Canucks out of playoff spot after costly loss: 'We’ve got to be better for a full 60'

A trying season for the Canucks took another step backwards on Thursday, as a 4-3 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues dropped Vancouver out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Vancouver finished atop the Pacific Division a year ago at 50-23-9, but a number of challenges have caused the team to surpass last season's loss total in 13 fewer games (32-25-12).

Injuries have robbed the Canucks of two key contributors for key stretches this year, as defenceman and Norris Trophy candidate Quinn Hughes has missed 12 of the team's last 35 games, while top goaltender Thatcher Demko has played in only 17 games due to two separate injuries - rehabilitation of an injury suffered in last year's playoffs that kept him out of the lineup until Dec. 10, and a lower-body injury that has kept him on the sideline since Feb 8.

On top of that, a rift between star forwards Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller hung over the team until Miller was eventually traded to the New York Rangers in January.

Pettersson has gone from 34 goals and 89 points in 82 games a year ago to just 15 goals and 45 points in 63 games this season.

"I think about it a lot, and I haven’t been the way I want to be this year,” Pettersson said of his struggles in February. “I haven’t played to the expectations I have on myself or the franchise has on me, and I’ll be the first one to tell you."

Forward Brock Boeser's production has also plummeted this year, as he's dropped from 40 goals in 81 games last year to 22 goals in 62 games this time around.

Boeser snapped a 12-game goalless drought on Tuesday with a pair of goals in a 6-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets, and added two more in Thursday's loss to the Blues - a sign that he is ready to bolster his play for the stretch run, the team hopes.

“He’s got a deadly shot,” head coach Rick Tocchet said of Boeser after Thursday's game. “When he gets hot, look out.”

The team bemoaned their lack of execution in overtime against the Blues, and Tocchet picked a few areas to focus on with 13 games remaining on the schedule in the regular season.

“There were certain parts of our game we liked, the energy,” Tocchet said. “There were pockets where we just didn’t have enough energy. Great to get the tie, but then a couple miscues in overtime. It was a little sloppy game for us. There was good parts to it, but some sloppiness that we’ve got to clean up.”

“It’s a playoff game,” said forward Kiefer Sherwood, who scored in the loss. “[Great] resiliency and character to come back. We’ve still got to figure out our overtimes obviously, but we’re still looking for 60 minutes. When we put our foot on the gas, we showed what we can do like the other night against Winnipeg. It wasn’t enough tonight. But it was good character and grit to tie it up. We’ve got to be better for a full 60.”

Blues inch closer to playoff return

The Blues appeared destined to be sitting out the Stanley Cup playoffs for a third consecutive season on Feb. 6, when a 3-2 loss to the Florida Panthers left them sitting 11th in the Western Conference at 24-26-5 – eight points behind the Canucks for the final wild-card spot.

But the Blues have put together an impressive run in the past 15 games, with just two regulation losses and an 11-2-2 record overall. It has pushed them straight past the Calgary Flames, Utah Hockey Club and the Canucks in the standings.

“That was a playoff game and boy, what momentum swings in it,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said after the win over the Canucks. “I really liked our resilience.”

The Blues surrendered a 1-0 lead early in the third period, allowing Sherwood and Boeser to score goals in a five-minute stretch, but Tyler Tucker and Dylan Holloway countered midway through the period with a pair of goals just 24 seconds apart. The energy on the Blues' bench in that moment caught the attention of Montgomery.

"The talk on the bench was great, 'let's just go get it back, there's plenty of time, let's back to the goal line, back in the offensive zone,'" Montgomery said. "The talk on the bench was positive, it was never 'look at what we just gave up,' we were staying in the moment mentally."

St. Louis started the season off on the wrong foot, with a 9-12-1 record before head coach Drew Bannister was fired on Nov. 25. Since Montgomery has taken over, the team has a 26-16-6 record.