The Vancouver Canucks lost 2-1 to the Nashville Predators. Normally, that scoreline wouldn’t be cause for too much alarm, but given how the season has started and the manner in which they lost, it feels as if things are rapidly spiraling. For much of the game, the Canucks couldn’t do much of anything, and neither could the Preds. Watching this team fumble around on a 5-on-3 power play just put the icing on the cake. Obviously, there’s going to be tired legs at the end of a road trip, especially with the sheer amount of injuries that Vancouver had, but the way they just gave up the ghost in the third was stunning.

Here’s the loss, by the numbers.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

Game Flow

This was some tremendously mid hockey, especially at 5v5 play. The Canucks never managed to crack 50.00 CF%, with their single-period high coming in the third at 46.15 CF%. In the middle frame, Vancouver was chipping in at a 28.95 CF%, which really isn’t much to write home about. Suffice it to say that these woes in Corsi had impacts in other categories, as the Canucks weren’t able to get anything going offensively either. They did have a 65.87 xGF% in the first, but that only netted them a raw 0.70 xGF. The rest of the way, Vancouver never broke 23.00 xGF%, as Nashville would tally 0.71 xGF in the second and 0.92 xGF in the third. That’s not a recipe for success, to say the least.

Heat Map

Given how badly the Canucks got out-chanced, this heat map could’ve looked a lot worse. The total scoring chances had the Predators dominating at 5v5, holding a 32-11 margin. Yes, that’s right, Nashville almost tripled Vancouver’s total amount of scoring chances. That being said, the high-danger difference was only 7-5 in favour of the Preds, and that much is apparent from that hot spot. It isn’t too bad, as the Canucks had a similarly sized and concentrated spot themselves. One thing to note was them focusing a lot of their attempts from the left side of the ice, as that hot spot appeared to be somewhere that Nashville got a lot of their scoring chances from.

Individual Advanced Stats

Corsi Champ: Elias Pettersson needs to score. That much is woefully clear. At the same time, it’s not as if he’s been playing horrifically. The CF% charts had him leading the way at 50.00, which doesn’t sound like much but considering how badly the Canucks got out-possessed, it’s pretty darn decent. His shots share was actually solid as well, standing at 40.00 SF% which was 15% higher relative to team average. It’s genuinely just head-scratching to watch his deployment and his play, as it seems to be a cyclical cycle of him not getting enough time to find a rhythm, and not producing enough to get that time.

Corsi Chump:  Jake DeBrusk did not have a good time last night. Playing on a line with Max Sasson and Brock Boeser as a makeshift second line, the winger posted a team-low 17.65 CF%. He was on ice for a 1-10 shots hole, facing a team-worst 2.63 xGF% (yes, that’s under three percent of the share), and gave up 2 high-danger scoring chances without a single scoring chance of any sort to his name. DeBrusk played the least amount of time at 5v5 of any Canuck skater with 6:01, but just in that limited time frame, he faced the 5th-most xGA at 0.73.

xGF:  Pettersson led the Canucks in this category too, racking up 65.45 xGF% to lead the way last night. He, like literally every other skater on the team, was in a scoring chance deficit, but unlike the majority of the team, had a positive split in high-danger chances at 2-1. It’s a very low bar, for sure, but considering the context of the game, this was a relatively bright spot. Evander Kane of all other skaters led the Canucks in raw xGF at 5v5 action, putting up 0.70 against Nashville.

GSAx:  Even in a loss this putrid, Thatcher Demko did his part. Facing down 2.29 xGF, the netminder pretty much broke even with a 0.29 GSAx to his name. The two goals that came against Demko were split between high and middle danger chances, which is more than acceptable given how poor the Canucks were at preventing overall scoring chances in front of him. For all of Vancouver’s ineptitude in front of him, Demko was solid and definitely didn’t let the team down in this loss.

Statistical Musings

Where is Quinn Hughes?:  So far into this season, Quinn Hughes has not looked like… Quinn Hughes. Normally, he would be driving play for the Canucks, leading the way in raw xGF thanks to his sheer amount of ice time and penchant for generating chances. Against Nashville, he did see a lot of the ice, but wasn’t a difference maker. His CF% was hovering around the team average, if just a little below, and was merely average in the xGF% department. Hughes was on ice for a 3-16 scoring chance difference, with a 2-6 high-danger margin as well. Now, it wasn’t as if he was terrible – but the benchmark for Quinn Hughes is not team average, nor is it “not terrible.” Something just doesn’t seem right with him, especially considering his standard.

As a team

CF% – 44.74% HDCF% – 57.89% xGF% – 52.72%

The final stats overall are flattering for the Canucks, who got most of their “pressure” from their power play (which looked hapless!). This team just isn’t very good right now, with some pretty brutal puck on display last night. Now, it is the end of a road trip for a very banged-up team, but the consistent patterns of their star players not playing like their star players are concerning. When Max Sasson is driving play for this team, there are big issues underlying everything.

Vancouver returns home, hosting the Montreal Canadiens Saturday afternoon.

Stats provided by naturalstattrick.com