Canucks mailbag: After Islanders loss, are fans worried?

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Let’s take a look at what is on the mind of fans this week …

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Two absolute stinkers in a week. Aatu Räty isn’t ready, and they need help on defence … the Desharnais experiment is a fail. — Sheila via Bluesky

It feels cruel to single out Vincent Desharnais after Thursday’s mess — it was hard to name a defenceman who played well for the Canucks against the Islanders.

But the overall truth is that the defence corps as a group isn’t deep enough. They need to add another puck-mover. That’s been obvious since free agency opened.

And now that we see the Canucks accruing cap space daily, we can see that there is a secondary plan almost certainly in the works — they’re going to add another defenceman.

They need it. They know they need it.

As for Raty, his foot speed remains a question mark. He’s playing well enough, isn’t getting caught out of position — but he’s struggling to have much affect offensively. Sure, he is centring the fourth line, but if he’s going to stick in the NHL, he needs to add something beyond a base ability to not get beat.

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Otherwise the Canucks will move on to the next guy to see if he can do a little more than just tread water at five-on-five.

Quiet wins, loud losses. The underlying numbers are pretty average or good except for goals for/against which is arguably the easier fix. — Cody via Bluesky

The wins have been solid. There’s no denying this.

The worry is that those loud losses have come against some pretty good teams. Edmonton. New Jersey. Carolina. Heck, even the Islanders … they were a playoff team last year and Patrick Roy gets his teams to play hard.

A few more quiet wins at home, though, sure would move the story back in the direction the Canucks want to find themselves in.

When are Brock and Demko coming back? And how long until the trade deadline? — DJTAXMAN77 via Bluesky

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Boeser’s progress in recovering from a concussion has been uneven. Given Rick Tocchet’s comments over the past week, it’s clear that it took Boeser a few days to start feeling himself again.

But given he was spotted in the Canucks’ hallway in workout gear, smiling and talking with old friend Bo Horvat, it appears some improvement is taking place.

That said, the Canucks are being rightly cautious in not putting a timeline on his situation. But presumably he will be back soon.

Demko, remember, was way late in starting his off-season. Normally, he would have been back on the ice, starting his preparations for pre-season in late May or early June. He didn’t even try skating until some time in July or August. And as we know, those initial steps were very slow.

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He didn’t really start working out on the ice in earnest until September. And then there was some sort of stall in his progress.

He has only been practising with the team for a week or so. He’s in his pre-season mode now. There is still good reason to think he will be suiting up by the end of the month.

No big deal. In a vacuum I’m never really worried about a single loss, as bad as it may have been. I’m more interested in how they respond to the loss than the loss itself. If the response is tepid, then I’ll worry — Karate Cult via Bluesky

It is notable that after those stumbles against Carolina and New Jersey, the Canucks went to California and played some pretty impressive hockey.

But now they have had two stinkers in their last three games and so the question is back.

Plenty of time to figure things out. This lineup will look pretty different by the end of the year. Not worried. They’re a good team, they just seem to have weird lapses where they collapse some games. — Luc via Bluesky

This is a Canuck fan who has been around the block.

They are not going to go 82-0, someone once told me. Definitely applies here.

Again, let’s see how they go over the next few weeks.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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