It seems only appropriate that the Vancouver Canucks enter Monday night’s game against the visiting San Jose Sharks following an overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night.
Vancouver (37-29-14, 88 points), eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoff race, is tied with the Calgary Flames for the most overtime losses in the league.
Minnesota, leading the wild-card race in the Western Conference, has lost just seven times in the extra period.
Flip those overtime records around and it would be the Canucks trying to seal a playoff spot heading into Monday night’s contest.
“That’s a good question,” Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes replied when asked what is causing his team’s overtime woes. “I don’t know.”
Canucks coach Rick Tocchet blames his team’s youth and inability to stay calm in crunch time for its overtime problems.
Vancouver, behind goals by Marcus Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk, held a 2-0 lead going into the third period against Minnesota. But the Wild rallied to tie it on goals by Brock Faber and Marcus Foligno, then won it 3-2 when Mats Zuccarello scored 2:47 into overtime.
“That’s kind of the story of our year,” DeBrusk said. “We get it to overtime and just don’t find that extra one.”
Said Tocchet: “We were up 2-0 and we stopped making plays, guys were getting antsy. It’s been kind of a common theme sometimes with our team. We just need to relax. A lot of young guys in our lineup. That’s understandable. There’s some plays there you just kind to have to calm down. We were kind of chipping pucks away when there was nobody around us. Those are things you have to work on, how to deal with under pressure.”
San Jose (20-49-11, 51 points) is mired in a nine-game losing streak (0-7-2) with a 5-2 setback at Calgary on Sunday. The Sharks, who already have clinched the worst record in the league, were tied 2-2 going into the third period but allowed three unanswered goals.
“It (stinks),” said forward Tyler Toffoli, who scored in the first period to reach the 30-goal mark for the third straight season. “Gave ourselves a chance to win and after the first period gave up a couple goals that were easily preventable. It’s unfortunate because we came out with a really good start.”
Said defenseman Jan Rutta: “We’ve been playing well enough to win a lot of games and always find a way to lose, so we’ve got to find that within the group. It’s not easy to win. I really liked our effort for the majority of the night. We can win these games, but, ultimately, most of the time we come up short.”
The good news? San Jose already has locked up a top-three draft pick and has a 25.5 percent chance to garner the No. 1 overall pick.
–Field Level Media
This will be the fourth meeting between the two teams. Vancouver has won the previous three, all by one goal.
–Field Level Media
