Vancouver Canucks Struggling

After a roaring start that saw them rise to the very top of the league standings, the Canucks have fallen into a tailspin. With a 2-7-1 record in their last 10 games the Canucks are in jeopardy of falling out of the playoff picture.

We sat down with Canucks’ GM Travis Fleming to try to figure out what is going wrong in Vancouver.

Reporter: First of all, I see a lot of beer bottles, whiskey bottles and, is that tequila over there in the corner? Are you sure this is a good time for the interview?

Fleming: What? Yeah, I’m fine, totally fine. Everything is [burp] fine. I guess I have been hitting the sauce a little hard lately, what with all the losing we’ve been doing. But, it’s fine... really.

Reporter: Are those tears?

Fleming: No those aren’t tears! Just get on with the questions.

Reporter: The Canucks entered the season with high expectations, so this losing streak must be hard to take.

Fleming: The Hurricanes just passed us in the standings. Need I say more? Yeah, things are rough right now for sure. Our loss to the Wild the other night might have been rock bottom. Losing 4-1 is bad enough, but then I’ve got I’ve got their GM, Harold, sitting in the box next to me smack talking and laughing at me the whole time. I mean, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but it didn’t sound nice. The nerve of that guy. Hopefully we can turn it around soon, because I don’t think I can take much more of this.

Reporter: What do you think is the reason for your team’s struggles?

Fleming: I generally don’t like to call guys out, but our goaltending hasn’t been as good as it could be. Tuukka (Rask) knows that, and he’s been working hard to get his game back on track. We also just haven’t had a lot of puck luck lately. We’re still generating a lot of chances and shots, but the pucks just aren’t going in the net like they were at the start of the season.

Reporter: So what’s the solution?

Fleming: I think we just have to get back to how we were playing at the start of the season. After we lost a few games we started playing more defensively, but that seems to have hurt us even more. I’ve talked to (head coach) Jon (Cooper) about that and he agrees we just need to open things up again and let the guys play their game. I’m still confident this is one of the best teams in the league. We’re going to turn this around.

Reporter: If things don’t improve will you consider making any changes?

Fleming: Like I said, I’m confident these guys can get back to the way they were playing early in the season. But if for some reason the team continues to struggle then I guess I’ll have to look at making some changes. I don’t know what those would be yet, but I won’t just sit back and watch the team lose games without doing anything.