from Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province,

They can’t score. And now they can’t defend or maintain discipline. What’s next?

Following a morning video session in which the Vancouver Canucks were shown 65 of the 150 goals they’ve managed to score this season to pump them up mentally, they couldn’t physically handle the speed and skill of the Dallas Stars in a listless 6-1 loss Thursday that bordered on a complete no-show.

No life. No emotion. And certainly no playoffs. With all those odd-man rushes, it had the smell of a coach- killer because it looked like the players had quit.

“I don’t believe that in that room,” said Canucks coach John Tortorella. “Are they fragile? Sure. I still think we have the people who can help us pull through this. Sure, it’s worrisome. We get pinned against the wall right away with two goals that are really just bad reads. We can’t get focused on the lack of scoring and not make simple reads. The only thing we push is to come to work every day to get better. That’s the only way or you can crawl into a fetal position and hope it goes away.”

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