Vancouver Canucks continue search for consistent game amid losing skid

VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks looked threatening on Friday.

Then the team fell apart yet again.

“It’s frustrating, obviously,” winger Brock Boeser said after his team fell 5-1 to the New York Rangers.

“I feel like we just haven’t put a full game together. And we talk about it and we talk about it, and it’s the same stuff. So we’re going to have to learn eventually.”

The defeat marked a seventh straight loss for the Canucks (3-17-1). The team has lost 17 of its last 18 games.

But it was Vancouver that scored first on Friday.

Boeser won a battle along the sideboards midway through the first period and chipped a puck to Zeev Buium. The defenceman unleashed a long-range blast and Elias Pettersson deflected it in from in front of the New York net.

The Rangers (12-8-1) levelled the score before the first intermission when Gabe Perreault ripped a shot in from the bottom of the faceoff circle.

Even New York’s head coach thought the Canucks played well in the early going.

“I thought they had momentum in the first period,” Mike Sullivan said. “We defended hard, but we defended too much, and you know, I thought in the second and third, we did a much better job pushing back, elevating our intensity, winning more puck battles.

“We were more proactive as opposed to reactive, and we’re at our best when we’re like that.”

Oliver Bjorkstrand put the Rangers ahead with a power-play tally 8:21 into the second and minutes later, the Canucks unravelled.

Goalie Leevi Merilainen tried to clear a puck but hit centre Filip Chytil in the process. The rubber disc pinged out to Glenn Gawdin and he wasted no time putting a shot into the yawning Vancouver net.

It was the first of three goals the team surrendered over a span of three minutes and nine seconds.

“If we let in a goal, we can’t let it snowball and they get another three goals like they got today in the second period,” Pettersson said. “So it’s up to us in this room to figure it out.”

Turnovers were a major part of the problem.

The errant pucks fed New York’s transition game and kept Vancouver hemmed in its own end for extended stretches.

“And then you’re not getting pucks deep and not getting a forecheck, and you’re just on your heels,” Boeser said. “So it’s a pretty important part of the game.

“You see the best teams in the league, they continue to play the same way. There’s times you can make a play, and there’s times that you can’t, and you’ve got to learn when those times are.”

Vancouver is now 1-5-0 when heading into the second period tied this season.

The Canucks haven’t fared better with a first-period lead — they’re 0-3-1 when leading after the first.

“When you look at really good teams in this league, they don’t shoot themselves in the foot, and they just stay with their process, they stay with their game plan. And eventually somebody cracks,” head coach Manny Malhotra said.

“And too many times, we’re the team that goes off script and cracks in those moments. So it’s that learning lesson of being comfortable in the nothingness of just being simple.”

HOMETOWN HOCKEY

Gawdin scored his first two NHL goals with about a dozen loved ones in the crowd.

Hailing from the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, B.C., the depth forward is in his ninth year of professional hockey but has spent much of his career toiling in the minors.

To mark a major milestone in front of family and friends was “huge,” Gawdin said.

“There’s a lot that goes through your mind over the years, and credit to the circle around me, credit to my wife, they push me when I need it,” he said. “And yeah, I think the success tonight, I think they have an equal part in that, so it was a special night.”

Playing in Vancouver was special for Garand, too. The goalie is from Victoria, B.C., and said he had “close to 50 people” at the game.

“It’s pretty special,” he said. “I haven’t played here since I was 19, and my whole pro career, a lot of people that support me have never seen me play. So for them to come down and watch me play tonight, and great for us to deliver a big win. It’s a really good feeling, and it was a cool night for sure.”

MR. 500

Boeser registered an assist on Pettersson’s goal, marking the 500th point of his NHL career.

The 29-year-old right-winger from Burnsville, Minn., now has 233 goals and 267 assists over 650 regular-season games, all with the Canucks.

“Definitely a cool achievement,” he said of the milestone. “So it doesn’t stop there. Got to keep going. Got to continue to be a leader.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2026.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press