Frustration Mounts In Canucks’ 4–0 Loss To The Los Angeles Kings

Frustration was the clear winner in the Vancouver Canucks’ 4–0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings tonight. There were lots of frustrating elements to tonight’s game, from the Canucks logging only 19 shots on goal to awkward shift lengths such as Tom Willander getting caught on the ice for over three minutes. The lone solid performance on the night came from Kevin Lankinen, who stopped 34 of 37 shots faced.

A weakness of Vancouver’s early on tonight was their inability to clear the crease of traffic from the Kings. Los Angeles’ first two goals of the game came off of some extremely timely bounces — first off Scott Laughton’s leg and off the stick of Trevor Moore after that. In his fifth consecutive start, a choice that has not come without questions, Lankinen played exactly the way he needed to in order to try and get his team a win.

He faced 25 shots within the first half of the game, including 15 during just the first period, with the Kings getting up to 32 shots on goal by the 40-minute mark. With the loss tonight, Lankinen records his first regulation loss against the Kings since the beginning of his career with the Canucks. “We need to play way better for him.

We have not played good enough at all, especially for him. He tries to make every save possible,” Zeev Buium said post-game of the goaltender’s effort and how the team can help him out. “We need to do a way better job of getting guys out of the crease and just not letting them get there in the first place.