The Canucks Are Playing Whac-A-Mole: Now With Hughes, Pettersson Injuries And Collapse Vs. Kraken

The internet is infinite. But, if we tried to chronicle all the trials and tribulations that have swirled around the Vancouver Canucks so far this season, we could probably come pretty close to maxing it out.

The 2024-25 campaign has been anything but smooth sailing for Rick Tocchet’s crew, and quite a bit of the drama has been shrouded in mystery and contradictions.

It has barely been a week since Quinn Hughes and Rick Tocchet acknowledged some tension in Vancouver’s dressing room but expressed confidence that the situation was workable.

Then the figures at the center of the discourse, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, both flatly denied that there was any issue. And now Pettersson and Hughes are out of action, with undisclosed ailments, for undetermined amounts of time.

It’s never a good time to lose a top star. But, Hughes’ absence is devastating to a team that’s thin on the blueline and is already missing Filip Hronek — who was knocked out of action late last month with an upper-body injury, then had a procedure on his lower body. Really.

Whatever’s bothering Hughes now, he had already been playing through a nasty facial injury from early December. Even in the game where he was injured, he still scored a goal and cracked 20 minutes of ice time in Vancouver’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Pettersson’s absence is a true head-scratcher. Against the San Jose Sharks last Monday, he logged his first two-goal game since last March against the Buffalo Sabres — and scored just his third even-strength goal of the year.

After managing just one goal in 13 playoff games last spring, Pettersson said after the season that he had been dealing with a knee injury since last January, but it just needed time to heal and rest.

But while Canucks fans waited for Pettersson to start delivering highlight-reel offense again this fall — especially now that he’s being paid like one of the top players in the league — the big plays were in short supply until he ripped off those two goals in 44 seconds last Monday.

“It feels good. Reminds myself that I’ve still got it,” he said with a smile to Prime Video’s Shane Hnidy during Monday’s second intermission.

But Pettersson was nowhere to be found at the end of the third period when he was announced as the game’s first star. Tocchet said post-game that he thought Pettersson was “banged up” in the second period. He played one 45-second shift in the third before calling it a night.

Without Pettersson or Hughes against the Seattle Kraken on Saturday, the Canucks put together a decent team game for 55 minutes, building a 4-1 lead off two goals from Brock Boeser plus singles from Conor Garland and Jake DeBrusk. They even managed to get by without Hughes on the power play, opening the scoring with a quick strike just nine seconds into their first man advantage of the game.

But after Dakota Joshua’s apparent 5-1 goal was nullified early in the third because it was batted into the net, the Kraken started to push back. It took more than 10 minutes before they got any results on the scoreboard. But, after former Canuck Daniel Sprong went end-to-end and missed the net on his shot, Seattle kept the puck in the zone until Jaden Schwartz beat Thatcher Demko for his 10th of the year with 4:45 to play in regulation.

Two more goals followed in the next 3:55, leaving Canucks fans stunned and setting off chants of ‘Let’s Go Kraken’ from the visiting fans that had travelled up from Seattle for some holiday fun.

Seattle defenseman Vince Dunn capped off the win at 2:15 of overtime, intercepting a Tyler Myers pass attempt and going end-to-end for just the second multi-goal game of his career.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a breakaway in my life,” Dunn said.

With the win, the Kraken became just the third team in NHL history to erase a three-goal deficit in the last five minutes of a regular-season game.

The Canucks were outstanding when defending leads last season. They collapsed badly on Saturday — and it’s not the first time this year.

On opening night, the Canucks built a 4-1 first-period lead against the Calgary Flames before eventually losing 6-5 in overtime.

Next week, they’ll get a couple of do-overs. They close out 2024 with a rematch against the Flames in Calgary on New Year’s Eve, then open 2025 in Seattle this Thursday.

Perhaps the New Year will finally bring some new vibes to a Canucks team that hasn’t just been playing hockey this year: they have also been playing Whac-A-Mole as they try to keep pushing forward through a seemingly unending stretch of drama.

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