Blame runs deep for Vancouver Canucks after big Game 2 loss to Predators

The Vancouver Canucks dropped game 2 to the Nashville Predators 4-1 and while a lot of blame has been pointed to Elias Pettersson and Casey DeSmith, the blame runs much deeper for the Canucks. Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen discuss where it all fell apart for Vancouver in game 2 on Tuesday.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I really loved the ‘Let’s go Casey” chants at the beginning of the game, I thought that was really cool. But listen, the numbers for DeSmith are not great and you go back and watch those three goals and the first one was a weird deflection and DeSmith probably should have saved that one, but 15 seconds before that Quinn Hughes has the chance to get the puck out and stumbles the play, the Preds keep it alive and score.

Tyler Yaremchuk: For the second goal, you let Filip Forsberg just walk in and make a couple of moves, he could have beat any goalie in that situation. The third goal was a bad rebound but right before that Elias Pettersson had the chance to get the puck out and fell down and couldn’t get to his guy in the spot. Not great goals to give up but I don’t really put the blame on DeSmith, I blame the Canucks for not putting the foot to the floor and controlling the play for any amount of time.

Colby Cohen: Yeah, I think you have to rally around the fact that your No. 2 goalie is coming in. I think DeSmith has been a capable goalie, he’s been a .910 goalie his whole career but just lacks the playoff experience. He hasn’t seen a ton of action and I think this is an opportunity where you have to look around the room and need players to go the extra mile block the extra shot, and be more thorough in getting the puck out.

Colby Cohen: The player you are alluding to is Pettesson and he gets three minuses on that play and turnovers and then gets beat back to the net, falling and then smashing his stick and I tell you what, I give him three minuses just for those actions alone. Pettersson needs to wake up, he’s got a big contract and maybe he’s got something going on that’s causing him to perform like this. All I have to say is he needs a plan B and how he can contribute to his team whether that be blocking shots, playing more physical, winning battles on the wall and just doing those little things that might put another guy on your line in a situation to be successful.