Grind is starting to show some of the weaknesses. Team has been carried by a few players and if they aren't going there is little to fall back on. Neither Miller or Pettersson were on top of their game and thus the PP again floundered.
Many just not providing anything. Mikheyev, Suter, Aman and Boeser (especailly) are dead weigth at the moment. Lindholm is a growing disappointement.
Moreover some of the defenseman are struggling. Juulsen is reverting to form and is chasing around and losing position. Just like Di Guiseppe players don't become established AHLers without reason. They are what they are (despite my earlier hope for Juulsen).
Thought Myers had a good game and was one player holding things together. Also Blueger and Garland provided some glue and and it's just too bad Joshua is out. You can begin to see how important he is and how ineffective others are as replacements.
Give some credit to Hughes for effort and for creating some offense but he and Hronek are struggling in their end. IMO Hughes is getting overplayed and I don't get why he is out killing penalties.
Another feature of late is the way the defense is getting out of sync. Earlier the Canucks had very good defensive coverage in their end. Defense kept men to the outside and quickly had the puck out of their zone. They moved the puck smoothly from side to side and up to the forwards. Now teams are getting the odd man breaks and the exploiting breakdowns in the Canuck zone. (and there were many in this game)This more than anything has to be corrected. It was backbone of the Canuck success throughout much of the season.
Every team is going to go through what the Canucks are now.The schedule is a killer and the team clearly needs to get home. There is, however, little reason for panic. But this period has revealed, as said, the weaker players. This team is by no means complete and Canuck management needs to take a hard look at what this stretch has shown us about certain players.
