In Vancouver, the Canucks’ spiral is now set in stone. On Monday night, the Detroit Red Wings dropped a 6-1 loss on the Canucks.
Ville Husso made 29 saves in the easy win.
The Red Wings moved to 24-20-8 off their third straight win.
Dylan Larkin scored twice for the Red Wings.
“This is pretty sobering dealing right now with tonight, coming into the locker room hearing the news and we’re all just pretty, pretty devastated by it and our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved, all the students, all the families,” Larkin said, his voice breaking. “It just hurts the heart and we feel for everyone involved.
“I know tonight was a win, but it’s kind of hard to talk about anything else. We’re all thinking about our home state right now.”
Sheldon Dries was the lone striker for the Canucks, his goal made the score 2-1 in the second period after the Wings had taken a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes.
The offense is a nonexistent entity for the Canucks, almost as absent as the defense.
Vancouver has surrendered five or more goals in 25 of their 54 matches this season,
“We’re going to have to go back to grade school on how to defend, how to stop and start because too many guys are spinning,” said Canucks coach Rick Tocchet, who is 3-4-1 since taking over for coach Bruce Boudreau on Jan. 22. “We’re a very high-risk team. You’ve got to take pride in defending, you’ve got to take pride in blocking a shot or getting the puck out. You’ve got to have that pride.”
The Canucks dropped to 21-29-4.
“Structure, discipline, leadership, they get you through these games when you just maybe don’t have your best,” Tocchet said. “If you don’t have your legs, then you’ve got to play smart hockey, don’t chase the game.”
Larkin scored his double in the first period for the 2-0 lead.
“Energy, spark,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said of Larkin. “He was flying early on.”
Robby Fabbri scored near the midway point of the second period for a 3-1 lead to Detroit.
The Red Wings wasted no time in the third period by piling on. Gustav Lindstrom scored with 40 seconds gone in the period for a 4-1 lead.
“We’ve had trouble consistently scoring goals, so it was a big boost,” Lalonde said of the depth scoring. “We had offense from a lot of different guys tonight.”
Before the third was eight minutes old, Detroit added two more strikes.
Pius Suter scored off a breakaway for a 5-1 advantage, and onatan Berggren connected on a delayed penalty for the 6-1 final at 7:52.
Collin Delia made 17 saves in the Vancouver loss.
“I don’t know what to tell you guys, it was a terrible game,” Vancouver defenseman Quinn Hughes said. “It hasn’t been a great year.”

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