VANCOUVER – For Vancouver Canucks2025 appears to be the longest decade in franchise history.
The year began with the Canucks emerging as championship contenders. They end up last in the National Hockey League standings in points percentage and competing for the top spot in the draft lottery.
Over the past 12 months, dysfunction in the locker room reached critical mass until key player JT Miller was traded in January. Due to an avalanche of injuries, the Canucks missed the playoffs for the eighth time in 10 seasons.
Then Coach of the Year Rick Tocchet bolted when given the opportunity to leave. The injured Bugs returned this fall to feast in Vancouver after breeding and reproducing over the summer, and captain Quinn Hughes, the best player in Canucks history, was traded on Dec. 12.
The Canucks have won 14 home games in 12 months, and that nearly unfathomable struggle continued Tuesday when they lost to Tocchet's Philadelphia Flyers 6-3 at Rogers Arena.
Of course, there have been some positives for the Canucks, most notably the emergence and development of a handful of talented players in their mid-20s who could ultimately provide a better future for a franchise still waiting for its first Stanley Cup.
But 2025 for the Canucks? Good riddance.
“It's not hard to stay positive, it's hard to just lose,” senior guard Tyler Myers said after the Canucks lost for the ninth time in 10 home games to end the year. “You know, we're losing too much right now, and that's what's hard.
“I still come to the rink every day with a positive attitude and a positive mindset. Losing just doesn't feel good. It's up to us to turn things around. We make immature mistakes as a group. We have to get back to finding our identity and take it day by day. We can't just bring it on the road or every three or four games; we have to do it all the time.”
Before Friday's home game against the Seattle Kraken, the Canucks will finish 2025 with a record of 16-20-3 on the season and 37-39-9 on the year.
A year ago, despite early problems that eventually wore everyone down and forced Tocchet out, the Canucks flipped the calendar to 11-17-8. Seven months earlier, they had reached Game 7 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, capping off their best season since 2011.
From then on it was quite a descent.
Tuesday's loss leaves their home record this season at 4-12-1. Naturally, this followed a 3-2 away win on penalties 24 hours earlier in Seattle.
“I don't know, I'd like an answer,” forward Drew O'Connor said when asked about the home-away split. “You know, we want to come here and play well in front of our fans. It upsets them, it upsets us when we don't do that. So that's what we're working on. We want to be better because it's important to have a good home ice advantage and we don't have that.”
The first 11 minutes of Tuesday's game, when the Canucks built a 10-0 shot lead, were some of the best home hockey they've played this season.
After barely appearing in the first half of the first period – and thankfully when it ended 1-1 – the Flyers were all over the place in the second period. The Canucks were nowhere to be found.
Philadelphia simply took over the game. They got to the pucks first, won most of the battles and forced the Canucks to play under pressure in their own zone. Vancouver's forecheck evaporated as quickly as their early lead, and by the start of the third period the score was 3–1 in Philadelphia's favor.
“I think we were just ahead of them (at the start),” forward Jake DeBrusk said after returning to the Vancouver lineup after getting a healthy scratch from coach Adam Foote. “We were winning a lot of pucks. Obviously they were going to respond. They practice well, so we knew it was coming. And then we didn't really help ourselves. We had some power plays that were terrible, and they got momentum.”
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At the end of a two-minute marathon for third pairing defensemen Tom Willander and Pierre-Olivier Joseph, the Flyers took advantage of the Canucks' fatigue to take the lead 3:40 into the period when Karl Grundstrom had room to cut to his forehand and snatch the puck in close behind goaltender Thatcher Demko.
The Flyers had 17 shots on frame for Demko and went ahead 3-1 at 4:20 p.m. when Travis Konecny, unstopped in the Vancouver net, found the time and space to deflect past the goalie after making a point-blank save.
By this point, it was difficult to distinguish the teams from those who had started the game.
“I think tonight was probably our best start to the year,” Myers said. “Our fitness was at the highest level I've seen this year on the forecheck. The first 10 minutes of the game I think were some of our best… and then we just lost our parts.”
“We're missing too many chances and not getting pucks behind their team. We need to fix some things. First of all, we just need to clean up our consistency. We're doing a lot of good things, but we're not doing enough of them.”
The Canucks' lead wasn't entirely due to David Kampf's goal at 3:45 of the first period off O'Connor's feed.
The Flyers struggled to get out of their zone and had almost no puck possession on Vancouver's net until they scored the tying goal at 12:02 when Canuck Liam Ogren got a shot in as Noah Cates shot on the rush, changing the puck's trajectory that fooled Demko.
From then on it was a different game.
In the third period, O'Connor took a friendly rebound from Kampf's partially cleared shot and scored in just 68 seconds to make it 3–2. But the Canucks didn't get back until 26 seconds later when defenseman Filip Gronek pinched the ball without coverage, giving the Flyers a two-on-one that Ze'ev Buyum defended poorly against. Bobby Brink followed Demko at 1:34.
The Flyers combined goals from Owen Tippett and Christian Dvorak, who chose Philadelphia over Vancouver in free agency last summer, around Willander's goal into an empty net.
“We had to be a stronger group in the second period when things didn't go our way,” coach Adam Foote said. “We have to find a way to just stay within the system. It took us too long to get back to our game.”
ICE CHIPS – Veterans DeBrusk and Kampf looked motivated after returning to the lineup after being scratched in Seattle. Center Aatu Rathi and forward Nils Hoglander lost to the Flyers. . . Long-injured centers Teddy Blueger and Filip Chytil skated with extra players Tuesday morning, and Foote said Chytil could return from his latest concussion in about two weeks. . . Asked before the game if the Canucks had “too many bodies” right now, Foote responded: “The coaches don't think there can ever be too many bodies. I mean, it's not my business, like you said. I'm just day-by-day working with what we have and trying to (use) my instincts and what I think needs to happen for us to get two points.”
