Great Tanking News! Canucks Lose. But Still Get a Puck Past Gibby on the PP!

Bad news... Jets lost too. Still stuck at 31st place.

Here's what we learned: While the ROG is the most generous rink to visitors, this road trip brought along the big gaudy gift bag of personal milestones.

Nucks allowed P Kane to get his 499th goal on the Wings 5-on-3 PP. Then, as ever... but even a tad early for Footsey to pull the goalie...

Let's give patrick kane the footey...cuz why the fuck not?

-- Twitch

The 7th player the Nucks have allowed to reach a scoring milestone.

We gave up the 500th to Frank Mahovolich, Steve Stamkos, Stan Mikita, Wayne Gretzky (of course), Joe Sakic, and Patrick Marleau, too.

-- Thursday

Period 1

Nucks got a PP 19 seconds in and the chance to get the 1st goal of the game. They didn't. But didn't give up a shortie, so that's progress.

While it appeared the Nucks were outshooting and outplaying the Wingers, Nucks get into penalty trouble. Big trouble in Little Caesars.

Zeev takes a high sticking call. Then on the PK your Kampf takes a stupid or unlucky or both tripping call. As you may have heard, resulting MotorCity 5-v-3 scores. 

Annnd kane gets 499. Not our kane, he's a useless tit. No, the other kane.

-- Twitch

Nucks down 1-0 after 1. And feels worse.

Because Lanky is just another in a long line of Nucks goalies to get Kane'd.

#Canucks Kierszenstat of the Game: Kevin Lankinen is the eighth goaltender in franchise history to allow a regular season goal scored by Patrick Kane. The other seven are Luongo (5), Markström (3), Schneider (2), Läck (2), Miller (1), Sanford (1) and Delia (1).

— Adam Kierszenblat (@adamkblat.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 5:02 PM

Period 2

In the 2nd, this time Nucks come back and tie it up, right?

Nope... because the other Kane is on the ice. He and Petey caught up ice. And 2 Nucks D get pulled to the wrong side of Lanky. Kane could back check hard. Chose not to. Petey was busy as well with being tired...

EP40 gives the puck away and then can't be bothered to back check.

-- Ripper

2-0 Red Commie Wings.

It's not all Nucking doom and losing. The Nucks get another PP. And get their own milestone. Or rather prevent one. DeBrusk scores on Gibby with the setup from Sherry and Bessie.

Debrusk from Sherwood, I hope the Rangers are watching this.

-- Ripper

Perhaps we stop the game here and consider it mission accomplished. No Gibby SO.

But no. Game continues - a young Nucks D and older roving chaos D and 3 others are trapped in their own zone for too long. Whether Myers roving about and/or Zeev too tuckered-out to defend, it's a WingDing goal scored by a guy who hadn't scored in 29 games. Vancouver Canucks - Drought Busters. Maybe dress Brock as a Laff for a period next game.

Amazing how 3 minutes of the benny hill theme in our own end results in a goal against...

-- Twitch

Wings lead 3-1 after 2. That's not so bad.

Period 3

Now it gets bad. While the Nucks put a few more shots on Gibbious Stoppius, no Nucks goals are scored.

But still... they were right there.

You might be wondering how the #Canucks will get this game to Lanky time... perhaps pulling Gibby for the last few minutes might be best. Instead, Footsey will likely pull Lanky, thereby ensuring we don't get to Lanky time.

— NucksMisconduct (@nucksmisconduct.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 6:26 PM

With 5 minutes to go, of course Footsey pulls Lanky. And of course... history is made. At our expense.

And with that giveaway, Kane scores his 500th goal against the #Canucks. Just imagine how many he’s scored in total in his career!

— Matt Foulger (@mattfoulger.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 6:31 PM

Doesn't matter.

What matters next is both Soooo Canucks and so tough for our best player and trade prospect.

Sher while carrying the puck into his own zone trips and falls. Puck isn't recovered by any Nucks D, because they're busy ordering bad pizza or something. However, Raymond is there to recover the puck and pop it past Lank for the embarassing goal.

The #Canucks are a clown show right now. Those last two Detroit goals...hoo-boy. 🤡

— Russ Benson 🍁 (@russellgburger.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 6:53 PM

5-1 Wings over the 31st team in the NHL.

Despite being 'right there' the Nucks aren't nearly there on this brutal road trip. Brutal games to play and brutal to watch.

If we insist on playing Boeser and Kane on our top line fans are going to stop watching these games. I can't stand it. This is as bad as when Bruce kept putting OEL and Myers together. I know we are trying to lose but do they want the games to be unwatchable? #Canucks

— DJTaxman77 (@taxman77.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 6:34 PM

OBSERVATIONS:

Nucks were trying not to make too many mistakes... so they made quite a few.

Players of Interest:

• DeBrusk is a PP specialist. Confirmed. 12 goals for the season. 1 5-v-5.
• E. Kane maintained his prestige position as coach's pet without earning it. Teacher's Secret Tanker.
• EP40 got 0 points, 1 SOG and was a minus -2.
• Myers was playing freelance D all game. Not even the old vet understands the Footsey defensive strategy.
• Zeev made only 3 rookie blunders. That resulted in 3 goals against.

How many US teams make enough revenue to support all these Canadian teams that are gonna be rebuilding for years? What is Bettman's plan when the Canadian teams start losing money? A tax equalization system? Will the Jets survive a rebuild? #Canucks #NHL

— DJTaxman77 (@taxman77.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 10:36 PM

Meanwhile on the trade-soon front...

Boston and the Rangers are playing each other on Saturday. Tell each of them the other is really interested in Sherwood.

They each have two picks in the first round, and they're both close to the playoffs in a challenging division. And Sherwood isn't going to get injured at the Olympics.

-- Thursday

GAME HIGHLIGHTS

Shortie and Dave covering the rough road treatment in Motorcity.

GAME STATS

COMMENTING OUT LOUD

DeBrusk scores another PP goal and gets another road presser.

Myers steadying the lowest bar in hockey.

Footsey was 'right there'. You saw it.

We can call it now. The new kids post-what's-his-name bump is officially over.

How many more games can the Nucks lose in this exhausting 6 game road tour through the eastern hell-scape? Not all of them, pleeeeez.

We desperately hope they can win their next game... because it's on HNIC on Saturday in the CoTU. Hell-scape indeed.