Brock Boeser didn't hide anything after the Vancouver Canucks dropped a ninth straight game Thursday night. He called it embarrassing.
The Detroit Red Wings left town with a 5-2 win, and the veteran winger delivered the most honest postgame of Vancouver's season.
“It's the same stuff game after game,” Boeser said. “I don't know where the disconnect is.”
He wasn't done. Either guys in the room “aren't listening to what the coaches are preaching,” or “some of our structure is not working.” Then came the line that will travel: “But it's embarrassing.”
Read that again. A core forward publicly floated two explanations, and both of them point at somebody inside that building.
The standings back him up. The Canucks sit 2-9-1 and rank dead last in the league, 32nd out of 32.
The numbers underneath are uglier. Vancouver has given up 56 goals through 12 games, which works out to 4.7 against per night.
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Manny Malhotra's structure is now the question in Vancouver
Manny Malhotra took over behind the bench on June 1. Twelve games into his tenure, one of his core forwards just asked out loud whether the system works.
Boeser didn't exempt himself either. He logged 14:09 of ice time Thursday, landed one shot on goal and went minus-2.
His season rating sits at -9. That number lands on a $7,250,000 cap hit, and fans in this market do that math every single night.
Watching this team right now feels like a kitchen where the chef keeps rewriting the recipe and the line cooks keep plating last week's dish. Somebody's off. Dinner's cold either way.
Kevin Lankinen stopped 26 of 31 shots Thursday. He's still looking for his first win of the season.
And Boeser is right to say it publicly. Whatever's being said behind closed doors clearly hasn't landed, so a veteran shoving the problem into the open is overdue.
So who isn't listening? Not Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who scored and set up another Thursday.
Elias Pettersson chipped in a power play goal. Two goals on home ice should at least make it a game, and this one never felt close late.
Home ice hasn't been much of a refuge. The Canucks are 1-4-0 in their own building, and the crowd has noticed.
Next up is a Sunday visit from the Minnesota Wild. They arrive at 6-3-2, but they've dropped two straight of their own.
Malhotra has two days of practice to show his room which explanation is the right one. Lose again Sunday, and the next public question won't come from a player.
Is Manny Malhotra's system the real problem behind the Canucks' collapse?
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