Sure, the Vancouver Canucks only had two games last week, not the four games we’ve been used to for the first few weeks of the season, but they still went winless.
The Edmonton Oilers swept a back-to-back series against the Canucks in Vancouver last week, dropping the Canucks to 8-14-2 on the season.
That’s good enough for the second-last spot in the North Division standings, barely ahead of the Ottawa Senators, and the third-worst win percentage in the entire NHL.
Needless to say, Vancouver is still not playing even close to good enough hockey to compete for a playoff spot, even in what is considered to be the league’s worst division.
Not only is a playoff spot starting to fade from view, but many Canucks fans are already starting to turn their attention to the draft lottery and the rest of the 2021 off-season.
It leads up to the upcoming week, which is a massively important one if Vancouver has any hopes of getting back into the playoff race.
“We need to find an extra 5-10%, other teams are stepping it up and we have to too.” - Bo Horvat pic.twitter.com/FjH59yBeBN
— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) March 1, 2021
The Canucks play four games this week, which will take them to 28 games played, otherwise known as the midway mark of the 56-game series.
If this team doesn’t end the week with 11 or 12 wins to their name, which means a 3-1 or 4-0 record this week, it will be time to start looking past this season to the future.
It won’t be an easy task, as the Canucks are in Winnipeg for a pair of games against the Jets tonight and Tuesday.
They’ll then return home to Rogers Arena to take on the high-flying Toronto Maple Leafs, who are first in the North Division and will likely have Auston Matthews and Frederick Andersen back in the lineup.
