Iain Macintyre

The Selke Trophy isn't awarded on Jan. 11. But don't tell that to the Canucks, who campaigned for Elias Pettersson after a shutout win over the Maple Leafs on Saturday, writes Sportsnet's Iain MacIntyre.

The Vancouver Canucks have taken unpredictability to a new level in the opening half of their season, providing drama that has captivated the NHL and exasperated their fans, writes Iain MacIntyre.

And after being special for most of the season, including Saturday's shutout win in Toronto, Lankinen was less than ordinary. And so were most of his teammates and especially Vancouver's top players.

VANCOUVER — When the Vancouver Canucks beat the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 7, nobody could have guessed after Game 12 that it might prove to be the pinnacle of the Canucks' season.

VANCOUVER — If these are the final weeks in Vancouver for the longest-tenured Canuck, Brock Boeser doesn't want his lasting regret to be that it ended when he was playing badly and the team was struggling.

The Canucks' best player on Saturday night may not even be part of the team on Sunday. All the conjecture made J.T. Miller's performance against the Oilers even more impressive and poignant.

Five-star performances like Saturday's come with exasperation, because they show what the Canucks, as currently constructed, remain capable of but have failed to achieve with any consistency. Iain MacIntyre has more on Patrik Allvin's comments and where the team might go from here.

On Tuesday, it's not like the Canucks were bad, or didn't try or weren't prepared. They simply failed again at pivotal moments and punted away another two points to the Sabres. It's impossible to make the case that this team earned the right to stay together.

If the Canucks can’t come together and get engaged mentally and physically to battle the Oilers, then there is really no hope for them.

After all the hostility at the end of Saturday's 3-2 win against the Oilers in Vancouver, the suspensions to Connor McDavid and Tyler Myers, after the talk about “response” and “digging in” and using all of this emotion to their advantage, the Canucks barely made a peep on Thursday.