After blowing a 2-0 lead last night against the Columbus Blue Jackets and ultimately falling 4-3 in overtime, the Vancouver Canucks have continued an unfortunate historical streak to begin their season.

Vancouver is the only team in National Hockey League history to lose four games in a row where they held multi-goal leads. Starting off the season with a 0-3-1 record after regulation losses to the Edmonton Oilers, Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals, the Canucks are under some scrutiny to fix the situation they find themselves in. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli was joined by Colby Cohen on Daily Faceoff Live to discuss what could be going on in the team’s locker room right now and their thoughts on Bruce Boudreau’s decision to scratch Conor Garland on Tuesday.

Frank Seravalli: They are the first team in NHL history to open with four consecutive losses in which they’ve held multi-goal leads. You take a look at the leads that the Canucks have held this season to open — from our own Brock Seguin, our fantasy hockey expert at DFO — and it’s ugly. There’s really no other way to look at this. When you hear the coach come out previously and say that your team is mentally weak… and it happens yet again. Take me inside the room Colby, what’s it like to be a player on a team in this situation? What are you feeling when clearly, you’ve been in some decent spots to try and put some points on the board in the standings?

Colby Cohen: Yeah, it’s really evident Frank that they’re sitting in the dressing room waiting for bad things to happen to them, and I do think there’s a lot of question marks there in Vancouver right now. Who’s in charge? Who’s calling the shots? Is there really any cohesiveness between coach and GM, or GM and president of hockey ops? You know, I’m just hearing a lot of things out of that dressing room that are real distracting for the players. Are guys going to be there? You look at their roster and the only notable free agent after this season is Bo Horvat. So, this is really the team that they’re going to have. It’s not like they’re sitting there blessed with a top of cap space. You can be fragile as a team and you start looking around, guys start blaming each other. 

They obviously have a good goaltender but I’ve heard there’s a lot of friction in that dressing room between some of the star players and then the rest of the team. It’s real cliquey in that dressing room. You know, the way they’re promoting players, particularly on their social media channels — and just everything that I hear coming out of that dressing room. It seems really dysfunctional at the moment. 

SERAVALLI: There’s a lot to unpack there, but I want to ask you this. They make the decision to take Conor Garland out of the lineup as a healthy scratch on Tuesday night — a guy that led their team in 5-on-5 points last year. Does that make any sense to you? How is this team that already gets thin in their roster, in their lineup, take a player out that more often than not to me when I watched that team, was someone that always tried to drag his team into the fight? How do you rationalize that?

COHEN: I was literally getting ready to say to you, that this is the one guy that you would never want to take out of your lineup because he plays the right way. When you watch him, he doesn’t cheat, he stops on pucks, he goes to the net, he plays bigger than he is. He really does put it all on the line and you can’t necessarily say that about every player there in Vancouver right now. So, it didn’t make sense to me. I think that decision rubs a lot of players the wrong way. Other players take that personally and not in a way to rev them up, but almost in a way that you would get pissed off at your coach and your management team for making that decision. 

SERAVALLI: I wonder how long this can spiral. When you consider the spots that they’ve been in games, like I said, with a chance to put points on the board, it sort of feels like something’s coming. Whether that’s a trade or a coaching decision, whatever it may be. I feel like the Canucks are in a spot where they can’t let this season get away from them. 

You can watch the full episode of Daily Faceoff Live here…

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