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The Vancouver Canucks gave up the kind of goal that probably felt like a twisting knife in the wake of a dismal stretch in which the team had lost 11 of their last 12 coming into Saturday night.
Knotted 0-0 with the Calgary Flames early in the second period, Calgary enforcer Brian McGrattan crossed the red line and wound up. He let go a hard slap shot from the right wing just inside the Canucks’ half of the ice. It skidded off the ice and right past netminder Eddie Lack to give the Flames a 1-0 lead. It was... ugly.
Coming off a rather shocking couple of days near the trade deadline and a 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Dallas Thursday night, the Canucks needed something positive. This won’t help.
It’s especially difficult with Lack becoming the new No. 1 on Vancouver’s new-look tandem with Jacob Markstrom who came over in the trade that sent Roberto Luongo to the Florida Panthers. That type of goal doesn’t do a lot for Lack’s confidence in a new-found pressure cooker of a situation where he’ll be picking up more starts.
Sometimes when a team is in a bad stretch, they don’t get any of the bounces, but this is getting a little ridiculous for Vancouver right now.
