VANCOUVER – When the Vancouver Canucks bumbled their way to victory Thursday in San Jose, after allowing 53 shots in a win over the Toronto Maple Leafs last weekend, coach Bruce Boudreau acknowledged that the trend couldn’t continue. His players had to play better.

Saturday, they got worse.

In the first full-capacity game at Rogers Arena in more than two months, the Canucks surrendered five goals in the first 24 minutes and were embarrassed 7-4 by the Anaheim Ducks, one of many teams Vancouver is trying to catch in the National Hockey League playoff race.

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Unfathomably, it was the second time in three home games the Canucks fell behind 5-0 in front of their ticket-buying fans. But at least their 6-3 loss to the New York Islanders 10 nights earlier was in a half-empty arena capped by COVID-19 restrictions.

The dismal performance Saturday in front of 18,932 fans would have been bad under any circumstances. The Canucks generated two shots in the first period and their third shot of the game, a 150-foot shorthanded clearance by defenceman Travis Hamonic, came when the score was already 4-0.

But it felt worse than anything so far from the Canucks under Boudreau due to the close calls – wakeup calls – against the Sharks and Leafs, and the alarming reality that the Ducks, three points ahead in the Western Conference standings before Saturday, are a team Vancouver needs to pass if its playoff aspirations are to become anything more than playoff fantasy.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that Anaheim was way more of a desperate team, and they knew what was at stake,” Boudreau, as disappointed as he has sounded since replacing Travis Green as coach on Dec. 5, told reporters in the media room. “And we were just thinking that it was going to be an ordinary game when they knew it wasn’t an ordinary game. That’s where it started. And then it just unraveled after that.

“We all knew the importance of this game. To not come out with that sense of urgency is bothersome.”

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The Canucks were as healthy as they’ve been all season (at least before defencemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Kyle Burroughs left Saturday’s game with undisclosed injuries). They were rested, supposedly desperate, and opening a three-game homestand against a divisional rival just ahead of them in the standings.

And then they trailed 1-0 after 57 seconds on Troy Terry’s deflection, and 2-0 at 3:43 on Nicolas Deslauriers’ uncontested goalmouth tap-in.

The Canucks penalty killing, engulfed all season in flames of varying height, failed to kill two of the first three Vancouver penalties. The Canucks’ best forwards were noticeable in the game’s first half mostly for taking penalties; J.T. Miller and Bo Horvat were in the box for Anaheim power-play goals. And star goalie Thatcher Demko was chased from the net after allowing five goals on 14 shots.

“They scored those two quick ones on us there early and there was just no pushback from us early enough,” Horvat, the Canucks captain, said. “I thought we started to come along there in the second period but, I mean, at that time you’re down 5-0.

“I think we should be, not only use the word embarrassed, but it just wasn’t good enough by us tonight. Against a team in our division, you’re back to full capacity and you want to play a heckuva a game for your fans and, again, it was almost a letdown for us tonight.

“It’s just something that we can’t let happen, especially the magnitude of these points. . . against a team like that and we’re trying to make a playoff push. It’s on all of us. It’s on me. It’s on everybody in that room taking accountability and getting the job done.”

It’s probably worth noting that the Ducks had lost four straight games and were just outscored 13-5 by the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers, two other Pacific Division teams the Canucks are trying to “catch.”

As in most of their worst losses this season, the Canucks were exposed as too slow, too careless with the puck, dangerously inept on special teams and unsuccessful in puck battles.

The most fun on Saturday was the dog race staged in the second intermission with a field of players’ pets. Brock Boeser’s dogs were the fastest.

But Boeser himself did not register a shot on net, and neither did Horvat. The third member of the first line loaded up by Boudreau, Miller, had two shots. The Canucks’ best line was the checking trio of Tyler Motte, Matthew Highmore and Juho Lammikko. Among their impact forwards, Elias Pettersson had one goal, two assists and four hits. He was among the minority of highly-engaged Canucks.

But, as Boudreau, observed: “When he’s leading the team in hits, you know there’s a definite problem.”

Fourteen Anaheim skaters made it onto the scoresheet on points night for the Ducks, who had two goals each from Deslauriers and Adam Henrique and three assists from Trevor Zegras. Goalie John Gibson faced only 20 shots and was largely superfluous.

“I do this sort of graph and show them trends,” Boudreau said of his players’ preparation. “We tried to explain to them that we won the last two games, but we didn’t play great. So we’re trending in the wrong direction. In the Islander game, we allowed five goals in the first period. Not a good sign. And so I mean, the (bad) habits that they might have had earlier are creeping in.”

Those habits got Green and general manager Jim Benning fired. If they continue, it will be the players who change next.

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