It would be somewhat ironic if the one season where an injury was actually somewhat responsible for the Canucks failure to make the playoffs is the the season Benning finally gets fired after using injuries as an excuse for so long.
The Golden Knights as an expansion team went 5 deep on opening day goaltending depth. The had AHL backups and ECHL starters get significant time that year. The Canucks aren’t in that situation but even if they were they should have been building up a better cushion.
That and looking at the replay it wasn’t a goaltending problem but a really bad defense problem. For the 5th season in a row. That’s a personnel/team construction problem at this point.
This isn’t about injury, it’s again about the bloated contract veterans not performing anywhere near what they are paid, a bad blueline, a bad bottom 6, bad coaching, bad team defense and lack of depth on the farm that can contribute at the nhl level. Well at least lack of depth they’ll allow to play at the nhl level. They really haven’t even had to use any farm D so far this year.
The excuses also ring hollow when you are losing to teams who have massive injury problems (Columbus, Toronto) or suffered through earlier problems (like the Yotes for instance) or just aren’t very good (ottawa). At this time of year these results are not acceptable no matter what.