights tied it 1-1 with 2:25 remaining in the second period. And William Karlsson generated a winning goal out of nothing, at 3:44 of the third period, when he beat Canuck Pius Suter off the sideboards with the puck, fired a sharp angle shot on Lankinen from close range, then scored on his own rebound.

With 50 seconds remaining, Brett Howden added an empty-netter from Elias Pettersson’s turnover.

The Canucks’ only goal was generated by a new-look fourth line, as Teddy Blueger beat Vegas goalie Adin Hill on a rebound after Kiefer Sherwood was stopped on a deft setup by Danton Heinen.

So the 16-10-6 Canucks have stalled and come to a standstill once again by losing consecutive road games for the first time this season. Vancouver is 2-3-2 in its last seven games, and 9-8-3 since sweeping a California tour six weeks ago.

Their last chances to feel better about themselves over the Christmas break are home games Saturday against the Ottawa Senators and Monday against the San Jose Sharks. Anything less than two wins will be disappointing.

OIL AND WATER

Perhaps Canucks coach Rick Tocchet’s main reason for his unusual decision to keep J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson apart on the power play is so obvious that it has been overlooked: Maybe he’s simply trying to dilute his struggling players in the hope the power play can still function with one of them.

Miller and Pettersson combined for zero shots on Thursday, which is also how many goals they’ve combined for over the last five games. Pettersson doesn’t have a point during that span, which awkwardly began with Miller’s return from a 10-game leave of absence. And while Miller had two assists in his first game, he has just one assist since and nothing in the last three contests.

But the Canucks’ offensive outage doesn’t end with them. Brock Boeser is pointless in his last four games, as is Jake DeBrusk, and Conor Garland is pointless in five. Vancouver’s best five forwards have combined for one assist (Miller’s meaningless helper in a 5-1 loss to the Boston Bruins last Saturday) over the last four games.

This isn’t so much a crisis between Miller and Pettersson, who may not be close but have thrived enough together over the last five seasons in Vancouver that Miller re-signed two years ago for $56 million while Pettersson re-committed to the Canucks last season for $92.8-million. The relationship has made each elite centre successful and wealthy.

The crisis is that the top end of the Canucks’ lineup has suddenly disappeared from the scoresheet over the last week.

Considering nobody from the top group is scoring — and the power play went 0-for-2 on Thursday and failed to generate a shot on net during a two-minute advantage right after Karlsson scored — it doesn’t make much sense to maintain the separation of Miller and Pettersson.

SUSPECT GOALS

Pietrangelo’s goal stands out partly because Lankinen has been superb this season for the Canucks, their team MVP through 30 games if the team didn’t include Quinn Hughes. Unless the shot ticked DeBrusk’s stick well out in front of Lankinen – and replays and Canucks analyst Dave Tomlinson indicated it didn’t — it’s a goal we haven’t much seen him allow since he arrived in Vancouver this fall.

In the loss in Utah, despite Thatcher Demko’s overall sharpness, especially during Vancouver’s leaden first period, the Canucks’ All-Star goalie, likewise, didn’t look good on two of three goals he allowed. 

But he is still only four games into his return from a serious knee injury. And Lankinen is still human after looking super-human at times during the first two months of the season. Questionable goals are going to happen.

Of course, neither goalie is responsible for his road loss this week and the Canucks struggling offence is giving Demko and Lankinen almost no margin for error. But we expect a lot from this netminding tandem that should be one of the best in the NHL. So do they.

LINEUP CHANGES

Two months and two days since he scored his second of two goals this season, Nils Hoglander was healthy-scratched by Tocchet for Game 32 in Vegas. The winger parlayed a breakthrough, 24-goal season last year into a new contract that pays him $9 million over the next three years.

Tocchet also scratched rookie Max Sasson and gave minor-league call-ups Phil Di Giuseppe and Linus Karlson, who have been injured for most of the season, their first NHL games this year.

Karlsson’s ice time of 10:45 was the lowest on the team, and Di Giuseppe’s 12:58 was third-least.

STAT PACK

When scoring first this season, the Canucks have now lost more games than they’ve won: 7-4-5. Last season, they led the league with a 38-11-4 record after leading 1-0. . . Di Giuseppe led the Canucks with five hits, but Sherwood finished with three to maintain his unprecedented NHL streak of three-or-more-hits through each of his first 32 games. . . Shots on Thursday were just 21-20 for Vegas. Over their last eight games, the Canucks have averaged only 22.1 shots. . . The Heinen-Blueger-Sherwood line was easily the Canucks best, outshooting the Knights 8-1 at five-on-five.

QUOTEBOOK

Blueger: “Not a big difference, I think, between winning and losing. Obviously, you know, it hurts to give up that late (goal) in the second. Just fine margins.”