The Vancouver Canucks would likely be locked in one of the two Western Conference wild card spots right now if they weren’t forced to play without top blueliner Alexander Edler over these last two and a half weeks.
Vancouver played an excellent first 40 minutes against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday, then the bundle of defensive breakdowns and sloppy mistakes began to take over. A very winnable home contest turned out to be a 3-2 overtime defeat.
As Jason Brough of TSN and The Athletic points out, Vancouver’s record without Edler — since he was concussed against the Philadelphia Flyers on Feb.