Things aren’t looking good for the Vancouver Canucks right now.
After finishing 40-30-12 last season, much of the fanbase had promised itself an improved performance in 2022-23, especially with head coach Bruce Boudreau at the helm for his first full campaign. But instead, the opposite has happened so far, with hot tempers last weekend.
The Canucks, who started this season with five straight road games, returned to Rogers Arena on Saturday for their opener against the Buffalo Sabers. It was supposed to give optimism to a team that came out 0-3-2. Unfortunately, he encountered continued frustration instead.
Buffalo quickly took a 2-0 lead in the first 20 minutes and didn’t look back, eventually earning a 5-1 win over Vancouver. In the closing stages of the match, some fans expressed their displeasure by littering the ice with jerseys in protest at the team’s early efforts.
After another crushing defeat, Captain Bo Horvat spoke to reporters and was asked about the local crowd throwing jerseys onto the ice. His comments, however, are unlikely to ease the pain fans are currently feeling.
“My jersey was thrown on the ice last year and I’ll never forget it as long as I play,” Horvat said. “It’s something that hits home, and when you see it happening again this year, it really sucks. But I understand their frustration.
“We haven’t really given them anything to be happy about. It’s been many years in the rebuilding phase and… at this stage of the season it just feels like it’s never going to happen, like we don’t. were never going to win again.”
For a team without a win in six games, that damning response probably isn’t something you want coming from your locker room. It’s the opposite, in fact.
But it’s hard to blame Horvat for being honest about that feeling. After all, the Canucks became the first team in NHL history to lose four straight games after holding a multi-goal lead in every game earlier this season, according to Sportsnet Statistics.
![Bo Horvat spoke some dark words after Canucks fans threw jerseys on the ice again in a humiliating loss to the Sabers in their home opener. (Getty)](https://oponame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Canucks-captain-Bo-Horvat-feels-frustration-with-fans-amid-messy.jpeg)
JT Miller, who has been at the center of Vancouver’s struggles, shared his own thoughts on the fans’ choice to get rid of their well-deserved team merchandise.
“If they want to throw their shit on the ice, that’s up to them…If they want to come to the game, spend all that money and throw their gear on the ice, that’s up to them,” said said Miller.
And Horvat isn’t the only Canucks player feeling frustrated by the club’s miserable start. His teammate Curtis Lazar, who grew up with this franchise, thinks fans deserve better than the product they’ve witnessed this season.
“I feel like it’s justified by the way we played, especially towards the end of the game,” Lazar said. “Every game this year we’ve had our chance to win (in the third half) and our response hasn’t been there. It’s an area where we have to find that urgency and come together in that dressing room.
“The fans are passionate; that’s what’s great about playing here. They want to see a response, and we want to see a response ourselves. You can talk about these outside things, the fans and what everybody Probably says about us, but it comes down to what we have in this dressing room. We think we have a good team – much better than what we’ve shown. But that’s what I told you before: words are one thing, actions are another.
This feeling is very present throughout the organization, particularly with Boudreau, who questioned the professionalism of his players during the post-game press conference on Saturday. The 67-year-old is demanding more from his players amid the club’s six-game losing streak.
No one could have imagined this terrible start for the Canucks, especially not after going 32-15-10 under Boudreau last season. If anything, most experts assumed they would have hit the ground running, not fallen flat on it.
But with 76 games remaining, there’s still plenty of time for Vancouver to turn around, though that likely needs to happen sooner rather than later to avoid a third straight summer without playoff hockey.
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